Easter Games for Church and Sunday School: Five Cooperative Ideas

Easter games for church work best when they help children listen, remember and respond together. Begin with a short Bible reading, choose two or three cooperative activities, and leave room for questions. A game can support the lesson without turning faith, memory or prayer into a competition.

The ideas below suit a Sunday school room or a small church gathering. Use your church’s preferred Bible translation and adapt the reading with your children’s ministry leader. The Easter planning dates follow the Western/Gregorian calendar; congregations using another calendar should follow their own schedule.

Holiday dates for planning

Easter Sunday (Western/Gregorian) date reference

Choose one passage before planning the games

For the story-order activity, read Luke 24:1-12. Keep the cards aligned with that account rather than combining details from several Gospels without explanation.

For the short message activity, use Matthew 28:1-10. Read the passage from your own Bible. The game instructions below are teaching activities, not extra details from Scripture.

Tell children they may ask a question, listen quietly or pass on a public answer. Visitors should not need previous Bible knowledge to participate. An adult can read every card aloud so the activity does not become a reading test.

1. Put the Easter account in order

After reading Luke, prepare six simple picture-and-word cards in your own wording:

1. The women bring spices to the tomb.
2. They find the stone rolled away.
3. They enter and do not find Jesus’ body.
4. Two men in shining garments speak to them.
5. The women remember Jesus’ words.
6. They return and tell the apostles and others.

Shuffle the cards and place them on a table. Ask the group to arrange them together, referring back to the passage whenever needed. Give each child a chance to move or explain one card, without requiring everyone to speak.

For younger children, use three cards: arriving, discovering and telling. For older children, have pairs find the relevant verses and explain why they chose the order. Finish by asking what the passage says happened next, rather than adding an invented ending.

2. Find the paired picture

Draw two copies each of six simple pictures connected with the reading or church setting: a stone, sunrise, path, folded cloth, open Bible and group of friends. Explain that some are story reminders and some represent the activity of reading and sharing today; the drawings are not all objects named in the passage.

Place the twelve cards face down. Players take turns turning over two. A pair stays face up; an unmatched pair turns back over. Pass the turn every time. Aim to find all six pairs together in fewer turns on a second round, rather than eliminating children.

As each pair is found, invite a short connection or question. Keep a Bible nearby for checking details. If a child makes a connection that is not in the passage, kindly distinguish imagination from what the text says.

3. Share the message clearly

Read the selected part of Matthew 28 again. Then use a short teacher-written summary such as “Jesus is risen; share the good news.” Clearly call it a summary, not a quotation from the Bible.

Write each word on a separate large paper card. Lay the cards in order and read the summary together. Shuffle them, then let children rebuild the sentence while the original remains available to check. For nonreaders, an adult can hold and read the cards as children point to the next one.

Try a second round with partners taking turns choosing cards. Do not whisper the message through a chain and celebrate how distorted it becomes; here the goal is to communicate clearly. Finish by looking back at the passage and noticing how your summary differs from its exact wording.

4. Kindness action match

Prepare four everyday situations on paper: a new child arrives, someone drops their pencils, a player is left out, and a friend looks sad. Prepare four possible responses: introduce yourself, help pick up, invite them to join, and ask whether they would like company.

Pairs match a situation with a helpful response. More than one response may be reasonable, so let children explain rather than treating one arrangement as the only correct answer. Offer a drawing response for anyone who does not want to act a scene.

Explain that this is a present-day practice activity about caring for people. It is not a claim that doing an action earns God’s love. Keep personal disclosures optional, and use fictional situations rather than asking children to identify classmates who have been excluded.

5. A cooperative egg-message puzzle

Write a simple teacher-created sentence of six to eight words, one word per slip, and put the slips in numbered empty eggs. Use a sentence already discussed in the lesson, not a surprise theological quiz.

Give small groups a complete set at their table, or hide the set in one clearly bounded, supervised area. Find all the eggs, open them together and arrange the words. Numbering can provide a reading-order aid for younger children; older groups can try without using the numbers first.

Keep the hunt separate from the Bible narrative: plastic eggs are containers for today’s game, not objects from the resurrection account. Use envelopes or large paper cards if small plastic parts are unsuitable. End with everyone reading or hearing the completed sentence.

A 35-minute Sunday school plan

Use five minutes to welcome children and explain the room, seven for the Bible reading and questions, eight for story order, eight for one matching game and seven for reflection and cleanup. For a longer session, add the egg-message puzzle or a quiet drawing response.

Keep each group small enough that every child can reach the table. Give a helper the instructions and Bible references in advance. A calm alternative table should offer the same learning theme, such as drawing one scene or sorting three story cards, without making a child feel sent away.

Follow your church’s child check-in, supervision and accessibility arrangements. Keep exits and aisles open; none of these games needs racing, blindfolds or physical contact.

Resources for the gathering

For the social portion of a church Easter event, the Easter family-games guide includes cooperative hunting and tabletop activities. The Games with Easter Eggs resource is another option to review for general egg games; it is separate from the Bible-based instructions above.

For summer planning, the Vacation Bible School Cooperative Game Pack provides six volunteer-led games and a sample rotation.

Questions ministry leaders often ask

Do we need a prize for every game?

No. A completed puzzle, shared explanation or invitation to choose the next picture can be enough. Avoid rewarding children for praying aloud, sharing personal beliefs or remembering more Bible details than a visitor.

Can preschool and older children play together?

Use picture cards with a helper reading, and give older children a supporting role such as finding the passage. Keep the younger version short. A three-card sequence may be more useful than asking a preschooler to follow all six stages.

Should we combine the Gospel accounts?

You can study them together with a teacher’s explanation, but this sequence game intentionally uses Luke’s account. Tell children when you move to Matthew, and check each detail in the passage being used.

Optional supplies

As an Amazon Associate, Happy Holiday Hotspot earns from qualifying purchases. The following Amazon link is a paid link.

JOYIN empty plastic Easter eggs can hold the teacher-written word slips for the supervised message puzzle. Envelopes work equally well if eggs do not suit your lesson or age group.