Celebrating The Feast Day Of Mother Teresa (St. Teresa Of Calcutta)

Mother Teresa is such an amazing modern Saint to teach kids about, and her popularity is hard to top! Catholics and non Catholics alike celebrate this amazing woman and acknowledge her many accomplishments and good deeds all over the world! St. Teresa of Calcutta’s feast day comes around each year on September 5. When you’re observing Catholic feast days with kids, this is definitely one you don’t want to miss. Let’s take a look at some ideas for celebrating the feast day of Mother Teresa with kids. 

Mother Teresa “Cheat Sheet”

St. Teresa of Calcutta is such an amazing Saint that she will be hard to sum up in a short list of bullet points, but I’ll try for you!

• Known as both Mother Teresa and St. Teresa of Calcutta
• Nun
• Modern Saint, living from 1910 – 1997
• Foundress of the Missionaries of Charity (ministered to the poorest of the poor)
• Won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979
• Won many prestigious awards from Indian and the United States for her work
• Beatified by St. Pope John Paul II in 2003
• Canonized by Pope Francis in 2016

Ok, I think we are ready to look at some ways to celebrate St. Teresa of Calcutta with kids! 

St. Teresa Of Calcutta Picture Books For Kids

Of course, we should always begin by teaching the children about the life of the Saint we are celebrating. I usually find it easiest to read to the children about the Saint from a book or watch a video on the life of the Saint. Let’s take a look at some helpful resourcs you can use with your kids.

When you’re starting to teach your kids about the lives of the Saints, I suggest starting with a Saint picture book treasury that includes a lot of short stories you can read together. This will give you a good starting place and then you can add to your library of Saint books over the years. I think this Picture Book Of Saints is a good beginning Saint book for Catholic families. If you have this book, you can find Mother Teresa’s story on page 130.

If you have been following along in my notebooking page series for Tell Me About The Catholic Faith, then you have a page in that book about Mother Teresa! Don’t miss it!

If you have my Catholic notebooking page pack, there is also a Mother Teresa page in there.

St. Teresa Of Calcutta Videos For Kids

Brother Francis has a free video for kids about Mother Theresa on YouTube here.

More free Mother Teresa animated videos for kids:

• A short 2 minute video about Mother Teresa from The Pope Francis Minute
• Christian Kids also has a Mother Teresa video for kids. It’s 25 minutes long. If you have younger kids, they might sit through this one.
• And here is an hour and a half long animated video for kids about Mother Teresa. 

Activities For Celebrating Mother Teresa’s Feast Day

We can honor Mother Teresa’s life by continuing her legacy of helping the poor! Do some research and see what you and your kids could do for your own community such as volunteering at a food bank or soup kitchen, helping anyone you know who might be sick, collecting clothes for the homeless, etc. Mother Teresa was dedicated to helping the poorest of the poor, and encouraged all of use to do the same!

I have a post all about how to do the Corporal Works of Mercy here.

St. Teresa Of Calcutta Crafts For Kids

You can use the templates inside of my Saint Puppet Ebook to create any Saint you wish, Mother Teresa included! My kids have always loved paper bag puppets, and I have used this craft again and again. 

My kids absolutely adore Saint peg dolls, and they have hands down been the most played with toy in our home among 4 children! I have Mother Teresa included in my set of printable peg dolls. All you have to do is paint the head, and the body decoupages on around the peg. So easy!

Here is a video showing how to printable Mother Teresa peg doll goes together:

Have ya’ll seen the Sew-A-Saint dolls? These are so fun and as easy as sewing a pillow with kids! My girls love when I take the time to sew with them, and they absolutely adore these dolls that they made themselves. Here are my girls with theirs. You can order the Mother Teresa Sew a Saint doll here. 

I also have this Mother Teresa peg doll that is made with felt, and you can see how I made several other orders on nuns on that post as well.

I also absolutely love this simple Mother Teresa paper plate craft. Isn’t it so cute?! If anyone knows where this image originated, please leave it in the comments.

If you’re in a super fun mood, I have step by step directions here for creating your very own Mother Teresa costume! This is so fun and was an absolutely favorite of ours!

Mother Teresa Printables For Kids

Real Life At Home has a Mother Teresa printable pack for preschoolers that you can download for just $3.25 and it looks super cute!

If you go over to Look To Him And Be Radiant, she has a ton of free resources for St. Teresa of Calcutta, including these adorable Mother Teresa quote coloring pages!

She also has this coloring page of Mother Teresa along with several other free printables and ideas, so I highly suggest that you check out his post!

Fun St. Teresa Of Calcutta Food Ideas

Check out these easy to make Mother Teresa vanilla Jell-o pie! You don’t even have to bake it, and isn’t is adorable?

Famous Mother Teresa Quotes

I am just such a huge admirer or some of Mother Teresa’s quotes, and somehow this post just didn’t feel complete without including a few of my favorites! 

• “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”
• “If you can’t feed 100 people, then just feed 1.”
• “The most terrible poverty is lonliness, and the feeling of being unloved.”
• “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”
• “Do not wait for leaders- do it alone, person to person.”
• “Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.”
• “I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.”