When our oldest son was a toddler, and I was looking for ideas on what do do during lent with him, I ran across a great little book titled: Guiding Your Catholic Preschooler
One of the ideas in this book is to make a large Lenten Calendar with the child. We have been doing this every year since, and all the children love it! Every year it varies slightly, and has been made from butcher paper, construction paper or poster board depending on what we had on hand each year. This year we made it from a large white poster board and taped it to the closet door in our school room.
Across the top, our calendar is titled:
Our calendar has a square for each day, from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday. Special Feasts and Holy days during that period are decorated to represent that day, for example, we have a picture of St. Valentine on Valentine’s Day, February 14th. My kids love this, since it breaks up the long Lenten Season with special days to look forward to.
Each of the 7 days of the week, has a special prayer intention for that day that we offer our prayer and fast for. You could customize this for your family. This year, we choose:
Monday – For an End to Abortion
Tuesday – For Conversions to the True Faith
Wednesday – For Pope Benedict XVI and all Priests
Thursday – For our Family & Godparents/children
Friday – For Forgiveness of sins in our World
Saturday – For our Deceased Relatives
Sunday – In Thanksgiving for God’s Blessings
Our family chooses something to do for each category (Pray, Fast, Give Alms) daily. Here is what we will be doing this year:
PRAY
- Each Morning for the Special Intention of the Day
- Daily Rosary
- Mass: Tues, Thurs, Friday & Sunday
- Stations of the Cross on Friday
The kids say their prayers each morning for the above intentions, in addition to stations on Friday, family rosary each evening and weekday mass (a few extra days each week). The kids have stickers we made, of rosaries and churches etc, to add to the calendar after completing the prayers each day.
FAST
- Take one item from the pantry each day for the poor
- No meat on Fridays
- Religious Videos ONLY (Sunday’s excluded)
Last year was the first year that any of my kids understood the concept of giving something up. So, in the past, we did as the book suggested and instead of the children giving up, they gave away. Every day we would open the pantry door and the children would choose a can good to donate to the poor. (I had the lower shelves full of appropriate items to be donated.) We then placed the item in a box that the kids decorated and at the end of lent we delivered it to a needy person or organization. I plan to continue this activity with my younger children, and let my older boys decided what they would like to give up on their own… Last year Captain choose ketchup! It actually proved to be quite difficult! 🙂
GIVE ALMS
- Count the items listed for each Day
- Put corresponding number of pennies in the Rice Bowl
In Guiding Your Catholic Preschooler
(Some examples of things that could be counted include: shoes, beds, windows, chairs, tables, pictures on the walls, trees in the yard, rooms, lights, books on the shelf, silverware, stairs, toys, etc, etc… You can be creative!)
This is a great opportunity to show the children how extremely blessed we are. It is also a good time to purge some unneeded items and pass them on to bless someone else with…
To finish up, each day after we finish our prayer, fasting, and alms giving we will place a purple cross over the square of that particular date on the calendar, this shows the children how we are moving closer to Easter!
The kids all REALLY love doing this each lent, and it helps ALL of us keep our focus.
Does your family make a Lenten Calendar? I’d love to hear about it if you do!
UPDATE: A Lenten Calendar for Catholic Children {with free printable documents}
I love this idea, Jessica!
I love this idea, Jessica!
I love this too! You have so many wonderful resources. Have a blessed Lent.
That’s really cool!
Thanks for the wonderful idea. I have been researching for Lenten ideas (ohmy it is coming up so fast!) and this one will come in handy!
Haha…nope it didnt!! I’m kinda just playing around with it 😉
Great idea! Thanks for sharing it. I have that book … thanks to Trina… still have to finish reading it! It obviously has some good ideas in it! Will find it tomorrow and work on finishing it.
Thanks for looking at my blog too! I can’t believe how big your kids are… and how cute!!!
We love doing this!! Sometimes it’s a poster and sometimes a calendar, yours is beautiful!!
I have wanted to make a calendar since my eldest was a toddler. Thanks to your inspiration, we will be doing so today.
Now I know what I will be doing today!
Thank you Jessica!
And JoAnn, you are so pretty!
This is a great idea. It’s a little late now but I will save it for next year.
Thank you for this! I just “copied” all of your hard work…used your intentions, etc. So, I’m giving you all the credit!
We used to do this and with life events this year, had not gotten to this activity … I can’t tell you what a difference it makes in my children’s assimilating our Faith!! So when i just discovered this here, I knew God was spoon feeding me our needed solution; I copied the whole thing and I am putting it up today to re-focus our attention and reclaim our family/liturgical life! Better late than never! God bless you!! St.Therese please ((hug!)) you!
What a great idea! Thank you for sharing this in time for us to get a calendar of our own together.