I’ve been trying to teach my kids about the Stations of the Cross this Lent, and it’s going really well! I came up with these Stations of the Cross eggs, and I’m so excited about them!!! This is by far the best hands on way I have ever found to teach preschoolers how to pray the Stations of the Cross, and we use them year after year. You can find all of my Stations of the Cross resources for kids here. Let me show you how you can make your own Stations of the Cross eggs for Catholic kids!
I love these Stations of the Cross eggs, which are kind of a Catholic version of what you see as “Resurrection Eggs”. These are so much more purposeful in my opinion! I love them. After you put them together, you can also use them as a Montessori Stations of the Cross activity for preschoolers. You can see exactly how I do that in the video below.
Disclaimer! Take every precaution when working with preschoolers to make sure they can’t choke on anything or harm themselves in any way.
Check out my new video about how to make these eggs!
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Printable Stations Of The Cross Eggs
I now have a printable version of Stations of the Cross Eggs! These could be substituted if you don’t have the time or resources to put this set together, but they’re also a great pairing with this set! It comes with a printable list of how to put your own set together and also decorations for your egg carton that you can attach with a glue stick. The best part is, this is totally free for subscribers of Catholic Icing to print!
Choose How Many Stations Eggs You’re Making
You can either build your stations of the cross eggs in a 1 dozen carton, or in an 18 egg carton (dozen and a half).
- 1 dozen Stations of the Cross eggs– the 3 falls are combined into 1 egg, which I placed at the first time Jesus falls. This makes for 12 stations, fitting them nicely into a regular egg carton.
- 18 egg carton Stations of the Cross eggs– all 14 stations are individual eggs, plus there are 3 “Lenten eggs” that say “prayer, fast, give”, and 1 space where you can represent the resurrection.
DIY 18 Egg Stations Set
Because there are 14 stations and only 12 eggs in a dozen, I used an egg carton that holds 18 eggs. For the first 14 (for the stations) I used purple eggs with the numbers drawn on top with a sharpie. Then I used a yellow egg for the resurrection (because I wanted this to be included, but not to look like a part of the stations of the cross). There were 3 spaces left in the carton, so I added Lenten eggs labeled “pray, fast, give alms”. For these eggs, I put in a rosary for prayer, a goldfish cracker for fasting, and some coins for almsgiving. I wanted these eggs to be a different color than the stations of the cross eggs, so we went with blue.
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I was lucky enough to find these Stations of the Cross stickers at the Dollar Tree! Aren’t they awesome?!
I got a package of little wooden hearts at Michael’s for under $3 and painted them red. On one side I put our stations of the cross stickers, and on the back of the hearts I wrote what each station is.
Each one of our stations of the cross eggs has one heart, and one symbol for that station. You can use these as an activity for the children to match up the symbols, or you can just use them to go through the Stations of the Cross one at a time. I plan on taking ours to church when we attend stations of the cross so my kids can follow along.
A Dozen Stations Of The Cross Eggs For Preschoolers
I also wanted to make these with the kids in my preschool class, and I needed them to fit into a regular dozen eggs. I was able to do that by combining all 3 falls into 1 egg. (We used band-aids to symbolize the falls, so I just labeled the band-aids “1,2,3” and shoved them into one egg and labeled it for all 3 stations where Jesus falls, which are 3, 7, and 9. I had the kids put the stations of the cross stickers on the outside of their eggs (although you could totally do this without the stickers at all).
Making all the pieces for 8 different sets of these was more of an undertaking than I originally anticipated, but it was so worth it!
Symbols For The Stations Of The Cross
Here is a list of what I came up with to represent each Station of the Cross in an easy affordable way, and also based on what can fit into an egg.
Station 1: Jesus is condemned to death. Piece of string for binding Jesus’ hands.
Station 2: Jesus carries his cross. Popsicle sticks are cut down with scissors and glued into a cross shape.
Station 3: Jesus falls for the first time. A band-aid.
Station 2: Jesus carries his cross. Popsicle sticks are cut down with scissors and glued into a cross shape.
Station 3: Jesus falls for the first time. A band-aid.
Station 4: Jesus meets his mother. A Miraculous Metal, which has Mary on it. (For my preschool class, we used small wooden hearts with a Mary sticker on them. You could also paint a Mary peg doll, use a rosary, or even just use a small blue piece of felt to symbolize Mary).
Station 5: Simon helps Jesus carry his cross. A hand-shaped button hand for Simon being a “helping hand”. (You could also just cut out a hand shape from paper).
Station 6: Veronica wipes Jesus’ face. A scrap of fabric with Jesus’ face sketched on it.
Station 7: Jesus falls the second time.Another band-aid.
Station 5: Simon helps Jesus carry his cross. A hand-shaped button hand for Simon being a “helping hand”. (You could also just cut out a hand shape from paper).
