One of my goals this Lent is to spend more time in prayer.  My husband gifted me a beautiful set of Anglican prayer beads for Christmas, and the practice of using the beads and ages old prayers, in a rhythmic, defined manner, has made prayer more accessible to me.  And so I am much more inclined to spend time doing it!

As I’ve been keeping them around on my desk areas for use, my charming and curious children have asked me what they are for, and so I decided to make them some of their own.  I was somewhat surprised that they were interested, but we ran with it, and came up with these simple circlets for their use.

These can be made out of anything, and would be a fun Lenten family activity, or perhaps a surprise in their Easter basket?  Use what you have on hand; plastic pony beads in two colors on a piece of yarn would work just fine. The important thing is to place your beads in this form:

For each of the four separate categories of bead on the chain, a different prayer is said.  I have formatted a handful of these prayers as printables for the children to use with their beads.  If you have children who can read, this would make for a great read-aloud practice. Use them as a family, and have the kids take turns each reading one of the four parts.

Kids Prayer Cards

As always, adapt it to your family’s needs; sometimes this means waiting for a bit more maturity down the road!