Help Kids Count Down to Easter With a Simple Paper Chain
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The most confusing season of the church calendar for my kids has always been Lent. The first year that they were old enough to engage this season, I remember them constantly asking, “Is it Easter now?” And we were still only a week in! Last year, I realized the problem: Lent is long.
At 46 days (when you include Sundays), Lent is almost twice as long as Advent. And while almost everyone has some type of Advent calendar that shows the progress to Christmas, we don’t always display something similar for Lent. As I imagined how my children experienced the season of Lent, I realized how frustrating it must have been for them.
They heard, “Lent is a time before Easter.” But having no way to track how much time there was between the start of Lent and Easter Sunday, they were constantly wondering whether or not Easter was here.
Paper chains to the rescue! We tried this for the first time last year and it worked perfectly. At the beginning of Lent my kids commented on how long the chain was and how we still had a long time until Easter. But as the chain got shorter and shorter, they recognized that Easter was getting closer and closer.
Here’s how we made our paper chain:
If you want to keep things simple, just connect your chain and skip writing something inside the links. If you do include the readings, remember that Lent is quite a bit longer than Advent and give yourself grace if you’re not keeping up with things.
Hang your chain in a high-traffic area of your house so that your whole family can watch it shorten throughout Lent. You may want to have your kids take turns removing the chain each day. Enjoy this wonderful way to count down to Easter!
Faith Nurture, Family Ministry
Faith Nurture, Intergenerational Ministry
Faith Nurture
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