Teaching Young Children About the Saints

Caitrin Bennett shares games, party ideas, and other fun and practical ways to teach your preschoolers about the lives of the saints.

As a parent, I know that my most important job is to help my kids get to Heaven. This often feels like an overwhelming task! One concrete thing I have been doing to this end is teaching my kids about the saints. Learning about holy men and women who have already made it to Heaven is so encouraging to our family. If they can do it, why not us? 

Here are some of my favorite ways to teach my young children about the saints.  
 

Choose a Saint of the Month 

Every day of the year is the feast day of not just one but a multitude of saints. Instead of trying to learn about them all and getting burnt out, choose one saint to focus on each month. Find them in a kid-friendly anthology of saint biographies, like Saints Around the World by Meg Hunter-Kilmer. Young children can do a coloring page while you read the words to them. You can also watch videos about that saint, such as the Stories of Saints series on YouTube or the Saints and Heroes collection on Formed.org.  

At the end of the month, add your saint to a binder or poster. If you take a whole month to focus on each one, your children will get to know those saints well. And 12 saints a year can add up quickly!  

Celebrate! 

What child doesn’t love birthdays? I think “Happy Birthday to You” may truly be my children’s favorite song of all time. So, I remind them that a saint’s feast day (usually the day of their earthly death) is their birthday in Heaven! We often make cupcakes, light a candle, and sing happy birthday to our Saint of the Month on his or her feast day. 

You can also celebrate All Saints’ Day by having your children dress as their favorite saint, or celebrate your child’s name day if they share a name with a saint.  
 

Intercessory Prayer 

This one requires no planning at all! As Catholics, we believe that the saints in Heaven can intercede for us with their powerful prayer. So, add a quick “St. ______, pray for us!” to the prayers your family is already saying together, such as grace before meals or a bedtime blessing. In the Bennett home, we start our homeschool day by asking for the intercession of six favorite saints—one for each of the five people in our family, and one more whom we have chosen as the patron of our homeschool itself, Saint Thomas More. 

You can also ask for a saint’s prayers at more specific moments as you learn their patronage. For example, you can ask Saint Christopher to pray for your family’s safety before a car trip, or seek the intercession of Saint Cecilia before a piano recital. Your kids will enjoy learning these patronages, and they will likely remember some that you have forgotten!  
 

Play games 

We have had a lot of success incorporating simple games about the saints into our domestic church. For example, I glued pictures of favorite saints to index cards, added names and years of birth, then laminated them. We use these for Memory Match (“Hmm, where is the other Saint Polycarp?”) and a version of WAR (“Saint Thomas Aquinas lived more recently than Saint Agnes, so he wins this round!”).

Slightly older kids can also play “Guess My Saint,” a game that works like 20 Questions (“Is your saint a woman?”), or even act out the saint they chose in a form of Charades.  

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Four fun ways to teach young children about the saints. #CatholicMom

I hope these suggestions are helpful and fun for your family! Enjoy learning about some holy heroes alongside your children. 

Copyright 2023 Caitrin Bennett
Images: copyright 2023 Caitrin Bennett, all rights reserved.