Children's Stations of the Cross

As we continued our Tridduum celebration this year I considered going to our church's live stations of the cross put on by our Lifeteen youth program.    I had gone last year and enjoyed it but I knew that it may still be over Zachary's head and definitely Adelyn's.  I wanted to have them participate somehow but still keep it developmentally appropriate.  


I tried to think Montessori and how kids learn the best. They would be most interested through hands on and play of course. Growing up a lot of us remember not be interested in church because taking in all of that auditory information was over our heads as little pre-schoolers.  So the following is what I came up with.


Catholic Icing.com has a link to printable stations of the cross which the kids could color. I knew I wanted to do something with that but I also knew they would not want to color 14 pages of detailed pictures.  My in laws were in town thankfully and they helped watch the kids while I set up. 


I hung each of the pictures on the wall low to the ground in different areas of the house and put a number next to them. I planned to have them collect items to put in their baskets at each station which represented that particular station.  

1st Station Jesus was Condemned- I started outside in my memorial garden with the first station and put their Easter baskets there.  

2nd Station Jesus Carries the Cross- Two pieces of wood were here.  They had to carry this around the whole time. 

3rd Station Jesus Falls the 1st Time- 2 band aids were here.

4th Station Jesus Meets His Mother- A picture of Mary and a small statue were here.  We talked about Jesus and Mary comforting each other.

5th Station Simon Helps Jesus- A pair of gloves were here to symbolize hands helping.

6th Station Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus- Two towels were here.

7th Station Jesus Falls the 2nd Time- Band aids were here again.

8th Station Jesus Meets the Women- Items that women carry were here including a handkerchief, a necklace and a purse.

9th Station Jesus Falls the 3rd Time- A Large Bandage was here.

10th Station The Soldiers Take His Garments- I had two sweaters here.

11th Station Jesus is Put on the Cross- I put two large screws here because they are more blunt than nails. I did not put the stations picture from the series here. Instead I just printed the outline of a cross. I felt for Zachary he was not yet ready for what I guess I will call, "trauma" of Jesus being nailed to the cross. It was enough for him. He guessed right away what the station was by just seeing that.

12th Station Jesus dies on the cross. Two small crosses here. We discussed Mary and John standing beneath Him.

13th Station Jesus is taken down from the cross. I could not think of anything for this station except a clock for "His hour had come". 

14th Station Jesus is Placed in the Tomb- Two small rocks were here.

Zachary really liked finding the numbers.  It was like a game to him.  He commented that the wood was getting heavy which my in laws helped me to make a teachable moment.  He also did ask for more stations after we finished because he was enjoying himself so much. It worked out perfectly because my father n law said, "The 15th station is on Easter!". 

This worked out very well for my children being able to participate in the stations. I am hoping to continue this and also learn of more ideas from others out there. 

2012 Last Supper Reenactment

Since I enjoy participating in the Easter Tridduum I wanted to do something for my children so that they could also participate.  In the past I have bought a special loaf of bread and grape juice for a pretend reenactment of the Last Supper.  I would pull out the nice campaign glasses and nice plates.  We also washed each others feet in a nice bowl which I monitored very closely!! This year we invited our friends to join us.  Our great friends the Siebenalers hosted the event at their house.  We brought the bread and Becca provided the grape juice.  She had lovely dishes to use for the event and set up a foot washing station (not that nice dishes are required...that may not be at all what was used back then). We also found pictures and a developmentally appropriate story telling in one of the children's bibles.


The children thoroughly enjoyed washing each others feet although some of them did not want to have their own feet washed.  One of them was Zachary but he did love serving the other people their. We will have to work on allowing other to serve us :)


 Zachary and I attended our Holy Thursday Mass of the Last Supper which is one of my favorites.  The families from the reenactment also attended with us.  Being able to share both events with them really enhanced the night. We knew it would be long so we brought play and learn items with us.  We had crayons and printouts of the Last Supper, our miniature chalice and altar items for the kids to play with, books about Easter/Spring, a baby doll and washcloth to wash the babies feet, and a few more items.


We tried to present the idea as the importance of serving others and also allowing them to serve you too. And of course in our faith we stress the importance of being in communion with each other which we do by sharing meals at home and at Mass. Hopefully they will learn that over the years.


The day was very special to me and I hope it was for our friends as well. We are thankful to have great friends and family to celebrate special moments with. 

Home Made Fish Tank

A few years ago Zachary and Scott made this fish tank as a fun project while I was on bed rest in the hospital.  The extra projects with Daddy and the grandparents definitely helped him cope with me being away.  The nights away from him were of course hard on me too so I enjoyed seeing the activities they worked on.  I'm very thankful we had great hands to help out during that time. 


I believe this beautiful tank contained leaves, rocks, sand, plants and plenty of pretend sea creatures! The container was an old drink container of some type....tea...lemonade...


Zachary lately has begun asking for a fish tank again. Taking care of our dog is plenty for me right now so I plan to bring this up again! :)

Lent Table

My mother-in-law gave us a packet of different church season activity ideas.  For advent we had a centered area for our nativity and advent wreath.  The kids both loved that and benefited from it and so I wanted to make one for lent too.  We were able to incorporate the lent color, purple with a piece of fabric from my sewing area.  We also used palm branches from previous Palm Sundays which we put in the vase in the back.  We got a lent calendar from Catholic icing to provide a visual for the kids.  Lent can feel like a very long time for the children so the calendar is very helpful in giving them a sense of time. The other paper you see is a quote I liked about improving yourself from Thoreau.  The seashell has the Out Father on it and the picture in the back has three children signing "I love you".  

When Easter come we will replace the palms with pretty flowers and replace the purple with white.  I think I like this table for myself as much as I do for the kids! 

Game to Search for Sight Words

I made this cube last night for Zachary. I probably should have taken more time because as you can see it's not as sturdy as I would like. I came up with this because Zachary prefers to search for words in his books rather than sound them out and some of these words are not words we sound out such as "the". He likes the idea of playing a game while reading and he has a picture of the word he is looking for instead of me just telling him "look for i-n". Hopefully he will recognize the words more quickly as we play the cube game more often. 


An alphabet cube can also work for toddlers learning the ABCs.  I have some of those that I actually purchased at a teacher supply store.  Maybe these will work for others too!

Picture Schedule

This picture schedule has been amazing for my own kids and my music therapy clients.  This is a sample of our home schedule.  The rainbow at the bottom was our theme for the week. I do not always put the theme there but we happened to have a picture of it for that particular week. We learn as parents that our young tots or pre-schoolers are still developing their memory skills.  They do however build confidence and feel more in control when they know what is coming next during the day.  Consistent routines are of course great for that and a picture schedule to go along with it is even better! It is especially helpful for the days when something out of routine occurs. 

This blue scheduler comes from Lakeshore Learning and makes a triangle so there are two sides showing and it can be placed on a table/desk. It also folds up and has a pocket to hold the pictures in. Lakeshore also carries plenty of charts that can be hung on the wall. I needed the table top in order to bring it easily to my music therapy sessions and then back home.  These pictures came from Google images and I added color to some of them through the program paint.net.  

Tectonic Plates

Here's a creative way to teach kids about how tectonic plates work! My husband found this idea online. I'll have to ask him where he found it.  

1. Take a shoe box and cut it in half.
2. Put one side inside of the other for sliding closed and apart.
3. Add dirt to the entire bottom.
4. Push boxes together or pull them apart to make mountains, valleys, earthquakes, etc

Happy Learning!