Printable Stations of the Cross for Children

Lent is a very popular time for the Stations of the Cross. If you're attending a stations service at your church (usually held on Fridays during lent) you could print some of the coloring sheets/booklets below to take with your young children while you're there. You can also say the stations of the cross at home with your own family, and there's printables for that below, too! Today, I'd like to feature some of my favorite printable versions for kids that I've found on the internet. These are all free to print.

St. John's Church as free printable stations of the cross coloring

pages, and they're really beautifully done!

St. John's Church also has their stations coloring sheets available
to print in booklet form with the prayers and songs. Love it!

I found these lovely stations over on Family in Feast and Feria.

She has a real variety available- print them in black and white, or color,

big, small, booklet form, or as cards to put on a ring! Isn't that awesome?!

(page example for stations on a ring)

 Domestic Church has  Stations of the Cross for a Children's Liturgy.
One station per page- a great read aloud for families. 

Here's a printable Stations of the Cross for kids that 

fits on just 2 pages and can be colored! :-)

This is a post I did last year, but some of the links got old, and I found some new printable stations of the cross for kids, so I decided to update this post and share it with all of you again for lent! If you're looking for a set that's no longer here, that's because the links weren't working anymore. If you know of another great set of Stations of the Cross that can be printed for free, please leave the link in the comments! Thanks! :-)

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Lenten Printables for Daily Reflection with Children

Jennifer from Family in Feast and Feria has some great printables for children this lent! I am very excited about these beautiful (and free) pages she put into printable form. There is one page for every day with prayers, a reflection, and beautiful artwork! These pages could make observing lent with your children easy and meaningful. It's called "Lent for Children. A Thought a Day".
 

Print it Here.

You can also print these pages in booklet form here.

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Printable Lenten Calendar for Kids

I made this printable Lenten calendar for children last year, but it's good for every year including 2011! It's free to print because I love to keep the resources free for all of my readers here at Catholic Icing!

Printable Lenten Calendar Here

If you'd like to use this for your kids this year to keep track of the days of lent, go ahead and print or save it to your computer- don't wait to do this on Mardi Gras. Last Fat Tuesday this calendar "exceeded reasonable bandwidth" and google docs stopped letting people view it. So lets try and spread it out a little more than that this year. :-)

Last year, my Lenten calendar was used for CCD classes, and in many homes! I loved some of the displays I saw. Check out this one from Lord, Make Me a Saint.

My Lenten calendar was actually translated into Italian last year! Isn't that so cool?! I love the internet! :-)

And my favorite way that I saw it used (and something I am definitely doing with my own children and my preschool class this year) is to put it in a lapbook like Homeschool Goodies! Check this out- very cool!

*UPDATE* One of my readers changed the Lenten calendar up a bit to work for the Byzantine Catholic church! Isn't that cool? You can visit her blog, The Whole Trouble Is for a printable Lenten calendar for Eastern Catholics. Also, Xhonane from Familia Catolica translated it into Spanish, so the Spanish Lenten Calendar is also available to print for free. How awesome is that?!

Let me know if you have another idea on how to use this free resource for Catholic kids! Enjoy! :-)

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Holy Week Games and Lesson Plans

Alright, The Catholic Toolbox has so many amazing Holy Week resources that I haven't had time to run yet! Aah! So I'm just going to run them all together real quick ;-)

Holy Week Memory Game- free and printable!

Find this Holy Week File Folder game and

Holy Week Bingo at this post.

And find a million (slight exaggeration ;-) 

Holy Week lesson plan ideas here!

Also, find Laura's Holy Thursday game and lesson plans!

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Holy Week Coloring Pages and Printables

Who doesn't love printables? (Well, other than your ink cartridge ;-) Lol! These are some great activities for Holy Week, and many of these will work well for in the car for any of you who are traveling!

Over at Catholic Mom, find cross word puzzles and word searches

for Holy Thurday, Good Friday, and Easter (among other things!)

I love this Holy Week activity for kids!

You have them cut out the different events that happened

during holy week, and then glue them in the right

order on this holy week road sheet. Cute!

Here are some Good Friday coloring pages 

from Catholic Mom.

Find lots of different holy week coloring sheets

with Good Shepherd Online.

This is a fantastic Holy Week Printout

for the whole family- even mom :-)

Through My "I"s made this cool

Donkey printout for crafting a Palm Sunday container!

Here's a great coloring sheet of Jesus washing 

the feet of his disciples.

There are several of these fabulously detailed coloring pages-

this one is of the trial of Jesus.

Here's a coloring page of Jesus

praying in the Garden.

Coloring page of the crucifixion.

And don't forget about my post on printable stations of the cross! :-)

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Palm Sunday Crafts and Ideas for Kids

Palm Sunday is coming up faster than any of us expected! (At least that's the general feel around Catholic Icing's facebook page! ;-) So I thought I better get to posting about it!

Ok, I found the most amazing website about palm weaving

EVER over on Catechist's Journey. Anthony Parente has a 

great website about palms- including great tutorials for palm weaving!

