Lent is the perfect season for us to recommit and strengthen our faiths. Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are three ways that the Church encourages us to grow during our Lenten journey. Here in this post, I will share some activities you and your family may want to consider to dive deeper into this holy season of Lent.
My Lent Prayers: Some things you can do as an individual.
- Each day I will pray.. (Pray) and so you and your children can write what you want to pray every day (Divine Mercy Chaplet, read the Bible more, go to daily mass, adoration hour, daily devotional, longer prayer time, etc.) What can I do extra in my prayer life for God?
- What can I give up? (Fast) Usually we give up something that we enjoy —sweets, social media, a favorite food, TV, shopping, video games, a favorite toy, or movies. Encourage your family to pick something that’s challenging for them.
- My good works will be.. (Almsgiving) Some examples may include picking up an extra job around the house, donating some allowance to the church or to the poor, raking or cleaning up someone’s yard. Declutter my house, potty train my child you can always get creative.
Lent for Family: Some things that can be chosen to do together as a family.
- Each day we will pray…Consider praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet or a decade of the rosary together(if you start a 54 day rosary novena on Ash Wednesday it will end on Divine Mercy Sunday) It is truly amazing to do a 54 day Rosary novena! Here is how to do one! And HERE is how to pray the Rosary if you are new to it. You could also read the Mass readings for the day, go to daily Mass as a family, do a holy hour at church as a family once a week, or do the stations of the Cross with your family every Friday.
- What can we give up? Fast or abstain together. Maybe your family loves movie nights or going out to eat. You could also give up TV, candy, instagram, hot showers, sleeping in, no heat in your car, give up your bed and sleep on the floor, give up dairy or wheat, or some people give things up as a family such as sweets.
- Our good works will be… As a family, what do you want to do to bless others or to bless God? Consider calling your local parish and and ask if you could help in some way. Other ideas include helping at a soup kitchen, visiting the lonely, maybe a nursing home, visiting the sick, or going to a grave and praying for the dead as a family. Pray about it and ask God how he wants you as a family to bless him.
Stations of the Cross
Another great thing to do as a family during Lent is ‘Stations of the Cross’ on Friday evenings. Most Catholic churches have this devotions durning Lent on Fridays. There are also some great books and posters of each stations here if you wanted to do them at home this can help children walk you through the passion of Christ.
I highly recommend stations — I think it’s really important to teach our children what happened. I like the little kid versions because they’re a little more subtle and easier for kids to understand. I grew up going to stations of the cross every Friday during Lent at church.
Stations of the Cross water reveal book
My children LOVE this! There is no mess but lots of time ‘painting’ the different pictures of the Stations of the Cross. A great way to keep little hands busy while the family prays the stations of the Cross. Reusable and mess free just add water! Click HERE to check this out.
Stations of the Cross Ring – a compact, portable resource designed to bring the spiritual richness of the Stations of the Cross to any setting. Perfect for keeping little ones engaged and focused, this ring offers a convenient way to experience this profound devotion wherever you are. Click HERE to check it out.
We also have this coloring book that is great for little kids to color while the family prays the Stations of the Cross too. Click HERE to get this coloring book.
Pray by Stickers -easy-to-follow sticker placement, children will learn about Jesus’ ultimate act of love and His triumphant resurrection while enhancing their fine motor skills. Much like paint-by-number, but with stickers, this book transforms reflection into an exciting, faith-filled adventure. Each sticker brings the story to life, helping children connect with Jesus in a fun and memorable way! Click HERE to check it out.
Sacrifice Jar for Jesus
Sacrifices Jar for Jesus-
My friend Julie told me about this awesome idea for Lent, so all you need is a empty jar, dried beans, a bowl and for Easter Morning Jelly Beans! So how you do this lovely activity is you start Ash Wednesday with a empty jar (I have a little sign for mine) and a bowl full of dried beans, every time your child does a good deed or a sacrifice for some one they can add a dry bean to the empty jar. Hopefully by Good Friday the jar is full or close too being full! Easter Morning you exchange the dried beans for Jelly Beans! All those little sacrifices turned into something sweet just like they do for Jesus! I recommend putting the Jar and beans where your kids will see them so they remember to do the sacrifices for Jesus. I put our in our living room (pictured below) I also put a standing crucifix next to it to remind the kids why we are doing this! My children love this! I hope your enjoy it too!
Crown of Thorns for Lent Magnet
Simplify your Home
One of my favorite traditions is to strip everything off the walls —family pictures, artwork, etc. Get the house down to it’s bones. Take away pillows or blankets from the living room. Keep everything very minimal so that way when you look around your house , you are reminded that we are in a time of Lent. This is a time for avoiding chaos and distractions, as we want to focus on God during this time. Another alternative to this is to replace these things and maybe put purple around your house (curtains, pillows, tablecloths, candles, etc.) Purple is the color we use during Lent, as it is a reflection of the Passion of Christ.
