New Lady Lent Printable (Kyra Sarakosti)

I made a new Lady Lent printable for our elementary church school class. We have several families who have not observed Lent before, so I wanted to make sure her meaning was very clear. (I think she's super fun, but I know some people think she's just weird!) I made the example above to demonstrate for my class in case we don't have time to cut out the legs in class, and will perhaps demonstrate tearing off a leg. 

I made a few changes, including the poem, to make clear that Lady Lent personifies:

1) fasting  - in addition to having no mouth, we will decorate her skirt with foods the kids eat during Lent after an activity about fasting.

2) prayer - in addition to the crossed arms on her chest, I added the Jesus Prayer to the right side of the page to discuss in class. 

3) almsgiving -  I added the last stanza to the poem to include "good deeds." We will also glue an apron onto her skirt, creating a flap we can lift to write our secret almsgiving plans. I used to do an almsgiving planning activity with my kids, in which I asked them to think of at least one act of kindness they could do each week for different people. When they were finished, we talked about giving in secret, and folded the papers in half to keep their plans private. I thought we could simply incorporate that into our Lady Lent

Grab the jpg above, or the pdf printable is below. The second page includes extra aprons for classes, if needed. 

And here's my edited version of the poem:

Lady Lent, no mouth has she,
She little talks nor eats

Upon her chest, her crossed arms rest,
all day Christ she entreats.

And seven feet, no more, no less
she has to count the weeks.

Each Saturday we cut away

one of her seven feet.

She reminds us that we fast and pray
And try to do good deeds.

We do these throughout Lent

to get ready for the Feast.

[We'll still make a big one at home because my older kids don't want to be left out of our Lady Sarakosti tradition. We usually make ours out of construction paper, and we use most of a whole sheet for the skirt and body, plus the head and legs  - so that she ends up being about three sheets of paper tall.] 

Great Lent Printables (Calendar, Lady Lent, and Services Cards)

I made some new printables for the kids at our church last week, and wanted to share.

First, is a new version of my older Lenten Calendar - the difference is that this one is made with cartoons I drew myself (and the previous one used the line drawings from the OCA education website), but also I made a second page with stamps of many of the other services of Lent. You can either paste them in to match your church's service schedule, or earn stamps as you attend services. I'm not sure how I'll use them this year, but here they are:





I drew a Lady Lent that includes the poem:

And finally I made these cards of services of Great Lent. I made these specifically to create a bulletin board for our church kids. I printed the first page (which has the Sunday's of Lent) full size, but I printed pages 2 and 3 at 50% so that the cards are smaller. Its basically a green winding path with the large Sunday cards spaced evenly throughout, and the smaller weekday cards inserted where they belong on the calendar. I also cut out a small black figure of Lady Sarakosti, and the children and I will move her along the path through Lent. 

You could probably come up with other uses for these cards - let me know if you do!

Bulletin board!