Lent is closer than you may think!

Easter is early this year which means Lent begins in just two weeks and it will be time to give up our luxuries until Easter. An Advent calendar prepares us for the birth of Jesus and makes the countdown to Christmas all the more exciting. The time between the beginning of Lent and Easter is a much longer wait so creating a Lenten calendar will give you something to look forward to every day.

Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday and Easter Week may be the key events of Easter but the days in between can be celebrated also. For a Lenten calendar, fill a box with facts, trivia and activities to keep you occupied throughout Lent. Lent begins with Ash Wednesday but you can prepare your calendar in time for Shrove Tuesday as it has its significance towards the meaning of Lent. Include the story behind Pancake Tuesday with a recipe for pancakes to fry and flip on the day.

Test your knowledge of Easter and include questions based around Jesus’ time in the desert; the Last Supper; what happened in the garden of Gesthemane; what the symbol of the Easter egg means and what the ashes we receive on Ash Wednesday are made from. You can write many more and add to your Lenten calendar box during Lent.

With your family or even your classmates, compete against each other and keep score of everyone’s answers to each question. Award points for whoever answers a question correctly first. Add up the points and the overall score and have a small prize giving ceremony on the Saturday before Easter Sunday.

Activities

Include activities to do each weekend such as egg painting, sewing pompoms together to make into woolly lambs, cutting out rabbit bunting from colourful paper, take a walk in the woods with your family and organise a major Easter egg hunt.

You don’t need to number each activity or trivia question according to the date. Once you’ve written down all your questions and activities, roll them up into scrolls, place inside the box and choose one at random each day.

For important days like Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday, place an object which best represents each day into the box. For example, you can place a small palm branch inside to represent Palm Sunday. When each day arrives, take out the object representing it and write down what you know about that celebration.