This Christian Holidays Worksheet helps 3rd Grade students match Christmas, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter to their timing and meaning, with an answer key, so kids build lasting holiday knowledge.
Waving palms to start Holy Week
Palm Sunday is a Christian holiday celebrated the Sunday before Easter, and it begins Holy Week. Christians remember the story of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey while crowds waved palm branches and laid them on the road. Kids learn why palms were used, how many churches hand out palm branches or folded palm crosses, and how this day fits into the days leading up to Easter. Younger kids focus on the story and the palms, while older kids place it on a calendar and compare it with other holidays.
These moves help kids understand the story and traditions in a clear, respectful way.
Share the story with a few simple pictures: Jesus on a donkey, people waving palms, the road covered with branches. Kids retell the story in order using first, next and last. Pictures help younger kids remember the details.
Why it works: pairing a picture with each word gives kids two ways to remember it, a well-tested principle of how people learn (Mayer, 2009).
Try it withChristian Holidays WorksheetWorksheetsOpen it →Make a simple calendar from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday. Kids add one picture or word for each important day. Seeing the week laid out helps them understand how the holidays connect.
Why it works: going from real objects to pictures to symbols is a core recommendation of the U.S. Department of Education's elementary math guide.
After learning about several Christian holidays, use a short worksheet to check what kids remember about each one. It's a quick way to see who can tell Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter apart.
Why it works: researchers who compared ten study methods found practice testing is one of the two that work best (Dunlosky and colleagues, 2013).
Try it withChristian Holidays WorksheetWorksheetsOpen it →Palm Sunday is a Christian holiday on the Sunday before Easter. It remembers Jesus riding into Jerusalem while crowds waved palm branches to welcome him.
In the story, people waved palm branches and laid them on the road to welcome Jesus. Palms were a sign of honor and celebration, so many churches hand them out on this day.
It's one week before Easter Sunday. Because the date of Easter changes each year, Palm Sunday can fall anywhere from mid-March to mid-April.
Read or tell the story with pictures, then make paper palm branches together. Keep it simple and focus on the main events and why people celebrated.
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