Lenten Prayer Chain

With Lent fast approaching (wasn't it just Christmas?) my mind has turned to ways that we can prepare for Easter as a family. I still feel like my girls (at 4 and 6) are kind of young for the "give something up for Lent" idea since they really have no concept of time. Last year we attempted the jellybean idea where they add certain color jellybeans to their jar based on good deeds that they do. It worked for awhile, but I will admit I became bad about remembering to reward them with jellybeans. This year I wanted to focus on our prayer life and adding new ways to pray. A few years ago in my catechism class, I had them make a Lent countdown chain and had them write 40 different people/things they wanted to pray for. I decided we would do the same thing only we would create our chain as a family. This would not only help with adding more prayer to our day, but it would also serve as a countdown for my girls so they could see a visual of how many days we had left until Easter.