Palm Sunday (or Passion Sunday) is a traditional day 

to cover religious pictures etc in purple cloth like they 

did on Just Another Day in Paradise. If you don't have any purple 

cloth, consider using purple tissue paper! :-)

I loved this table decorating idea from Sowing Mustard Seeds

to include a donkey and palm tree on your Palm Sunday table!

If you don't have these statues available, I have a printable palm tree 

and a printable donkey from my stand up printable nativity set.

Love this "Palm of Palms" craft I saw over on

St. Brigid's Academy! :-)

Click here to print this Palm Sunday coloring page

from Sermons 4 Kids.

Sunday School Kids has a bunch of great Palm Sunday crafts!
Here's another Palm Sunday coloring sheet:

They also have a printable template for this
paper palm branch craft:

Also find a printable page to make this
fan palm branch- their crafts don't end! :-)

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Catholic Resurrection Eggs

If you've never heard of Resurrection Eggs, they're just plastic Easter Eggs with different religious Easter symbols inside to help kids learn the Easter story. This idea originated from the children's book Benjamin's Box: The Story of the Resurrection Eggs.

 

I've seen Catholics call them multiple things including "Paschal Mystery Eggs" and "Easter Story Eggs" :-). I call ours "Holy Week Eggs". I wanted our eggs to include as many Catholic holy week traditions as possible. I also wanted to make sure to tell the whole Easter story rather than just try to come up with the cutest stuff to put in eggs. So here's what I came up with:

How I made my "Resurrection Eggs" or "Holy Week Eggs":

1. Palm Branch (Made out of a leaf from a fake flower arrangement. I just sliced "palm branches" into it with some scissors.)
2. Soap (For when Jesus washes the feet of the disciples. I wanted to include this since feet are washed during the Holy Thursday mass.)
3. Cracker (For the last supper. Obviously a "biggie" for us Catholics ;-)
4. Flower (For when Jesus asked his apostles to stay awake with him in the garden. I wanted to include this since it is symbolic of the Catholic tradition of staying up in adoration Thursday night.)
5. Dimes (For the 30 pieces of silver that Judas betrayed Jesus for.)
6. Ropes (For bounding and arresting Jesus. I think this is a pretty crucial point for the story.)
7. Crown of Thorns (I made mine from a twig I pulled from a tree in my front yard. Make sure you get a green one so it's flexible enough to weave it into a circle. Don't worry if it snaps in a few places when you're weaving it- mine did, too. You could also use one of those "rosary rings" that looks like a crown of thorns.)
8. Nails (self explanatory)
9. Crucifix (Mine is from a broken rosary. You could also just stuff a whole rosary in there, or make a cross from toothpicks, but really. Who has kids and doesn't have broken rosaries? Lol!)
10. Sponge with Vinegar (I just whacked off a piece from my kitchen sponge.)
11. Spices and Fabric (For preparing the body for burial. I just put some oregano in a ziplock bag and tied it off with a knot.)
12. Stone (just a piece of gravel will do.)

Some more ideas I came across for Resurrection Eggs were: A Die (for the soldiers casting lots for Jesus' garments), Fur (for the donkey Jesus rode in on), A Feather (for the rooster crowing), A Thick String (for the scourging), Small Piece of Wash Cloth (for washing of feet), Small Cup (for when Jesus says "let this cup pass from me"), A Black Cloth (for when the sky went black), Small Piece of Rose Bush Stem (in place of crown of thorns), An Empty Egg (for the empty tomb) or a Cloth (for finding empty burial cloths in the tomb), Cotton Ball with Perfume (for the perfume Mary put on Jesus' feet), Purple Cloth (for the robes they wrapped Jesus in), and a Sign that says "King of the Jews".

There's really no reason why you can't make 2 dozen resurrection eggs with all of these ideas! :-)

When you've collected your stuff, just put them all in some plastic eggs...

 And number them!

Then you can just put them into an egg carton and decorate it! For younger kids, you go over what each piece stands for and pass it around so they can hold it. For older kids, include a piece of paper in each one with an explanation, and a bible verse they can look up for that part of the story! (Here's a link with some bible verses for if you have older kids :-)

What Jesus did for us during this week of his life is so amazing! Share it with your children. Don't just allow the true meaning of this amazing holiday to get lost in the Easter Bunny shuffle!

Here's a picture of my then 3 year old daughter holding the 

"crown of thorns" and pointing to the one on Jesus' head :-)

Here are some sets that other Catholics made :-)

I love these resurrection eggs from JOYfilled Family!

(along with a ton of great ideas in this same post! :-)

Here's a set from  

Hang on Baby Jesus This is Gonna Get Bumpy.

Cherished Hearts at Home made 

Paschal Mystery Eggs! She has lots of bible
verses listed. Very useful!!! Don't miss this set!

Love Busy With Blessings Easter Eggs!

Just Call Me Jamin made this lapbook with 

printable resurrection eggs.

Or if you're low on time this Easter season,
you can always order a set of Resurrection Eggs (Parenting).
 

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