Easter Discussion Prompts

With Easter around the corner, here are some Easter discussion prompts to spur debate, interest and understanding amongst your children.

What and when is Easter?

Easter is a Christian festival and a cultural holiday. The week before Easter is called Holy Week and it begins on the preceding Palm Sunday (commemorating when Jesus walked into Jerusalem).

Good Friday commemorates the day when Jesus was crucified, died and entombed.

Easter Sunday celebrates Jesus’ resurrection from the dead post-crucifixion (when his tomb was found empty).

Easter Monday, along with Good Friday, is a Bank Holiday in some countries.

The dates for Easter are different every year. Thus, Easter is sometimes called a ‘moveable feast’. This is due to the patterns of the moon. Easter takes place on the first Sunday after the Paschal Full Moon, which varies from year to year. In 2024, in the Gregorian calendar, Easter Day is on Sunday 31st March, with Good Friday on 29th March and Easter Monday on 1st April.  These dates sometimes differ on a Julian and/or Astronomical calendar.

What is your favourite aspect of Easter?

This question is an easy-entry to the subject of Easter for all children, and of all faiths. It will also help to reveal levels of understanding on the significance and meaning of Easter.

In Spid the Spider Investigates a Mystery at Easter, Spid and the gang decorate and roll Easter eggs, and also make Carrot Fly cake.  Though you may prefer to make a cake without the flies.

How do different people celebrate Easter?

Many Christians celebrate Easter by attending Church services that celebrate Jesus’ resurrection and the salvation of humanity.

Though Easter is also celebrated by people who do not observe the Christian faith. In many countries, families come together for a special Easter lunch. In the USA, ham is a favourite dish.

Others bake cakes or hot cross buns, gift chocolate Easter eggs, or engage in Easter egg hunts. Eggs represent a new life and birth and chocolate Easter egg production is a massive business for confectionery companies. More traditional Easter past-times include decorating and rolling boiled hens’ eggs down gentle slopes, bonnet wearing and parades. On Easter Monday, the US President celebrates an annual Easter egg roll on the lawns of the White House.

The period around Easter is a Bank Holiday in many countries (that have Christianity as a state religion).

In Bermuda, children play outside and fly kites. The kites signify Jesus’ resurrection and ascension to heaven.

In Haux, France, the residents meet to make a massive omelette for everyone to eat.

How would you describe the meaning of Easter to a person from outer space?

This question is to help children think beyond the front of mind (and commercial) aspects of Easter, and to the historical of the festival or holiday. In understanding what you children know, you can also prompt them to better understand by probing what they say, why? In particular, on the provenance, or origin, of the festival.

While Easter commemorates the death and resurrection of Jesus in Calvary in 30AD,  direct evidence of a fully formed Christian festival of Pascha (Aramaic, Greek and Latin for Easter) only appeared in the mid-2nd century.  The Old Testament of the Bible records the Christian story of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

The date of Easter remains subject to controversy, and differences between Western and Eastern churches remain despite a desire to agree a single date which traces to the Council of Nicae in 325AD.  Date unification discussions continue in advance of the 1700th anniversary of the first Council of Nicae in 2025.

The English term for Easter derives from the Saxon spring festival Ēostre.