Easter Triduum printables: Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil activities

The Easter Triduum, including Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Vigil (or Holy Saturday) represents the most sacred days in the Catholic liturgical calendar. I was a homeschool mom in the early 1990s, before the Internet. I made all our curriculum. During Lent, we counted down to Easter with Lenten crafts, lesson plans and activities.

Pope John Paul II spoke of the family as the primary educators of children. He encouraged parents and children to set up altars in their home. Create a niche with votive candles, crucifix and holy relics. Pray with children before the altar.

Use my article to get free printable Catholic Holy Week activities. Help children explore Easter beyond bunnies and Easter eggs. Here are printable Palm Sunday crafts to make with kids. Print donkeys, a palm basket and other child-centered religious lessons.

Pray the Via Dolorosa or Way of the Cross. Use these free printable Stations of the Cross coloring pages. The Stations of the Cross is one of the most important Lenten devotions. On Good Friday, the faithful gather to follow the footsteps of Our Lord to Calvary. These free printable coloring pages form a devotional booklet that helps children understand each station of the cross. You might make your own Stations of the Cross by arranging children's pictures in the hallway (we did this). Or kids' could make outdoor dioramas and arrange in a prayer garden.

Here are more free printable Lenten lesson plans for Holy Week and the Easter Triduum. Use these activities to practice the spiritual exercises of prayer, fasting and alms-giving. You can print games, crafts, devotional exercises and lesson plans. Have children color Bible Easter images. Think coloring is too worldy an activity for the holy season of Easter? Consider this: Children learn by doing. What better way to learn about their faith and experience it more deeply than by doing activities that focus their minds and hearts on God?

Free Printable Ash Wednesday Coloring Pages, Lessons

Catholics celebrate several special religious days, referred to as holy days of obligation. These days center around a Bible event in the life of Jesus or His Blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary. Holy Days are All Saints Day (Nov. 1), Feast of the Immaculate Conception (Dec. 8), Christmas (preceded by the holy season of Advent), Solemnity of Mary (Jan 1), Ash Wednesday (movable feast which kicks of the holy season of Lent and leads up to Easter), Ascension Thursday (movable feast) and the Assumption of Mary (August 15). Here are free printable Catholic coloring pages featuring Bible stories. prayer, sacraments, mass, Gospel, saints, Lent, Advent, holidays and holy days, life of Jesus, Catholic saints' feast days, rosary and stations of the cross. Holy Spirit Interactive many free printable Catholic coloring pages. Print Bible stories to correspond to the rosary's joyful mysteries, sorrowful mysteries and glorious mysteries and luminous mysteries. free printable Catholic Bible coloring pages

You can also print Bible, saints and feast day coloring pages also. First-school has neat organized, cross-referenced lesson plans for Catholic subjects, including feast and holy days, Saints and bible lesson The link takes you to the Feast of the Annunciation (holy day which celebrates visit of the angel Gabriel to Mary, mother of God on March 25). The Annunciation is the first of the Joyful mysteries of the rosary. Here are all First-Schools' free free printable Catholic worksheets,

Catholic Mom is a ginormous repository of free printable Catholic activities, games, lesson plans, puzzles and word searches organized around the Catholic liturgical year. This link takes you to printable Catholic coloring pages based on Sunday mass readings, Bible stories and gospel verses. Use for CCD (religious education), vacation Bible school, Children's Liturgy of the Word and Sunday school. My favorite are the wonderful vintage images from Fr. Lovasik used in the old Catholic Children's Catechism, missal and Children's Bible.

EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network) is a Catholic television and radio station EWTN Kids has Catholic activities, printables and games. You have to register to access but it's free. Check out Catholic Blogger for links to free printable religious coloring pages, Print pictures of Catholic holy days, saints Bible and Christian coloring pages.

Bible Kids has many free printable Bible coloring pages about Jesus, holy days, rosary, saints and Bible stories. Coloring Book Fun has loads of free Christian printables, Bible coloring pages and Catholic activities. There are rosary coloring pages and Stations of the Cross pictures to color. Use these for Catholic school, homeschool, religious ed, CCD, Sunday School, Children's Liturgy of the Word or family devotion time.

Free Printable Holy Week Activities, Lesson Plans

Here are free printable Holy Week activities and Catholic Easter printables. Free printables includes coloring pages, word searches, crossword puzzles, cryptograms, games, crafts, cut and paste activities and much more. There are liturgical resources: prayers, Bible mass readings, reflections, devotions, Lenten lessons on sacrifice, almsgiving, fasting, corporal and spiritual works mercy. There are so many activities in this resource guide, that you will probably not be able to finish these Holy Week activities during Lent or even Eastertide.
Catholic Mom has a free printable Lenten lessons and Holy Week activities in a resource guide. Bookmark Catholic Mom for loads of Catholic printables. Here's a free printable Journey to Pascha workbooks for kids covering the Passion, death, resurrection of Jesus at Easter. Childrens Ministry has free Holy Week activities, craft projects, games, Lenten lessons, family activities and Bible devotions. This link has nearly 100 free printable Bible word searches from Catholic mass reading in the lectionary. These word searches are challenging, interactive and fun! These free printables would make excellent follow up to the mass readings. Here is a very complicated and challenging printable Catholic Easter crossword puzzle. This link has free printable Catholic Easter games and puzzles.

Apples 4 the Teacher has three pages of free printable Catholic Easter coloring pages. Each link has ten free printables for a total of thirty Easter and Holy Week activities. Use these coloring pages for Lenten lessons. Color Jesus, the cross, the tomb, the Eucharist, palms, Bible story pictures and more. DL-TK has free printable Catholic Easter games, Lenten lessons, memory cards, craft projects, coloring pages and word games for Holy Week activities. And for the best online resource in free printable Catholic coloring pages, visit St. John the Baptist Religious Ed. You can print Catholic Easter coloring pages of Stations of the Cross (way of sorrows), Joyful, Sorrowful, Glorious and Sorrowful mysteries of the rosary, Bible stories of Easter, Catholic saints and loads more printables.