Crucifixion
THE CRUCIFIXION
Objectives:
- Children should be able to say the word “crucifixion” and know that it means to be nailed to a cross.
- Children should know the story of Jesus’s crucifixion and be able to tell it.
- Children should be able to identify the characters in the icon and their meaning.
Possible Lesson Plan:
- Open with prayer.
- Read the story of Jesus’s arrest, trial, crucifixion, and burial in the Beginner’s Bible, pages 437-445, the Children’s Bible Reader, pages 242-255, or the Read with Me Bible, pages 382-397. Supplement with the Golden Children’s Bible, pages 448-455, if desired, or the Arch book, “The Man Who Carried the Cross for Jesus”. Where was Jesus when He was arrested? What was He doing? What were the disciples doing? How did Judas betray Him? Peter lied about knowing Jesus how many times? Before when? Who was the high priest? The soldiers put what on Jesus? Who condemned Jesus to death? How did He die? Who carried the cross? Why? What are some of the things Jesus said on the cross before He died? Who was crucified with Jesus? What happened when Jesus died? Who took Jesus’s body to his own tomb? Review the story with the icon, identifying the people. What role did each play?
3. Feed the Elephant True/False Questions:
True False
Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus was arrested at home.
Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss. Judas hit Jesus with a sword.
Peter denied knowing Jesus 3 times. Peter denied Jesus 20 times.
The soldiers put a crown of thorns on Jesus. The soldiers gave Jesus gold.
Pontius Pilate judged Jesus. Moses judged Jesus.
Joseph of Arimathea buried Jesus. Pilate buried Jesus.
- We celebrate the Crucifixion on Holy Friday. We sing on Thursday about the “Wise Thief”. The story is in the Children’s Bible, page 353, or the Arch book “The Thief Who Was Sorry”. Which thief was wise and why? We also sing on Friday about “The Noble Joseph”. Who was the noble Joseph? What did he do? Play these beautiful songs if you want with tape or CD from the bookstore. Do you remember what we do in Church on Holy Friday? (Procession, candles, the tomb.)
- The Cross is the symbol of the Crucifixion. Practice making the sign of the Cross until each child can do it correctly. Role play the prostrations while singing the song “Before Thy Cross”.
- Make a time line, written with readers, in pictures with small fry. Draw on it the events of Holy Week from Lazarus Saturday until Pascha, filling in each detail the children remember and jogging their memories if needed.
- Make Jesus on the cross. Print on cardstock the crosses and cut on dotted lines, folding back side sections. It will now stand up. Print the figure of Jesus and cut out ahead of time. Children color Jesus and the background. Glue Jesus onto the background. Save time by using the colored Jesus from the icon and just coloring the background.
- Want something more involved that tells the whole story and have plenty of time? Try doing fingerpainting for the story of Holy Week in Handprints. You’ll need lots of pieces of paper, printed ahead of time, and colors of fingerpaint, and shoes off to do outside, but the kids will have a ball making them and the books will be ready to staple together after drying. The pages start on the next page. The very light hands and feet are just to give you an idea where to put the fingerpainted items. There are also pages for Resurrection, Holy Myrrh-bearers, and Road to Emmaeus to use for the lessons coming up. These patterns come from Catholic Icing, a lovely website.
- Need something really simple but still telling the whole story? Have each child color one or two figures from the toilet paper tube scene, glue to the toilet paper tubes, cut out the tomb entrance and glue to tissue box, put the stone table inside. Now act out the crucifixion and next week the resurrection with your class figures.
- Close with prayer.
