The Rosary for Little Ones

Don't miss this post by Kimberlee at Pondered in My Heart for a wonderful idea to help small children pray the Rosary. Realising how easy it is for little hands to lose track of beads, even the large size ones, she made a set of crocheted roses. Her little girls keep count of the prayers by moving the roses from one basket to another. A set of rosary cards colour coded according to the mysteries gives them another hands-on focus.

Mysteries of the Rosary Coloring Pages

I've always loved to color. I loved the whole experience of opening the box of Crayola Crayons, enjoying their distinctive scent, and then choosing the colors and coloring the pictures.

My son (age 4) isn't always very enthusiastic about the process of coloring. I do think it has to do with him being a boy, as my nieces could color for hours. But my son does enjoy the pictures. I print out many pages around the year and discuss them with him. If he decides to color the page, I let him use different mediums besides crayons, like paints, markers, colored pencils, glitter glue--he loves to experiment. Scissors and a single hole puncher also put a different spin on coloring pages -- cutting out portions of the colored picture.

But whether or not he colors the image, it still makes a lasting impression on him. I have made a simple little 3-hole-binder of different coloring pages for the Liturgical Year. Some pages he has colored, others we just punch and he thumbs through the binder. We look at past coloring, see the progression of skills, and discuss the religious images.

Years ago I found a wonderful rosary coloring book, dated from 1949. I've now scanned the images and shared the coloring pages from The Rosary Color Book on my blog. I find the drawings of the mysteries by Ettore Fattori are unique and quite beautiful. I hope you enjoy them as much as we have.

(Since the Luminous Mysteries are a newer addition, they are not included in the original booklet.)

Rosary Boxes

The idea of a Rosary Box is to fill a box with small items representing the Mysteries of the Rosary. These can then be used by small children either to follow along with older members of the family praying the Rosary, or to introduce the Mysteries at the child's own level. Even quite young toddlers enjoy these boxes, which make the Biblical events tangible for them.

A commenter asked earlier what to put in a Rosary Box. You can find a list of suggested items here, along with a downloadable file for printing a set of Rosary cards.