This topic is collecting "more" great ideas for teaching children about Lent and the Lenten stories. Post yours!

Related topics in our Lent Resource Forum:

• List of specific Bible stories to teach during Lent with links to their forums here at Rotation.org
• Favorite Ideas for Lent and Holy Week: A recap of our January 2023 Zoom Seminar
• LENT: Ideas, Lessons, and Resources for Lenten teaching at home, outdoors, and in small groups
• Lenten Programs, Meals, Last Supper, Seder

Ash Wednesday "Soap" Ideas

"Create in me a clean heart"

Lectionary passage: Psalm 51:10

"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me".

Oddly enough, old-fashioned handmade soap is made from ashes. I wouldn't make it that way for kids because the ash-soap making produces lye which can be caustic, but making your own soap with ashes was the way many of our ancestors did it. Interesting how ashes can be associated with cleaning/cleansing, penitence and mourning.

IDEA 1: Kids create "clean heart soap" to take home

1. Shred bars of ivory soap in a food processor (don't worry, it cleans up nice and clean!)
2. Reform shredded soap into "soap balls" using a little bit of water.
3. Roll out soap between two sheets of wax paper using a rolling pin.
4. Press into shapes/cookie cutters. Heart shapes, gingerbread (me) shapes. etc.
5. Press-draw letters/words from the verse into the soap surface about 1/4" using tip of a plastic knife.

Soap can be colored in advance or after it is rolled out using soap gel colors (search online, such as Amazon).

Experiment "rolling ropes" of different colored soap together then rolling flat and cutting into shapes.

Add "soap sprinkles" to the soap as you talk about the Fruit of the "right Spirit within you."

See photos of the process at https://kidfriendlythingstodo....riendly-thing-to-do/

IDEA 2: Make Soap Paint

To Make Soap Paint you need,

3 parts Pure Soap Flakes combined with 1 – 2 parts Water  (you want your Soap Paint to begin as a sloppy consistency as the soap will soak up the water), then just mix in a few squirts of Washable Kids Paint or Soap Gels made for coloring soap.

IDEA 3: "Psaint" the Psalm with "Psoap"

Ingredients

I wonder what soap-paint would look like painted onto a "sponge" to go home?