Holy Week Activities

A friend from college emailed me some links for activities yesterday (thanks, Christa!). One is for making The Hill of Calvary and the other is for making an Easter Tree.

Hill of Calvary

Easter Tree

The latter activity I really like and I thought it would be fun to do a twist on it and put images of the Stations of the Cross on it. You can print out images of art for this (see the stations listed below) or have your kids color these coloring pages of the different stations.

1. Jesus is condemned to death
2. Jesus is given his cross
3. Jesus falls the first time
4. Jesus meets His Mother
5. Simon of Cyrene carries the cross
6. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus
7. Jesus falls the second time
8. Jesus meets the daughters of Jerusalem
9. Jesus falls the third time
10. Jesus is stripped of His garments
11. Crucifixion: Jesus is nailed to the cross
12. Jesus dies on the cross
13. Jesus' body is removed from the cross (Deposition or Lamentation)
14. Jesus is laid in the tomb and covered in incense.

Although this is definitely part of the Western tradition of Christianity and not the Eastern, I think it is a very good way to educate our children in preparation for Good Friday. I would suggest spending the week coloring a page or two each day and putting up the tree on Good Friday.

Another twist on this activity would be to buy a live tree to plant on Pascha in honor of the Life Giving Tree, the Cross.

Do remember that I have other activities listed for Holy Week and the rest of Lent in the archives and that this is a blog that depends on group participation. In other words, please share your ideas! We can all benefit from each other's creativity as we strive to educate our children in the faith.