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A poster for years 5 to 8

The poster is divided into 3 sets of questions, each coloured differently. The first set of questions should pose no problem for your fifth to eighth graders. The second set of questions is personal and should also be answered by all your students. The last set of questions consists of more difficult/complex questions and is aimed at your seventh and eighth graders. Answer Key: 1 Spring. Easter is connected with pagan ceremonies which celebrated spring and the rebirth of nature. 2 a) It is the most important and the oldest Christian holiday. 3 c) the resurrection of Christ It is a day when people remember the rising of Christ from the dead. 4 Hot cross buns. This nursery rhyme is over 200 hundred years old. It is about spiced buns with raisins that have a cross made of icing on top. Hot cross buns mark the end of and are eaten on . 5 This means Easter doesn’t fall on a fixed date every year. Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday following the full moon after March 21st. Therefore, Easter is celebrated at any point between March 22nd and April 25th. 6 b) Lent Lent is a period of 40 days before Easter (46 if you include Sundays as well) during which people give up some of their pleasures. is a period of 50 days following Easter Sunday and it includes a celebration of Jesus’ resurrection. in Christianity is the week before Easter. 7 Easter Roll, Easter , Tapping/Cracking Easter Egg Roll is a traditional Easter game in which you roll down a hill to see who can roll them the farthest. An Easter Egg Hunt is a traditional Easter game in which you try to find eggs and put them in a basket. Easter Egg Tapping is a traditional Easter game in which two people tap each other’s hard- boiled eggs while trying not to break one’s own. 8 Students’ answers. 9 Students’ answers. 10 Students’ answers. 11 Students’ answers.

12 , , Good Friday, Easter Eve, Easter Sunday, . Palm Sunday – the Sunday before Easter and also the first day of Holy Week. Maundy Thursday – the Thursday before Easter on which Christ told his 12 apostles to love each other and symbolically washed their feet. Good Friday – remember Christ’s crucifixion on this day. Easter Eve – the Saturday before Easter Day on which many Christians go to a vigil. Easter Sunday – Christ’s rising from the dead is celebrated on this day. Easter Monday – this day is a public holiday in England. 13 Easter is connected with pagan ceremonies which celebrated the spring equinox and the rebirth of nature (the end of a “dead” season), and most of its symbolism comes from there. It is believed that its name is derived from the name of Eostre, a Teutonic goddess of spring and fertility (spoiler alert – don’t tell this to your students until they have answered the question number 14!) whose sacred animal is the rabbit or the hare, and her other symbol is the egg. Both eggs and bunnies are ancient symbols of new life. 14 c) the pre-Christian spring goddess Eostre Eostre was a Teutonic goddess of spring and fertility worshipped by the Anglo-Saxons. Here is a passage about her from the webpage thoughtco.com: “Eostre’s feast day was held on the first full moon following the vernal equinox – a similar calculation as is used for Easter among Western Christians. On this date the goddess Eostre is believed by her followers to mate with the solar god, conceiving a child who would be born 9 months later on Yule, the winter solstice which falls on December 21st.” 15 Passover. Passover or Pesach in Hebrew is one of the Jewish religion’s most sacred holidays. It honors the story of the Exodus which is described in the Book of Exodus. It tells the story of how Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt and led to freedom by Moses. Jesus was crucified and resurrected after he went to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. In some languages, such as Spanish and French, Easter is known as Pascua and Paques, the words derived from Greek and Latin words for Passover. 16 Students’ answers. 17 MY EASTER: Students’ answers. Here students can talk about their Easter celebrations, the food they usually eat on that day, they can also bring photos and describe them. You can also turn it into a game by telling them they need to speak about how Easter is celebrated in their families / country for 30 seconds.

Ideas for using the poster:

 Divide the class into two teams. Cover the first 16 questions with Post-its which have the numbers of questions written on them. Teams take turns choosing and answering the questions. If their answer is correct they get a point. Otherwise, the other team can try to answer the same question. Younger students can try throwing a soft ball or a paper ball at the question they want instead of choosing the questions. If they miss, they lose their turn. Depending on how good they are at throwing they stand closer or farther.

 You can also divide the class into two teams or several groups of four. Give each team a piece of paper. Then read the questions and students write their answers. You can include question number 17 in which they can write 2 or 3 sentences about their Easter. Then go through all the questions and teams give their answers and count how many points they’ve scored.  You can also use www.getkahoot.com to create a quiz using these questions.  After that you can write some of the answers on the board and students have to recreate the questions.  Also, students can work in pairs and write more questions about Easter based on their knowledge. The questions can then be used in another game.

HAPPY EASTER!

Prepared by Lana Remenar