Free Catholic Lent, Holy Week, Bible Easter Printables

Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant Christians observe Palm Sunday which celebrates the Biblical triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem one week before His crucifixion. Palm Sunday begins Holy Week and the countdown to the Paschal Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday orEaster Vigil). Holy Week culminates on Easter Sunday. Here are free printable Holy Week activities, Palm Sunday crafts, Easter printables and Bible coloring pages. Use as lessons in homeschool, Christian school, Sunday school or Catholic religious education.

DL-TK offers free printable Palm Sunday crafts. There are cut and paste crafts featuring Jesus, donkeys and palms. Sunday-School-Fun-Zone has several dozen free printable Holy Week coloring pages, Easter crafts, Bible puzzles and Catholic Christian holiday games. There are Bible verse memorization activities, images of people waving palms, a donkey and Bible character lessons. Print a countdown-to-Easter craft which for Holy Week.

Ministry-to-Children has eight free printable religious Easter coloring pages. These could be used as a Holy Week countdown. Give children one page color each day. When the pages are complete, they might be combined into a devotional prayer booklet. Catholic Mom has free printable Bible activities geared to each Sunday's gospel reading. All the guesswork for lesson planning and cross-curricular connections has been done for you. These printable units are useful for all ages from preschool through middle school. They're adaptable for special needs students, too. There are printable versions of the Bible reading, an accompanying coloring page, mass worksheets, fill-in-the-blank and crossword puzzles.

Catholic Mom is cross-referenced with specific webpages for holidays and feast days. There are links for crafts, readings, additional resources, printables and supplemental activities. Catholic Mom has printable activities for Palm Sunday, Holy Week and the Easter Triduum, including Holy (or Maundy) Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil (called Holy Saturday) and Easter Sunday.

Read Around the World with Nobel Prize for Literature Laureates

March is National Reading Month. March 21 is World Poetry Day (it's also a very special girl's birthday--our youngest daughter Emma Grace). Why not explore poetry and literature with lessons plans from the creme de la creme--the Nobel Prize laureates? Here are lesson plans for reading "around the world" with Nobel Prize for Literature Laureates. In middle school and especially in high school, use these lessons for literature, social studies, history, world religions and cultures classes. My one objection is that multicultural as the prizes are, there have only been 12 women literature laureates in the 112-year history of the Nobel Prize. Those are odds we ladies need to even. Here are famous women laureates and poets: Nellie Sachs, Emily Dickinson, Maya Angelou, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Emma Lazarus to name a few.

Since President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, Americans have become focused on the Nobel prizes. Here are lesson plans for reading 'around the world' with Nobel Prize for Literature Laureates. In middle school and especially in high school, use these lessons for world literature, history, world religions and world cultures classes.

I've made a list of some former winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature. I have included Nobel Prize winners from around the world of all cultures. I recommend that students be assigned to choose a Nobel Prize winning author and read one or more of her works. If each students selects a different author, you can theoretically read your way around the globe as a class. Keep a large wall map with small Sticky Note arrows to point out the different places that the various Nobel Prize authors were born, lived and worked. I've arranged these authors in order from the present back to the inception of the Nobel Prize in 1903. As far as possible, I've tried to list volumes or works of literature for which these authors are best known.

2006:Turkey, Orhan Pamuk "The Black Book"
2004:Austria, Elfriede Jelnik "Lust"
2001:Trinidad, Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul; "A House for Mr. Biswas"
  2000:China - Gao Xingjian

; Soul Mountain

  1998:Portugal -Jose Saramago; Balthasar and Blimunda


  1997: Italy - Dario Fo; The Pope and the Witch


  1995: Ireland - Seamus Heaney; Bog Poems
 

  1990:
Mexico - Octavio Paz; The Other Mexico

  1989: Spain - Camilo Jose Cela, The Family of Pascual Duarte


  1988: Egypt - Naguib Maufauz; Sugar Street


  1986: Nigeria - Wole Soyinka, The Lion and the Jewel


  1984: Jaroslav Siefert - Czechoslavakia: A Wreath of Poems


  1982:Colombia - Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Leaf Storm and Other Stories


  1979:Greece - Odysseus Elytis; The Sovereign Sun: Selected Poems


  1971:Chile - Pablo Neruda; Twenty Poems


  1968: Japan - YasunarI Kawabata; House of the Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories


  1967: Guatemala - Miguel Angel Asturias; The Bejewelled Boy


  1965: USSR (Russia and now sovereign states) - Mikhail Sholokov; Tales from the Don


  1961:Yugoslavia - Ivo Andric; The Woman from Sarajevo


  1957: France - Albert Camus; The Stranger


  1955: Iceland - Halldor Laxness; Salka Valka


  1944:Denmark - Johannes Jensen; Myths


  1939: Finland - Hans Emil Silanpaa; The Maid Silja


  1951: Sweden - Par Fabian Lagerkvist ; The Dwarf


  1913: India - Rabindranath Tagore; Red Oleanders


  1911:Belgium - Maurice Maeterlinck; The Life of the Bee
Use these lessons in your world literature class.

