First Sunday of Lent- Bread and Stone

We found this lesson online and decided to use it as the basis of our first lesson in Lent.

http://www.silk.net/RelEd/011299plan.htm

It is called "Bread and Stones: Preparation for Penitential Celebration" on www.silk.net- Resources for Religous Educators. The suggested age was third grade and up, so we slightly modified the text as we were reading aloud the speaking parts to make sure the kids were following.

We followed the directions of the lesson, brining in a rock and a loaf of french bread. Following our pre-activity as the kids came in (a coloring sheet from www.catholicmom.com on Ash Wednesday, http://www.christiancoloring.com/cmpdf2006/ash_wednesday.pdf .

We started the lesson in our circle on the floor with our liturgical seasons mat, this time with the candle in the purple square, and discussed the new season of lent, moving from ordinary time, and preparing for Holy Week and Easter through our lenten activities.

We then used the reading from the Bread and Stones lesson plan, with my husband and I alternating the parts. The kids were able to follow along just fine, and having the props of the bread and stone really seemed to give them something to focus on while we were reading aloud.

After we were done with the reading, we discussed with the group which they would like to be like- bread or stone- during lent as in the lesson plan.

We then worked on a craft, which was heart cut out of a full sheet of red paper, with a rock on one side (gray paper cut into a rock shape by the kids) and bread on the other (brown paper cut into a loaf shape by the kids). We snacked on the french bread while they worked on the project.

As a final activity, we purchased enough mini popsicle sticks for each child to have 40. We had them color them purple with crayons, and then played a simple counting game....one child placed anywhere between 1-9 sticks in the center of the circle, the next child had to place the number of sticks to make a total of ten, which were then bundled with a rubber band. We continued until we had 4 bundles, or forty, and practiced counting by tens to get to forty, then discussed why we would have picked purple for our sticks (color of lent) and the number 40 (days in lent). Each kid went home with 40 sticks to play with their brothers and sisters...interesting this activity kept our five year old busy the rest of the day.