Station 6: Veronica wipes Jesus’ face. A scrap of fabric with Jesus’ face sketched on it.
Station 7: Jesus falls the second time.Another band-aid.
Station 8: Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem. A tissue to dry their tears.
Station 9: Jesus falls the third time. Another band-aid.
Station 10: Jesus is stripped of his garments. A small garment cut from felt with a piece of embroidery floss tied around it. (This doesn’t have to be all “cutesy” like our garments- it could just be a square piece of felt).
Station 11: Jesus is nailed to the cross. A nail. (I actually bought a big box of masonry nails at my hardware store because I love how square and old-fashioned they looked. The perfect “Jesus nails”!)
Station 9: Jesus falls the third time. Another band-aid.
Station 10: Jesus is stripped of his garments. A small garment cut from felt with a piece of embroidery floss tied around it. (This doesn’t have to be all “cutesy” like our garments- it could just be a square piece of felt).
Station 11: Jesus is nailed to the cross. A nail. (I actually bought a big box of masonry nails at my hardware store because I love how square and old-fashioned they looked. The perfect “Jesus nails”!)
Station 12: Jesus dies on the cross. A small plastic crucifix is usually used to make rosaries.
Station 13: Jesus is taken down from the cross. A picture of Michelangelo’s Pieta. (I just printed pictures from the internet and laminated them with packing tape).
Station 14: Jesus is laid in the tomb. A rock- for sealing the tomb. (I did have some actual decorative stones from Dollar Tree, but you could easily use a piece of gravel or something from your yard).
Station 13: Jesus is taken down from the cross. A picture of Michelangelo’s Pieta. (I just printed pictures from the internet and laminated them with packing tape).
Station 14: Jesus is laid in the tomb. A rock- for sealing the tomb. (I did have some actual decorative stones from Dollar Tree, but you could easily use a piece of gravel or something from your yard).
If you want to read more about the Stations of the Cross, you can find out everything you ever needed to know about them at my Stations of the Cross 101 post here.
Lydia helped me laminate all our Pietas with some packing tape!
Here’s one of our masonry nails.
These garments didn’t actually take long to cut from felt at all! Just
double over a long rectangle, cut a head hole, and tie on some string.
I wanted to have the kids color the popsicle stick crosses with a
brown marker, but we didn’t have time.
Salvage a broken rosary if you don’t have any crucifixes on hand.
These actually took longer to put together with my preschool class than I thought it would, so I ended up letting them eat animal crackers while we worked. (All the kids in my class are only 2).
I let them put their own Mary stickers on the heart for the 4th station.
For the set at preschool, there were 2 stickers left over at the end (the extra “falls”) so we used them to decorate the outside of their egg cartons. For our set at home, we painted the egg carton purple and decoupaged a Stations of the cross label on. This actually turned out nicer than I was expecting. The mod podge made the egg carton seem almost like plastic. If you’re going to paint your carton, I would suggest using a cardboard carton (not Styrofoam) and using tempera paint. It was pretty time-consuming to paint the egg carton, which is why I only painted the top. It would have been nice to have some spray paint so I could do the whole thing purple. We used purple since that’s the liturgical color of Lent.
In the yellow egg for the resurrection, I put in an angel. We actually happened to have this weird Grow Your Own Guardian Angel thing. It actually fits very nicely into our yellow egg when it’s small. 🙂
In resurrection egg sets, the last egg is empty to symbolize the empty tomb on Easter morning. That’s a great idea, but I honestly feel like it’s a little disappointing for kids to get to the last egg and *gasp*!… nothing’s in it. So I really like having the angel in ours. You can get little wooden angels at Michael’s, or you could also symbolize an angel with a white feather from an “angel wing”. Or you could leave your Easter egg empty- totally up to you. I also considered putting candy inside and taping it shut, not to be opened until Easter.
Decorate Your Egg Carton
Don’t forget to grab your free printable Stations of the Cross eggs pack and get your decorations for the outside of your egg carton! It’s so fast and easy to do and it makes a huge difference in the display!
These eggs really are a great tool for teaching your kids about the stations of the cross! They’re fun, they’re hands-on, and the egg delivery makes them appealing during this Easter prep time. We’ve really enjoyed these!
You’ll find all of my Lenten resources for kids here
Silly rabbit! Easter is for Jesus!!!
You can find all of my Christ-centered resources for Easter here.
Make it about the lamb, not the bunny!
Thanks for your inspiration. Love all the great ideas I get from your blog, plus all the links! Blessings to you and yours.
Super awesome job, Lacy! I'll be linking to this for sure on one of my round-ups… eventually. :>) (I admire your ability to get things posted!) I'm clicking through to see your Catholic Resurrection Eggs next – my sister-in-law got a set for my daughter last Easter and I was bummed that they strongly noted that we consume "only a symbol" of Jesus' body and blood. The older versions weren't so Protestant about that! (We actually haven't read the book much anyway, we have talked about the symbols but my daughter just loves to play with them!)
