Have you ever considered specific Holy Week Homeschool activities? During Holy Week, you may find it helpful to shift your homeschool activities, routines, and rhythms. One of the blessings of homeschooling is emphasizing the material that you would like to pass on to your children!
In order to pass on the faith to our children well, we must make practicing the faith a lifestyle that permeates every aspect of our lives – including our homeschools.
So, it is only natural to make Holy Week feel a little different from our normal routines. Take a break from your “normal” lessons or use these ideas to enhance each subject.
In this article, I will give you a daily outline of Holy Week Homeschool activities and subjects that you can cover.
These tips will help your family prepare for the holiest season of the liturgical year – the Holy Triduum as well as the most glorious season of all: Easter!
Be sure to also check out this post on more Lent Activities for Littles.
You can also sign up for my FREE Ebook with all of the links, tips, and tricks mentioned in this article. The ebook also includes printable worksheets for Sunday through Thursday of Holy Week so be sure to grab this awesome resource!
Table of Contents
Holy Week Homeschool Activities
Besides incorporating the Lent pillars of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, I will show you how to incorporate the following subjects into your Holy Week Homeschool Activities. First, let’s start with religion, reading, writing, and spelling:
- Religion – It’s easy to teach the faith to our children during Holy Week! There are so many services to attend and devotions to partake in as a family.
- Reading – Each child can read or listen to a favorite bible for daily reading.
- Writing (Copywork and dictation)- Have your children copy passages from the daily readings. You can also dictate passages to them and have them write them down.
- Spelling – After reviewing your child’s copywork, make a list of spelling words for them to work on and give them a test at the end of the week.
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More Holy Week Homeschool Activities and Subjects
Now, we will discuss how to enrich art, music, math, science, history, and geography during Holy Week:
- Art – Art is simple to incorporate into this beautiful week! I have lots of ideas for crafts and even some drawing lessons for your family.
- Music – When you pray the stations of the cross this week, you are singing! Learn the Stabat Mater this week for music class. I have other ideas and hymns to recommend as well.
- Math – God allows us to understand His beautiful world through math, so it’s only natural to incorporate it into this week.
- Science – This week, we can learn about the science of the Judean date seed (the primary fruit produced by the palm trees of Jesus’ time). We will also learn about the properties of oil and balsam – the materials used to make the Sacred Chrism and other oils that are blessed at the Holy Chrism Mass!
- Bible history – Reviewing and discussing the daily readings will more than cover this topic!
- Geography – We can look at maps of the Holy Land, Jerusalem, and surrounding areas to cover Geography.
What is Palm Sunday?
The Catholic Church kicks off Holy week with Palm Sunday.
You will notice the priest’s vestments are red to signify Our Lord’s Passion that is about to take place this week.
At Mass, the congregation usually receives blessed palm leaves to wave as the procession enters the sanctuary. This is to remind us of Jesus’ joyful entrance into Jerusalem on His donkey.
You can (and should!) make a big deal of Palm Sunday in your home and remind your children that this is the start of a very special week.
First, you can READ the Palm Sunday readings as a family before Mass. Have older children take turns reading with you. Be prepared for the (extra long!) Gospel reading. It is important to prepare your children that this week’s Gospel will be a little longer than normal. I suggest bringing a few crayons and coloring pages and maybe a new Holy Week book or two for your littlest Catholics in case they get antsy.
Palm Sunday Holy Week Homeschool Activties
Here are some more activities to do as a family on Palm Sunday. If you don’t finish them all today, feel free to spread them throughout the week!
- Learn about the SCIENCE of Judean date seeds (see History/Geography section below)
- MUSIC: Listen to these Gregorian Chants for Palm Sunday.
- ART: Learn how to draw a Palm Branch
- HISTORY/GEOGRAPHY:
– Complete this Montessori style activity with your little ones. Older children can be the teachers and lead the lesson for their younger siblings.
-Learn about Archaeologists finding a 2,000 year old Judean date
-Use an Atlas to find Israel and Morocco on a map after watching the date video - Have Palm “Sundaes” for Dessert! Sprinkle some chopped dates on top!
Holy Monday Holy Week Homeschool Activities
Holy Monday is a great day to prepare for the remainder of the week. Here are some practical tasks to complete on Holy Monday, and how learning is all around us!
- READ the daily Mass readings and discuss.
- Attend daily Mass.
- WRITE down a passage or line of scripture from the readings.
- Start a list of unfamiliar words to learn to SPELL. Learn their definitions too.
- Plan your family’s meals for the week. Need some ideas for simple and meatless meals? Be sure to sign up for my EBook of Meatless Lent Recipes below! The meal plan includes Good Friday (a day of fasting and abstinence) and Holy Saturday (recommended day of fasting and abstinence)! Get the kids involved by having them WRITE a grocery list.
- Take a family trip to the grocery store and do some grocery MATH. For example:
-Have children determine which brands or types of produce are the cheapest
-Have children practice rounding prices to find the total cost (mental math)
-Have children weigh produce to determine the weight in ounces and/or pounds
-Have them do some ALMSGIVING by helping you carry in the groceries and put them away. - Do a Stations of the Cross Eggs ART CRAFT to use for PRAYER throughout the week.
- MUSIC: Listen to the Stabat Mater in English or Latin.
- Complete any activities you didn’t get to do on Palm Sunday, and/or allow older students to further research topics of interest.
Holy Tuesday Holy Week Homeschool Activities
- READ the daily Mass readings and discuss.
