Lenten Lesson Plan

During today's class, we focused on how "our sins are like thorns being added to Jesus' crown of thorns" during his suffering on Good Friday.  

As an example of how "sin stains our souls", I used two bowls and two eggs.  

In one bowl, I cracked one egg and mixed it up.  

The second bowl had clean fresh water in it.  

I held up the clean unbroken egg and told them "this clean egg represented our souls that were wiped clean from Original Sin at our baptism". 

 As we grow up, we commit sins and if we do not repent and ask God's forgiveness, 

our soul looks like:

It didn't come out clear in the picture but it was yellow and slimy. Their reaction, "eewww!" 

Perhaps next time, I will add a food dye to make it more of a visual impact.

After we repent from our sins and ask for God's forgiveness, 

He wipes our souls clean in His divine mercy.

(I was unable to take pictures during our demonstration in class, 

so I reenacted the steps with my son.)

We spent a good portion of class talking about sins, the difference between a mistake and a purposeful sin and then, we brainstormed activities we could do 

to get our focus off of ourselves and onto others.

Next, I gave each child a small grapevine wreath and brown painted toothpicks to make their own crown of thorns to use during Lent.  After our brainstorming activity, I told them that when they performed an act of charity, a good deed, a sacrifice or offered up a prayer; 

they were to remove one thorn from Jesus' crown.

In an attempt to teach these words to my students, I had created Lenten words on a handwriting worksheet from ESL Writing Wizard and had my students practice writing out the words 

as we talked about them.

I next showed them an excerpt from Greatest Heroes Legends, The Miracles of Jesus DVD 

when Jesus healed people and forgave them their sins.

Source

Through Jennifer's Lenten Link up over at Catholic Inspired, I "met"
Regina from A Living Garden and she has some great ideas to celebrate Lent.
I especially liked her Ash Wednesday bookmarks that she offers to her readers.
 I downloaded it and printed it on purple cardstock for my students.

Lastly, we ended our class with story time.  I read to my class The Tale of the Three Trees by Angela Elwell Hunt.  They were really engaged to learn what happened to the three trees.  It's a great story of how God can use you in special ways, even if you are a tree!


It was a good class and I feel their understanding of how their own actions affect Jesus.
I told them our goal is to shower others with kindness because
Jesus' crown will be "lightened", and He will be smiling brightly with love at us.

I've linked this post up over at Jennifer's Catholic Inspired Lenten Link Up.  

Blessings,

Noreen