These look great! We have made the resurrection eggs before. I'm wondering if I can pull off this Stations craft in time for next Friday when we meet with our Pre-K through 2nd graders for story read aloud and a craft? Oh my, I have my work cut out for me!
This is so awesome!!! Thank you so much!
I LOVE this idea! I hope my Dollar Tree gets these awesome stickers… I stopped in the other day after reading about the rosary stickers on the PB album but they didn't have them here. 🙂
I didn't realize the Dollar Trees receive the same stock… I saw this post and called our local stores – both had the stickers. We did a quick run up to the store and stocked up on Stations, images of our Lady, images of our Lord Jesus, the mysteries of the Holy Rosary and various other Catholic-themed stickers. Talk about awesome! Thanks for the tip!
I'll have to recheck my Dollar Tree. We got those stickers last year and I used them for our retreat, making the Stations of the Cross boxes.
This combo idea is just awesome, as usual, Lacy!
Benjamin's Box, although Protestant, really touches the child, making him feel he is there. That's why the box worked well for my children, as they remembered the story.
I like to refer to these as Paschal Mystery Eggs, as they have the whole store of the Paschal Mystery, not just the Resurrection. The thread we talked about them is here: http://4real.thenetsmith.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=3140&PN=1
1) I need to go to Dollar Tree!
2) I hope you have these great posts next year. I don't feel like I have a spare minute right now to do any.
3)But I just requested Benjamin's Box from the library and am excited about that!
I really love this idea. I always feeled bummed that my preschooler can't go to Catholic preschool or Catholic elementary school because she is hearing impaired and I don't want her to miss out on all the great things her older brothers are learning. This is something we can definitely do together. I just posted today about an activity for Feast of the Annunciation with my kids if you want to check it out. http://fakinit.typepad.com/fakin-it/2011/03/feast-of-annunciation-with-a-saint-gabriel-craft-and-angel-food-cake.html
Thanks again for all the great ideas!
grow your own guardian angel?? How funny. and Yes, I need to go to Dollar tree too! This was a great tutorial. Thanks, Lacy~!
Went to another Dollar Tree tonight and found both the Stations AND rosary stickers! Thanks for the ideas!! 🙂
This is such a great idea…I am totally bookmarking this post for next year! (We have a newborn right now, so I'm a bit tied up. 😉
Benjamin's Box is a beautiful book – we read it as we open our resurrection eggs and I would highly recommend it!
Lacy,
Yet again you are the bomb! I love it! Thank you for sharing this with us and spreading these wonderful Catholic ideas. Very Montessori!
Great idea! Love the little lessons in each egg. How cute!
This is so, so, beautiful! I can't wait to make mine!
Hi There,
I teach preschool at a small Catholic school. I am always looking for ways to make learning truly meaningful.
I went to 2 Dollar Tree stores, and bought stickers for my class, as well as my 3rd grader's class to do. I also bought the Rosary stickers, the Sacred Heart/faces of Jesus stickers, images of Mary, Christmas and various crosses!
Wow! Thank you soooo much for this post, and for making the time to share!
I have already "liked" you on facebook, and have shared your idea with several friends!
Thanks again!
hola lacy te felicito porque eres muy creatíva espero sigas con ese entusiásmo y energía tienes mucha imaginación tus ideas son muy buenas y pienso poner algunas que me han gustado mucho en mi blogg el cual te invito a que lo visites es catequesisguadalupana.blogspot.com saludos y bendiciónes
I just found the stickers you mentioned at the $ Tree. I'm so excited! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you so much for sharing! you're so creative!
awesome,hopefully next I can do this with catechism class
Great ideas! Thanks! 🙂
Lacy, you are my hero! I find something fantastic here every time I look! These eggs are so beautiful and I love that the kids in my class, who are older, will be able to personalise theirs. I’m hoping I can find stickers somewhere now…..
I know! Wish they were more readily available.
Thank you this is great.
Do you know where I can purchase these stickers?
Just wanted to thank you for this wonderful idea. I just made a set for my kids today. Can’t wait to try them out tomorrow. I hope it’s the start of a beautiful family tradition. What a wonderful, creative idea, thanks again!
I made this set for my kids (ages 3 and 5) and we went to church yesterday with our egg carton and did the stations there. My kids took turns opening the eggs as we stood in front of each station (I also had Julianne Will’s Stations of the Cross for Children with for the pictures since our church’s stations are monochromatic and kind of hard to see from kid-view). My 5 year old really enjoyed it and has spent time yesterday when we got home and first thing this morning looking through the eggs alongside the book. Thank you for this fantastic idea! I plan on sharing it with other young families in my parish, maybe even hosting a Make-n-Take event for families before next Lent.