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My little boy needs fine-motor skills practice.
I would love to someday be able to sit down with him and say “lets journal together” . . . and then have 15 minutes where we sit together and write in our prayer journal. I don’t know if that will ever happen . . . but we have been working on a “pre-school prayer journal” for over a week now – and it is going great!
My son asks if we can “do a project”almost daily now!
I got him to color all the fruits of the Holy Spirit today! This is a big deal in this house since our little boy is not a huge fan of coloring!
Working on his prayer journal has become some nice one-on-one bonding time, much needed fine motor skill practice and has provided some teachable moments and faith-centered discussions!
(For example, when he was coloring “patience” and he had to be reminded to be patient!)
Here are some ideas for “Pre-school Prayer Journaling”
1. Order a Primary journal composition book.
This book provides a space to draw, paint or glue pictures and lines for your preschooler to practice writing.
2. Use Pinterest!
I have no background in early education (former high school teacher here)! So, since my son is in desperate need of fine motor skills, I went to Pinterest for some ideas – you can follow my Preschool board here: Pre-school Activities. My son has no interest or love for coloring – but he loves using Q-tips, taping and cutting! So we cut out a cross and glued it to his prayer journal. He likes to write words if I provide dots for him to trace, so under the cross we wrote, “I love you Jesus, Love Xavier”.
This coloring page is free (along with a page for each letter of the alphabet) when you subscribe to Do Small things with Love!
3. Dot Painting!
I finally found a Pinterest activity I can use my wine corks for! We found some free printables for practice – and Xavier LOVES this activity! He has asked to do it again already! I love how the wine cork is small, so therefore encourages the “pincer grasp”. We are still working on this skill – so finding an activity that he enjoys is such a gift!
4. Pick a Prayer Card!
SaongJai, one of my favorite Etsy shops, sells prayer cardsets for children! They are adorable and once you purchase them you can print them out right away. I loved giving Xavier the choice of which Saint he wanted to cut out and glue to his journal. He picked out Saint Margaret and I have to admit – I had to look her up! Once I did, I discovered that she spread the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Xavier traced Saint Margaret pray for us and he put heart stickers around her prayer card.
*** You can enter win an entire package from SaongJai by subscribing to prayerwinechocolate.com and sharing this post! See more details below!
5. Practice writing with Catholic Pre-school Printables
Once again, SaongJai provides an excellent tool in teaching both how to write letters and numbers, while at the same time discussing our faith. I love how the set uses Saint Anne for the letter A. Xavier loves his “Gram” so it was easy to teach him “Who is Saint Anne?” Jesus’ Gram!!! SaongJai also has Alphabet flash cards that would fit in the journal – or could be laminated and used for all sorts of learning activities!
*** You can enter win an entire package from SaongJai by subscribing to prayerwinechocolate.com and sharing this post! See more details below!
6. Color and Cut
You can find plenty of coloring pages online with Catholic and Christian themes. I found a cute “Fruits of the Spirit” packet where you can color all the fruits together (which we did) and also each fruit has it’s own half page where you can trace how to write each “fruit” (patience, love, gentleness, etc). We plan on using more of this packet to practice drawing fruits this week!
7. Use what you have and be creative!
We had a play-doh activity book that included a scene of a road and stickers. We glued the scene to our page and wrote “Lead me Lord” under the picture. Then Xavier picked out stickers to put on the road and in the sky. We have some prayer books, so one activity I may try this week will use one of those. Perhaps I will read him a prayer or short story and ask him to draw a picture.
Have a tween or teen daughter? Get her the Be Yourself Journal!
Here’s a peak inside at some pages!
My daughter loves painting and playdough! I will have to try and figure out a way to incorporate prayer into this 🙂
Awesome!
I like your idea about using Q tips to make a cross! My son isn’t much into coloring either, but he loves using scissors, glue, and tape. Scissor practice is my go-to fine motor skill right now because he loves it! Once he gets better at it I’ll have him try cutting out simple religious images like the Eucharist or the cross. I can’t wait to try prayer journaling with my little guy!
I completely understand – my son is the exact same way. He loves to cut!
Love these ideas! Definitely going to check out the etsy site!
Be warned – she has adorable jewelry for little girls too!
I love to dot paint with my kids.
Do you use a wine cork too? lol
Great ideas! We are big Play-Doh people around here! Girls love playing with it.
Xavier likes playing a game with play-doh where I hide coins inside the doh and he has to find them!
That’s adorable! What a great way to combine fine motor skill practice with Bible study! LOVE!
Thank you Brandi!!!
Amy, you have totally sold me on the idea of prayer journaling, and now I want to try it with my kids too! I was envisioning the whole “let’s all sit quietly and write for fifteen minutes” too so thanks for giving me some direction!!
That is so awesome Sara! Thank you! We’ll have to swap ideas!
So cute. Passing this along to my homeschool grouo.
Thank you Ginny!!
I love things she can use her imagination with. I’m totally not crafty and I hate messy things like playdoh (I REALLY hate playdoh lol). I do like painting though so I am not completely hopeless.
This dot painting is the favorite activity in this house right now! We used fingerpaints and a wine cork!! I’m totally not crafty either, so I understand!
I love these! I have 2 under 2 right now so we aren’t even into coloring yet really, but these will be awesome in the future!
You’ll be ready!!! Thank you Laura!
You have the cutest ideas!! Love the idea of a prayer journal for little ones! So simple but so impactful.
And for my giveaway comment 😉 I like play dough or stickers for fine motor activities.
Both fun activities!!
Wow – thank you! Seriously, you are making me smile 🙂
Thanks so much for the great giveaway and GREAT idea! I love it!
Thank you 🙂
I love these prayer journal ideas! Such a great idea to incorporate the faith into the basic pre-k subjects of reading and writing!
Thank you so much Leah!!!
These are great ideas, and such an awesome way to tune in to your son’s strengths and work on areas that need a little extra attention. Way to go!
Thank you Anni!
These are all such great ideas for the younger kiddos. I have started journaling with my two kids, but I might have to incorporate some of the ideas you shared here.
Awesome! Thank you Amy 🙂
My daughter would love having her own journal like this to practice writing in! Thank you for sharing Hess great ideas!
So glad you like it!!!
I love this and think I may use it for my CRE class!
Awesome!!! So happy you like it 🙂
We love play dough here!
Coloring is big in our house
I hope it gets big in this house! I love to color 🙂
My kids love to make puzzles. My 3 year old does a lot of colour by number pages.
Love this! We are trying to conquer writing his name, and these ideas will help so much, thank you!
I hope it all helps!!
These would be perfect fo use with my son in our home school preschool year!
Awesome!
I love all the ideas! We’re really working on trying to get James to color better. In his pre-k classroom, his artwork sticks out like a sore thumb, he’s so bad at coloring. It’s sad because I love adult coloring books! So that would probably be the skill we’d most work on in a prayer journal.
I know EXACTLY how you feel! Xavier has no desire to color!
My 5 y.o. starts kindergarten in the fall and is insistent that we work more on her reading. LOVE the Catholic ABC/Preschool printables! Thanks for sharing. I think we might do a prayer journal for her and my 6 y.o.
Awesome! Glad you like it Wendy!