Easter Countdown Banner

Click here or on the picture to download instructions and free printable countdown banner pieces.

This is one of our favorite traditions! Our kids love doing this countdown to Easter. It really helps brings the Spirit into our home and reminds us of what Easter is about.

1. Video/Book: Start on Sunday the week before Easter with watching a short video or reading a quick book explaining Easter such as “A Very Special Easter.” Remind them of the real reason why we celebrate Easter and discuss the hope and joy we can have because of Jesus Christ.
   
2. Banner Pieces: Have the banner triangles cut out and put together. Either use them as is, put patterned paper underneath to make them more colorful and punch holes in the corners to place on a string/ribbon, or get a banner from Hobby Lobby (or another craft store) to glue them onto. If you want to reuse them, you can print it on cardstock, laminate all of the pieces, and put Velcro on the pictures, but you could just use regular paper and glue if you don’t want to reuse them.
   
3. Daily Descriptions and Pictures: Have the daily descriptions and pictures cut out and put in separate labeled envelopes/large plastic eggs/some kind of container for each day. Can put the pictures on gold/patterned paper to make them stand out more. Laminate and put Velcro on the back of the pictures (or just use tape if laminated) so they can be placed on the circles on the Easter Banner. It’s great to throw a little treat or snack into each daily envelope/egg/container and place them all in an Easter basket to make it more fun. We used jumbo Easter eggs from Hobby Lobby (or I’ve also seen them at the Dollar Tree recently), and put a treat/snack as well as the daily picture inside of each. That
   way the kids had something to snack on while we read the scriptures. We also put all of the daily descriptions on a little keychain so they were all together and we could just flip to the day we were on. Wording for these descriptions are from the church’s website.
   
4. Countdown to Easter: On each day (starting the Sunday before Easter), open the
   egg/envelope/container, read the description of what happened that day, sing the song that goes with it, and then read/discuss the corresponding scriptures as they look at the picture. Place the banner somewhere where it can be seen all week to help the family remember why we celebrate Easter.
   
5. Extra Crafts/Activities: If you’d like additional crafts and other fun things to do along with this countdown each day, Crystal from theredcrystal.org has created some additional great daily activities.
   
6. Song QR Codes: The last page in the Easter Countdown Banner download also has QR codes that will link you to the daily songs. We plan on printing these up and adding them to our daily descriptions so we can easily pull the songs up when it’s time to sing/listen to them.

I loved Gary E. Stevenson’s conference talk when he stated, “The Book of Mormon shares the greatest Easter story ever told. Let it not be the greatest Easter story never told.” The scriptures listed on Sunday’s section of this countdown banner include 3 Nephi 11 and 17. After reading and discussing especially 3 Nephi 11:1-17 on Easter, we plan on also watching the My Joy is Full – Christ’s Visit to the Americas video with our family.