Tuesday, February 11, 2025

The Saints of Holy Week Coloring Page

We often read about the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. John, and St. Mary Magdalene during Holy Week, but do you know the stories of these other saints? Use this coloring page to learn more about St. Longinus, St. Veronica, St. Simon of Cyrene, and St. Dismas. Click here to download and print.


You can read more about the Saints of Holy Week in All about Lent & Holy Week: Sharing the Seasons of Repentance & Salvation with Children. These coloring pages were made in cooperation with Shari Van Vranken of Catholic Paper Goods using artwork from our new book!

You can find it at The St. Paul Center here or on Amazon here, or we'd love for you to ask for it at your local Catholic book store. It's also available as an ebook in both places if that's more your style! 


And you can find all of the free resources linked in this post:

Good Friday Crucifixion Coloring Page


We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, 
because by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

During the quiet of Good Friday, you can share this Crucifixion coloring page with your children as we reflect on the great love of our Savior. Click here to download it.


You can read more about Good Friday in All about Lent & Holy Week: Sharing the Seasons of Repentance & Salvation with Children. These coloring pages were made in cooperation with Shari Van Vranken of Catholic Paper Goods using artwork from our new book!

You can find it at The St. Paul Center here or on Amazon here, or we'd love for you to ask for it at your local Catholic book store. It's also available as an ebook in both places if that's more your style! 


And you can find all of the free resources linked in this post:

Paschal Candle Coloring & Info Page

At the beginning of the Easter Vigil Mass, the new Paschal candle is carved with a cross and the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, Alpha and Omega—the Beginning and the End. It is also labeled with the numbers for the current year. The Paschal Candle is lit during the whole Easter Season, and then at all baptisms and funerals throughout the year. 

You can use this coloring & info page to share more about the Paschal Candle with your kids, or read about it in All about Lent & Holy Week: Sharing the Seasons of Repentance & Salvation with Children. These coloring pages were made in cooperation with Shari Van Vranken of Catholic Paper Goods using artwork from our new book!

You can find it at The St. Paul Center here or on Amazon here, or we'd love for you to ask for it at your local Catholic book store. It's also available as an ebook in both places if that's more your style! 


And you can find all of the free resources linked in this post:

Resurrection Stained Glass Coloring Page & Easter Prayer Page

Alleluia, He is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

Celebrate the joy of the Resurrection with this stained glass coloring page and Easter prayer. Alleluia!


You can read more about Easter and the Resurrection in All about Lent & Holy Week: Sharing the Seasons of Repentance & Salvation with Children. These coloring pages were made in cooperation with Shari Van Vranken of Catholic Paper Goods using artwork from our new book!

You can find it at The St. Paul Center here or on Amazon here, or we'd love for you to ask for it at your local Catholic book store. It's also available as an ebook in both places if that's more your style! 


And you can find all of the free resources linked in this post:

What's a Crotalus? How about an Aspergillum? Learn about these unique liturgical tools!


Have you heard of a crotalus? How about an aspergillum? Two liturgical tools that are a little lesser known, these items are used during the liturgy of Holy Week. You can introduce your kids to these unique Catholic items with this coloring and info page. Then you can keep a lookout for them at your own parish on Holy Thursday and the Easter Vigil!

You can read more about the crotalus, aspergillum, and other Lent traditions in All about Lent & Holy Week: Sharing the Seasons of Repentance & Salvation with Children. These coloring pages were made in cooperation with Shari Van Vranken of Catholic Paper Goods using artwork from our new book!

You can find it at The St. Paul Center here or on Amazon here, or we'd love for you to ask for it at your local Catholic book store. It's also available as an ebook in both places if that's more your style! 


And you can find all of the free resources linked in this post:

Monday, February 10, 2025

40 Verses for 40 Days- Take a Verse Bulletin Board


My dear friend Kayla is pulling from the archives of her many years as a graphic designer to create a Teachers Pay Teachers shop filled with items to help teachers (and more) easily create lovely items to use in the classroom. She has this FREE! cute hand drawn clip art set of books, which of course would look great on your slides or worksheets, but my mind immediately went to a bulletin board! With my new Lent book coming out, I've got Lent on the brain and was inspired to use the books to make an easy bulletin board set.

I wanted to make a simple set that would work on bulletin boards of various sizes (even small bulletin boards) and also encourage kids to interact with Scripture during Lent. The main focus of the board is this "take a verse" sheet where people can rip off one verse at a time. There are forty different passages included, all relating to the Season of Lent. 

I printed out a bunch of Kayla's book images (open up those Bibles!) on different shades of purple paper (yay, Lent!), as well as a few key verses, and made a couple of options for a heading. Hopefully this set is a quick and easy way to add some Lenten decor to your classroom or parish bulletin board!



Click here for the "Take a verse" Scripture pages:
(Prints on two pages. Trim one of the interior edges, overlap, and tape. Cut on the dotted lines to make it easy to tear off the Scripture verses. I plan to print of a couple sets so that once one is torn up, I can just swap it out for a fresh one.)


(Intended to be cut horizontally and then use the four pieces to make a heading)

Or here's an alternative heading, either in outline letters or solid black:


Click here for a few Bible verses for the bulletin board:


And visit Kayla Phillips Design on Teachers Pay Teachers for the free book clip art!

Pray, Fast, Give Collaborative Bulletin Board

Rounding up ideas for Lent that needed updated on the blog, so I wanted to share this bulletin board from my school last year. We wanted to create something that the whole school could participate in together, something interactive, and something visual that kept us accountable to our goal of entering into the Season of Lent with prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

So on this giant bulletin board (almost 12 feet across) we created a set of "jars" that students and teachers could drop slips of paper in with their Lenten sacrifices. I'm sure you've seen some version of this with an actual jar on a table, so we were just trying to make something that the students of our school could all visualize and join in with. This bulletin board is in a common hallway that all students walk past so it was really special to watch the jars fill up a little more each week of Lent.

I made the jars with clear lamination- I asked the teacher in charge of the laminator to just run through about three yards of lamination without any paper or anything. It worked perfectly- it was nice and clear and also fairly sturdy. I curved the top and rounded the bottom corners to give it more of a jar shape. To attach it to the bulletin board, I stapled (LOTS of staples all the way around the sides and bottom, leaving the top open. This allowed students to slide in slips of paper but they couldn't fall out. To make a table/shelf for each jar I used a roll of wide burlap ribbon and added some fake palm branches. Around the top of each jar, I added some twine with a tag including a Saint quote about that Lenten discipline to remind us of our purpose.

You could totally recreate this concept on a much smaller scale on a bulletin board or even on your family fridge/calendar area/etc. Lots of ways to be creative about sharing the importance of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving this Lent!


Click here for the "Pray Fast Give" title in this bold font. Each letter prints on per page, so this makes for a pretty big title. If you have a smaller bulletin board, set your print settings to print 2 or 4 per page.

I used these three Saint quotes to make "tags" for the jars. One quote for prayer, one for fasting, one for giving:


We swapped out the Lent bulletin board for this one celebrating Easter! No easy tips for this one- it was made with bulletin board paper, plastic table cloths, streamers, and dollar store fake flowers.

But I can offer you this printable heading in a matching font if you'd like!
(Lots of repeat letters in "He is Risen" so just print those pages twice!)