I love being Catholic –there are so many reasons to rejoice and celebrate all the time. Now that my children are getting a bit older feast days have become a time of great joy and celebration for us in a whole new way. You can find a reason to celebrate almost every day as a Catholic from liturgical seasons, to feast days – life is such a blessing! I thought it would be fun to start sharing some of the ways we are rejoicing and celebrating in our faith.
I always love finding new ideas to do with my kids. My son loves to eat and my daughter loves crafts so it’s always easy to generate excitement in our house hold! Welcome to my new blog The LittleWays – finding ways to celebrate our love of Jesus and our faith in all the little ways daily as inspired by St. Therese!
My son recently read the CCC book Ben-Hur – A Race to Glory at grandma’s house. He fell in love with it right away. So much in fact that we have to borrow it to read it again once we got home. I coincedently had the DVD of Ben-Hur packed away to give the kids for Easter, so the timing couldn’t have been better.
This is a wonderful story for kids but especially for young boys aged 3-8. It is a story of friendship, perservenace, courage and forgiveness. Encounters with Jesus are seamlessly woven into the story too. Whether your looking for a a great story book or a nice movie -I highly recommend Ben-Hur – A Race to Glory to be added to anyone’s library!
Easy Divine Mercy Chaplet Craft for Kids
A couple years ago I was approached and asked to help me a Divine Mercy Good Deed Bead Instr
uctions for the Girls Scouts for their highest and newest Badge- styled after the St. Therese Sacrifice/Good Deed Beads. Good Deed beads are great as the beads stay in place once you pull them to help you count your acts of love or your prayers in the chaplet!
I thought it would be nice to share these instructions in case anyone else wanted to make these with their children to celebrate or teach them more about Divine Mercy this Sunday. You can get the pdf to print the How to Make Divine Mercy Good Deed/Sacrifice Beads Here
To make these I put a Divine Mercy medal on the end and a four way cross on the other end. I made them with different bead variations – one with 10 red and 1 white, one with 2 red, 2 white rotated for 10 beads and a white bead on the end and one with 5 red and then 5 white with one white on the end. I would have liked a blue bead for the end but didn’t have any.
This is a great and simple devotion to do with your little ones. My son who is three prays this every night with me and really enjoys it.
Free Divine Mercy Coloring Page – with Divine Mercy Sunday fast approaching I thought the kids would enjoy a page to color in! Click here for the Divine Mercy Coloring Page PDF
Okay I just found an great 6 pages free booklet for kids at Holy Heros - look on t
he left of their website for this coloured Divine Mercy Picture for their free six page Divine Mercy colouring book. They also have the Glory Stories Cd on St. Faustina - it is a great CD.
Just came across this wonderful website Craft Project Ideas and I had to share it. It is full of great c
raft ideas.
You can search and find an idea:by age, season, theme, or even materials you have on hand.
They also have themed monthly ideas – this month is is water colours:
They have some many great ideas., even cute drawing lessons your kids are sure to enjoy! Best of all it’s free!
I was reflecting on the word Easter earlier this week – many people see Happy Easter and think of cute little bunnies and fluffy tails. But just like the word Christ-mas it too has so much symbolism. It is a word I want my children to associate with the most important day of the year – the most important day in the history of the world. The day our Lord gave himself for you, for me, for all. So while thinking about this I came up with a cute little poem/story for the kids to help them remember Easter in a new light.
Click here for a pdf of theEaster Poem Craft- Happy Resurrection!
A really great blog for wonderful Christian crafts is catholic icing – I am always excited to see what Lacy will come up with next!
Kids 40 Day Lenten Count Down Craft:
This year my kids did her 40 day Lenten countdown and really enjoyed colouring in the path as we counted down to Easter! It was a great tool to use to sit down with the kids on Ash Wednesday to talk about what we would each like to do or give up for Jesus this Lent. It also was great as we got close to holy week to talk about how we were doing with those commitments and if we would like to maybe add anything new! You can get a free copy of this great craft at Catholic icing.
Resurrection Set Craft:
The second craft my kids are loving from Catholic Icing is their free Printable Resurrection Craft. I saved this craft for Good Friday as I thought it was a great way to use it. The kids coloured in a few of the sheets as the day went on. In the afternoon we read from The Jesus Story Book Bible and then we taped Jesus on to the cross (with painters tape so it is easy to remove).
This evening before bed we prayed a decade of the Divine Mercy Chaplet (to start the beginning of the novena) then each of the children placed Jesus on the bed in the tomb. Next we rolled the stones (taped with painters tape) and placed the guards outside the tomb. This is sitting on out table as our center piece till we can continue the story on Easter morning!
The kids will complete the remaining pieces of the resurrection story on Holy Saturday! Lacy is so talented to come up with the great craft! To be honest it was a lot of work for the kids to do all these pieces in one day – it was a good lesson in perseverance for my daughter. Next year I think we will work on the throughout Lent!
For younger kids they even offer this in a colour version so you just need to print and go!
Fast, fun and Easy Craft for Easter!
My daughter and I had a lot of fun painting these pastel easter eggs together. We painted ceramic eggs so we can use them next year. We mixed silver paint into each of the colours we used so that they would be a little metallic looking. This could easily be done with hard boiled or blown eggs instead and would display nicely in a basket as a center piece.
OUR SAINTS AND FEASTS STICKER ALBUM
For years I have searched for a great resource to be able to share a saint a day with my kids. Last year I finally found a resource to make this possible – it is a great 12 month full colour kit to celebrate a saint a day – the kit come with a sticker activity booklet and a booklet with a short 
biography of the saint of the day.
Instead of using the sticker booklet we have laminated out sheets so that we can use them again and again each day. The only downside is that the Saints are based on the traditional saint calendar – so they don’t always line up with the current feast day. But if you use it as a tool to just teach your children about inspiring faith filled individuals on a daily basis it is a great resource and tool for any catholic home!
The Mass – I found this neat book at a Christian book story recently. I plan to use it to help my daughter prepare for 1st Communion. It is written as if Jesus is speaking directly to your child about the mass and why it is so important – in simple language the kids can understand and enjoy!
Saints Tell Their Stories – is a great book with stories written in first hand account from the perspective of the actual saint. This book features great saints like St. Boniface, St. Stephen, St. Therese and many more. A great 1st Communion gift – great from kids aged 5-10! My daughter loves reading one of these at our tea parties!
A few years ago my husband thought it would be great to make a Guess Who version using Saints – the idea was written out but there it stayed. Recently we discovered that someone else not only had the same idea but brought it to beautiful fruition! I hope your family enjoys this free printable – Family Guess Who – by Equipping Catholic Families!
