With Lent approaching, I have been racking my brain to come up with a way to make Lent more meaningful for my children.
Sure, we make family resolutions, decorate the house, abstain from meat on Fridays and talk about the passion. But I wanted something else that could get the kids more actively involved in Lent.
I thought about developing a calendar with different activities each day centered around prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
But I really want my children to develop good habits that will last beyond Lent, so changing what we do each day didn’t really make sense.
And then I chatted with my sister, who has older children and excels at organization. And I realized that her way of getting kids involved in Lent was about as good as it gets.
So I decided to steal it for my own kids. Make it into a handy printable, and share it here for anyone else that would like to benefit from my little sister’s wisdom.
The Lenten Worksheet has 2 sides. Both simple, and both intended to be used each of the 40 days of Lents. So maybe lamination is a good idea.
Here is a look at the pages my little Augustine will be using this Lent:
You can download both worksheets for free HERE.
In case you’d rather peak at the worksheets without my son’s scribbling, here they are.
The first worksheet is where you can guide your children through setting their Lenten Resolutions.
I am encouraging my children to set a resolution or 2 in each of the following categories: prayer, fasting, and alms-giving.
And, I know from experience, it is important to write down the resolutions and review them every day–because it is easy to forget, especially when things get hard.
Finally, at the bottom of the worksheet is a very simple Lenten prayer.
I plan to take these sheets out every day of Lent, review the resolutions with my children, and discuss how they are doing/why we are doing this.
Then we will pray the Lenten prayer together.
After we are done with that side of the worksheet, we will flip it over and see how far we have progressed through Lent.
I made this simple Lenten Path Worksheet for a couple of reasons.
I think it’s important they visualize how long Lent is, which will increase their longing for Easter Joy.
Each day we will mark off a day with a sticker.
I made the path in this shape–with the Sundays big and long–to help my children realize that Sundays are not actually a part of Lent.
And I also put the fish symbol on all the days we abstain so they can get used to that and understand why we do it.
I allowed my son to color his Lenten Paths at the beginning because that’s just fun!
Here’s a closer look at this worksheet:
And there you have it!
Once again, these are 100% free downloads and you can get them HERE.
The worksheets are simple, but hopefully, they will produce fruit in your family as well as mine.
A huge thank you to my dear sister for letting me steal her idea and share it here.
Please, if you know of any other family that might like to use this resource, feel free to share it!
Blessings on a Holy Lent!
Thanks for being here,
Nancy
Thank you for making this available! What a lovely way to visualize the season and to make it interesting and engaging, while still being simple for the younger kids. Blessings!
Thanks so much for sharing. I teach 7th grade religious education, and these will be perfect for helping them set and keep their lenten goals. Wishing you a blessed lent and Easter!
Thank you for doing this. I would like to use this for my 4th grade RE class this year, I hope it will help them to look at each day and remember what Lent is all about.
You are so wonderful for sharing this! Thank you! I am using it in my 4th grade classroom and have shared it with other teachers in my school, too! Sorry to point out…you need one more edit when you have a second. It says Lent 2016 on both pages.
Fantastic! Just another picky note – you have the little fish symbol on each Friday except for the one between Ash Wednesday and the first Sunday of Lent. Is that intentional?
Hi, what a great resource! I was wondering if you happen to have an updated version for 2017? There aren’t enough blocks on the chart to get to Easter this year
Nevermind! User error 🙂
Thank you.
Awesomesauce! These are so helpful! I can’t wait to use these with the kids and share with others! Thanks for the wonderful resources!
I’m so trilled! Share away!
How can I get the updated version?
So sorry about that! I keep attaching the wrong file! The post is corrected and here is the direct link: https://www.catholicsprouts.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/CORRECTED-LENTEN-WORKSHEETS.pdf
I think it made more sense to have the numbers the other way?? Because you’re going left to right to get to the second Sunday of lent, then right to left to get to the third Sunday, so the numbers should be counted from right to left. And then you switch back again. I really like the way you made this calendar, I love the concept of the Sundays being on the periphery of the Lenten days
Yeah, the numbering is a little confusing. Here is an updated version. Let me know if this makes more sense: https://www.catholicsprouts.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/CORRECTED-LENTEN-WORKSHEETS.pdf
Hi Nancy
I love these worksheets, especially the ‘My Lenten Resolutions’ sheet! I went to print them out straight away but I noticed that the numbering is slightly wrong on the Lenten calendar.. 1-4 is right and 5-10 is right but then it goes 16-11 instead of 11-16 and then 17-22 which is fine but then again it is 28-23! 29-34 is fine but there is still 40-35 instead of 35-40! I’m sorry but this is rather confusing! Would you be able to change the dates to the right boxes? I could use white-out and photo copy again but it might be easier if you just adjust the download if you don’t mind!
Thanks 🙂 May God bless you! I love the activities and blog posts! 🙂
Oh my goodness! I am so sorry. I will make the change straight away and email you directly the corrected PDF!
emailing you the corrected version now.
Thank you so much Nancy! Can’t wait to use this with the kids 🙂 I received the email and am printing them out!