Free Printable Worksheets on Caves, Paleontology, Bats, Fossils, Deserts

Archaeology is one of the most fascinating branches of science and caves are one of nature's most alluring geological landforms to explore. Caves are a separate biome all their own. They've been used as habitats by animals and people. Bats are cave dwellers and dinosaurs dwelt in caves. Mystics have sought divine enlightenment living as hermits in caves. Ancient people left hieroglyphics on walls of caves, like those at Lascaux, France. Caves yield up a treasure trove of fossils and teach valuable lessons in archaeology and paleontology. Teachers and homeschool families, if you're planning a unit on caves (and you really should) here are free printable lesson plans on cave-related subjects of fossils, bats, archaeology, paleontology, habitats, geology, spelunking and earth science.

The National Parks Service has free printable lessons on the U.S. national park at Carlsbad Cavernsin New Mexico. There's curriculum for elementary school in the free printable booklet About Bats, Caves and Deserts. For middle school students, the NPS Carlsbad Caverns website features free printable archaeology lessons on Caves, Canyons, Cactus and Critters. High school students explore geology, spelunking, Global Positioning Systems and orienteering in the Chihuahuan Desert Lab school. Materials are designed to be used with interpretive visits but some may be used as stand-alone lessons in class. Check out the cool activities on fossils, bats, paleontology and other cave phenomena.

Also from the NPS, are free printable materials on Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. There are free coloring pages, word games, puzzles and lesson plans in the Junior Ranger section. Kids will love the printable Trog Tour booklet (trog is short for super cool fossils called troglodytes) The Making Connections series from Mammoth Cave National Park features books for grades K-3, 4-5 and 6-8. There are 83 pages of free printable paleontology lesson plans for teachers and homeschool parents. And be sure not to let young archaeology students miss the free printable Fossil Identification Guide with coloring pages of fossils to label.

Lascaux Culture has interactive lesson plans on Lascaux cave drawings. Explore paleontology and archaeology with the prehistoric paintings, There are cave maps, images, videos and timelines. The website has interpretive information detailing the images, their purpose and their significance. You can access the site in several languages including English, but the educational "resources" link is available only in French.

Easy Fun School has free cave diorama lesson plan. The diorama is easy to make and uses cheap, household materials.has free printable animal habitat coloring pages. Students can research which animals live or hibernate in caves. This site has other free printable habitats dioramas. Crayola offers a free craft template to show interior cave rock formations.

Cave stalactites grow downward from the ceiling. The word comes from the Greek "to drip" (stalactites resemble icicles). Stalagmites grow up from the cave floor and look like upside down icicles. In Greek, the word means "trickling." Use these activities to demonstrate how stalactites and stalagmites grow. Crystal Cave in Wisconsin offers tours and family activities to explore this famous cave. Here are free printable geology lesson plans on archaeology, paleontology, bats, and fossils.

Free Printable Hands-On Elementary Science Activities, Worksheets, Experiments

April is Earth Month and lesson plans focus on life science. The best ways to learn about life science are with E2I2-- explore, examine, interact and investigate. These activities require laboratory science experiments and outdoor exploratory science. Teachers, you can make classroom science lesson plans more exploratory by covering walls with posters, charts and diagrams. Placing science charts and diagrams at a student's glance give students quick reference, but also exploratory science experience as they examine the diagrams and digest the information. Here are free printable science charts, diagrams, graphs, posters, graphic organizers, maps to post in your classroom and homeschool. Print science worksheets in black and white and use as science coloring pages. Some free printable life science materials could be used as science worksheets, study guides, puzzles, fill-ins, crosswords, lessons, flashcards and more.

Life science subjects include food chains and food webs, insects, metamorphosis, frog life cycle, leaves, trees, plants, animal classification, habitats and more. Homeschool parents, use these life science activities in lesson plans. Even if your children are not homeschooled, parents, you can use these life science activities as homework helpers. Make science materials available to use as references for their science homework.

EcoKids is an ecology website for kids, students, parents and teachers. This site features online ecology mystery games that students can read and solve. Students must pay close attention and put their knowledge of the ecosystem into practice. Plus, there are free printable biology and life science coloring pages, worksheets, activities and lesson plans for Earth Day and Earth Month!

KidsKonnect has paid and free printable biology and life science worksheets, lesson plans, charts and diagrams. Life science activities are based around environments world wide. Enchanted Learning has a huge collection of free printable life science worksheets, coloring pages, charts and diagrams. There are also general science activities, crafts, mini booklets, puzzles and worksheets.

Ology is a kids' science website from AMNH, the American Museum of Natural History. Get free printable life science coloring pages, worksheets, posters, charts and diagrams galore. There free printable science activities for all earth science, chemistry and physics or physical science. LearningPage has free printable life science coloring pages, cut and paste science crafts, life science worksheets, puzzles, games, charts and diagrams.

TSL Books has free printable life science lesson plans organized by grades. A neat tidy homepage features a left column of links by grade and subject. Each grade page has free printable lesson plans for each subject. This site is free but they do ask that a donation of a few dollars per year will help keep it free.