- Attend daily Mass.
- WRITE down a passage or line of scripture from the readings.
- Continue list of unfamiliar words to learn to SPELL. Learn their definitions too.
- Even though these say “Easter Math”, they work well for Holy Week MATH since (spoiler alert) the final picture is a picture of the crosses on Calvary. They allow children to practice addition, subtraction, multiplication AND division so they work well for many grades!
- HISTORY/GEOGRAPHY: Build a model of Jerusalem out of blocks and learn about key locations where Jesus was during Holy Week. This has a bonus Sacred ART Lesson included! You can see all the versions with different blocks below.
- Do a Resurrection Eggs ART craft to teach children about Holy Week.
- MUSIC: Listen to the Stabat Mater in English or Latin.
- Complete any preparations for the rest of the week.
- Complete any other activities from the previous days.
Spy Wednesday Holy Week Homeschool Activities
- READ the daily Mass readings and discuss.
- Attend daily Mass or attend a Tenebrae Service
- WRITE down a passage or line of scripture from the readings.
- Continue list of unfamiliar words to learn to SPELL. Learn their definitions too.
- Practice your money MATH. Hide 30 silver coins to remind us of the ones that Judas was given to betray Jesus.
-For younger children, simply have them practice counting the nickels, dimes, and or quarter.
-For older preschoolers and younger elementary students, have them identify and sort the nickels, dimes, and quarters.
-For a challenge, have children count up the money. Give each child different amounts to practice their money counting skills.
-Practice skip counting by 5s, 10s, and 25s.
-For older children have them practice their multiplication skills by sorting coins and practice multiplying by 5, 10, and 25.
-Practice figuring out 10% for different amounts of money and discuss tithing. - Give ALMS by saving the coins and having your children donate them to a the poor box the next time you are at a church.
- ART: Learn to draw Judas’ money bag
- MUSIC: Listen to the Stabat Mater in English or Latin.
Maundy Thursday Holy Week Homeschool Activities
In the Catholic Church, Maundy Thursday (or Holy Thursday) kicks off the most holy liturgical season of the year – the Holy Triduum. This day is extremely important to Catholics because Christ instituted two very important Sacraments on Holy Thursday: the priesthood (Holy Orders) and the Eucharist.
- READ the Mass readings and discuss. You may choose the readings for the Chrism Mass and/or the readings for the Mass of the Lord’s Supper.
- Attend daily Mass or attend and learn about the Chrism Mass. The Chrism Mass is traditionally celebrated on Holy Thursday, but some dioceses celebrate the Mass on a different day during Holy Week. Be sure to check your local schedules.
- Attend and learn about the Mass of the Lord’s Supper. We will be entering into the Holy Triduum tonight! Learn more about Maundy Thursday with children here.
- WRITE down a passage or line of scripture from the readings.
- Give your child a SPELLING test of all the words he or she collected this week.
- Learn about the SCIENCE of olive oil and balsam (the components of Holy Chrism).
- Do a Last Supper egg carton ART craft, and learn about Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper painting.
- MUSIC: Listen to Tantum Ergo and learn about St. Thomas Aquinas writing the lyrics for this piece.
Good Friday Holy Week Homeschool Activities
You may consider taking a break from any formal schoolwork on Good Friday in order to use this day to focus on the death of Our Lord on the cross.
Good Friday is the day Our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified and died for our sins. It is good because He did this out of selfless and complete love for us.
On Good Friday, allow time for rest and quiet time for littles, and time for reflection and prayer for you and your older children. Here are the readings for Good Friday to reflect on.
Start the day with traditional Hot Cross Buns.
You may wish to put together the easy but powerful Good Friday Scriptural Lunch that allows for the big people to fast, and allows everyone to hear Holy Week scripture together. Have older children help prepare the meal and read the scripture. Each food symbolizes a different part of scripture. It’s a really well done activity!
Be sure to grab my FREE Lent Recipe Ebook for a meal plan that includes Good Friday which is a day of fasting and abstinence from meat.
ART: You could also have your child make a Stations of the Cross booklet.
Here are some special devotions and services happening the the Church. Be sure to check you parish for what they are offering! You can also adapt any or all of these to pray at home.
- Veneration of the Cross
- Stations of the Cross
- Start the Divine Mercy Chaplet Novena
Holy Saturday
Holy Saturday rounds out the Holy Triduum.
This is a highly solemn day for Catholics since it follows Good Friday and is the day that Jesus lie dead in the tomb.
His Blessed Mother was likely mourning the loss of her Son, but she trusted the Resurrection would come as He said it would.
We should also keep the solemn nature of this day in our homes by continuing to clean and prepare for the glorious feast of Easter!
Easter will begin tonight at the Easter Vigil! If you can get your family to the Vigil, I highly recommend it! Here are the readings for the Easter Vigil.
During the day, you can do some quiet SCIENCE and ART projects. Dyeing and decorating Easter eggs for tomorrow’s feast will cover both of these subjects. You could try making some of your own natural dyes with natural materials you may already have. Experiment with different amounts of each food and different dye times. Here is a ready made kit to order as well to make this even easier.
This is also an awesome kit to learn about the legend of St. Mary Magdalen’s red egg!
Have leftover dye? Use it to make tie dye crosses!
Finish the night by reading scripture while your children (safely) taste the ingredients of these Resurrection Cookies! Pair these with your decorated hard boiled eggs for part of your Easter breakfast!
Now, we seal our cookies in the “tomb,” wait, and rest. Easter is almost here!
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