Tell the Biblical Easter Story with a Salt Dough Tomb

Well, here’s a first for this blog… I’m posting an activity that I took pictures of at someone else’s house! 🙂

Yesterday I was at a friend’s house, and she showed me this Easter activity that she is doing with her two children.  I just love this idea!  It is such a simple and meaningful way to remember Christ’s death and celebrate His resurrection.

This is their salt dough mountain.  The pipe cleaner people are used to tell a portion of the Easter story each day in the week leading up to Resurrection Sunday.  This day was Jesus talking with his disciplines on the mountain.

On Friday night, Jesus will be put on the cross and then into the tomb with the stone rolled shut.

Then on Sunday morning, the stone is rolled away and He is alive! (Moved before the kids come down on Sunday morning.)

The salt dough mountain is made from an empty tin can covered with salt dough.  Before they baked the mountain, my friend made holes in the dough to hold the pipe cleaner figures and the three crosses.  Be aware that the holes will shrink as they bake!

This idea came from Noel Piper’s book Treasuring God in our Traditions (affiliate link).  I have not read the book, but it looks fabulous! You can also find a shortened explanation of the celebration here at Crosswalk as well as instructions for making the mountain.  This article was such a great reminder to me to make Easter about anticipating the resurrection, and then celebrating the joy of His risen life.  If Christ has not risen, then the rest of the scripture crumbles.  But He HAS risen!  He is alive and has paid the price of our sin so that we might have new life in Him!  I also love the fact that Noel Piper says not to do this activity with children who have reached the age where it just becomes silly.  Remembering Christ’s death should not be silly, but rather serious.

I wanted to post this as soon as possible in case any of you want to do this idea for the weekend, and now we are off to make our own salt dough mountain!