Lenten Prayer and Sacrifice Postcard
This Lent, offer each day’s prayers and penances for a specific person. Plan ahead and put it on your daily calendar so you don’t forget!
Then, mail that person a beautiful postcard. Not only will this be incredibly touching, but this postcard can be hung on the fridge, added to a prayer card collection, or used as a bookmark–trust us, this is not a postcard that gets thrown away.
This set includes 40 Postcards (10 of each design) that you can mail or hand out to individual people each day of Lent. Such a great idea for Lent! Click HERE to check them out.
Journey through Lent with our Lent loops countdown to Easter activity. This easy to assemble Lent calendar begins with Ash Wednesday and ends on Easter Sunday. Each loop is dated and has a verse from that days Mass readings (for year A). Some loops also have simple prayer, fasting, or giving prompts to help your family in your Lenten journey. This is a beautiful and simple way to pray along with the whole Church and incorporate scripture into your Lent- while also counting down the days to Easter! Simply remove a loop each day, and pray with that Scripture verse. Click HERE to get the free download look up Lent and this will pop up.
I have an entirely new ministry called Faith in 5. It’s purpose is aimed at teaching the faith to our families. Every week there are five new questions, which can be printed out or downloaded on your phone. I have them as well. We’ve been doing this as a family every night, and it’s been really good. We’ve had some amazing discussions and questions. I have two writers who put these together. I highly recommend printing these out once a week and then you will have all your table topics with the kids! If you don’t know the answers to the questions, don’t worry, the answers are provided as well! To find Faith in 5 click here or just check it out at the top of this page!
This is a great way to keep kids motived from Lent to Easter! It’s easy and fun for little ones. Here is how to do it. Each day, your children will apply one sticker to the Roadmap. As you progress through Lent, you’ll see a secret message emerge as you fill in a letter or symbol each day. Kids will try to guess what the “final code-breaker” answer is…but you never really know until Holy Saturday! Click HERE to check it out.
The Lent Box
This one is simple! Get out a box and put one of everybody’s favorite things in it! Ask everyone to grab their favorite toy. It must be something that they are willing to part with for a little while. Place it in the Lent box, close it up and put it away for all of Lent. On Easter morning, open it back up and enjoy watching your kids get their missing toys back! Obviously you don’t want to go too crazy. My daughter Bella loves her blankie and goes no where without it, so I wouldn’t go that extreme.
Lenten Readings
Another thing you can do as a family is to read Catholic based books with your kids. These books teach the faith in a simple, easy to understand way as it’s in story form. I have a great list of our favorites HERE! There are so many of these. Some of them are about Catholic Saints and others are just stories of our faith! I grew closer to God by reading about the saints! Maybe reading aloud to your kids every night can be the almsgiving activity for yourself our your husband! To see our favorite Catholic books full of Saint stories click HERE.
What does your family do for Lent to help the kids go deeper? Obviously on Fridays, we don’t eat meat. Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, we fast. Keep it at their level with ideas like “no sweets today.” It’s a good idea to do something that is different or set apart from how we eat the rest of the year. I hope some of these ideas are helpful. Please share your thoughts and ideas down below!
I hope you have a beautiful, Holy Lent. Until next time!
If you are looking to start your Easter shopping, check out all my Catholic Discount Codes here.
12 Responses
Awesome!!!
Thank u!!
Sue
Thank you for the charitable spirit doing this great evangelization of God’s people. God bless you.
Nice to have the planner !
Thank You!
Thank you so much for all you do! God bless you!
Very useful and great way to prepare, thank you so much.
I used it. Thank you!
I love this. Although I have completed my RCIA classes a while ago, I am still learning. I feel like learning just never ends, because revisiting a topic can open your eyes to something new and you can always listen to a new perspective. I am printing out the lent sheets for myself and my husband to complete. I also share your youtube channel to share your beautiful stories. Thank you for all you do! May the Lord continue to Bless you.
Thank you so much. I haven’t been to church in over 25 years. I’m going tonight and my daughter and grandchildren are going also.
God bless you for all your good
many thanks, Heather
Hello I have been following a few months already. I tried sharing on fb messenger, but I don’t think you ever got my message. I just want to say your videos and ideas have been so inspiring and motivating. Thanks to your motivation I went back to my Catholic faith.
I just want to share an idea I got from you about how you would hide the St. Nicholas I believe and have your kids find it. So I did that and it was so cute and funny. But instead of the st. Nicholas I used a lamb and then had my girls read Luke 15:1–7 Jesus tells the parable of the lost sheep I think it was. Anyway maybe that’s already a thing. And I was also thinking it would be so cute for Easter too. I just thought I would share.
That is such a cute idea! I love that! Thank you for sharing:)