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Sunday, March 2, 2014

Ideas for Celebrating Lent with your Kids

The Season of Lent is upon us! Here are some ideas for living this season in your home. I'm going to do a separate post for Holy Week, or else this post would be obnoxiously long.

Prayer


We pray The Stations of the Cross as a family each Friday during Lent. To keep the kids engaged we have a box with a little symbol for each station inside the box and the kids pull out the symbols as we pray.

I grabbed the wooden box at Michael's and painted it purple. Of course I used a 40% off coupon. If I ever hear that you purchase something at Michael's for over $1.00 without using a 40% of coupon I will be thoroughly disappointed.

Below are two sets of symbols for you to get ideas from. (The second set was a gift from our fabulous neighbors. Their daughter watches my kiddos one afternoon a week. If you are following our Journey Across America, she is the one who does the majority of the crafts and snacks with the kids... secrets out, I'm not super mom.)


And our newest Lenten addition is this lovely set of candles with the stations on them. You extinguish the flames station by station until you have completed them all. Check out this post to learn more about them and to see just how easy they are to make!


Other Ideas

Each night during Lent we have a time of family prayer that includes a story from the bible on the life of Christ. The kids then add a symbol from the story to our "Jesus Path". For a full list of the readings we use, as well as pictures of each symbol, check out this post. And for an outline of what we do during the prayer time go here.

Other Ideas:
  • Lent is a great time to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet and the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary (Check out my post on tactile ways to engaged kids in the rosary to keep the little ones interest!)
  • Prayer Jar: Each family member draws a slip with a prewritten prayer from the jar, these prayers are used for family prayer time: Wee Little Miracles
Fasting


Throughout Lent the kids will be pulling thorns from our crown of thorns each time they make a sacrifice such as sharing, letting others go first, not complaining, or skipping a treat. The hope is to remove all the thorns before Easter so Jesus has just a crown!

The wreath hails form The Dollar Store and we painted it brown and stuck some toothpicks in it. This is a happy alternative to making the salt and dough crown that we have in made it the past, mainly because this version will last for years, not just one season.

Other Ideas:
  • Sacrificial Bean Jar: Place a dried bean inside a jar for each sacrifice that you make, on Easter the dried beans are replaced with jelly beans: Three Sided Wheel
  • Have your kids pick out some special toys to give up for Lent.

Almsgiving


Each time the kids do an extra chore throughout Lent they can earn a coin for our purple piggy. At the end of Lent we will go to the grocery store to buy food with their money to give to our church's food bank.

The piggy is from The Dollar Store too, right next to the ugly statues of chubby puppies and Precious Moments knockoffs. Sorry if I just offended you.

We will also be making sandwiches each Tuesday night for FOCUS HQ staff to pass out downtown with the Christ in the City missionaries.

Other Ideas:
  • Place a box in your kitchen and each day (or once a week), have this kids put a dried good in the box. At the end of Lent take the box to a food pantry: Three Sided Wheel
  • Make a foam cross with slits in it to fill with coins: Catholic Icing
  • Rice bowls (classic): CRS Rice Bowls

Everything Else


Blessings to your family this Lent!

Check out these posts for more of my liturgical ideas!
Ideas for Holy Week
Ideas for Easter Season

Be saints, it's worth it!
Lisa
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