Catholic Saints Coloring Books

Finding meaningful activities for students to do when they first come into the classroom has always been important to me, especially with my religious formation students.  We only have an hour and a half each week, so that time is critical, yet I don't want to start in on the lesson and have some of the students miss it.  We have tried several different activities when they first walk in the room, but I am MOST excited about what we are doing this year, a Catholic Saint Coloring book.  After trying out different formats for a few years, this seems to be working the best with our first graders.

Three years ago, we decided to have students fill out a prayer prompt as they entered the room and waited for the rest of the class to arrive.  We would take these prayers and use them at the prayer table or in the chapel.  This worked but the hard part was that some of our first graders couldn't read these independently and some of them struggled to write more than a few words in response.

Two years ago, we decided to shift our focus to studying saints and virtues during that time, so we used my Saint Interactive Notebook product, and created flip books.  We had index cards that were hole punched and we copied the picture of the saint and the facts about the saint.  The students would glue the picture on one side and the facts on the others - almost like a flashcard.  They worked on coloring the saint and then we would read the facts to the students once everyone was done.  Again, it worked but it required a lot of prep to have the pages copied and cut.

Last year, we took the same Saints facts and pictures and created an interactive notebook for each student.  We glued down the facts about the saint and then glued the picture on top so that they could flip it open.  Then underneath we glued a prayer prompt.  This required a lot of prep work for us up front, but we were trying to minimize the amount of time our students spent cutting and gluing during those first few minutes.  This was also a success but again, we had first graders who couldn't read it and come up with ideas independently.  Luckily, my mom and I teach together so one of us could assist the students while the other checked homework, listened to children recite prayers, took attendance, etc.

While we loved the activities we were creating and the fact that we were introducing students to the Saints and their virtues and giving them a chance to write a prayer, it was taking SO MUCH time.  To get this done was using up a half hour each week.  If we saw them daily, this wouldn't have been a big deal, but with only an hour and a half together, we needed more time to get to our lesson(s) for the day and our related activity.

I knew we needed something to keep the children entertained while they waited for their classmates to arrive.  I wanted to still focus on the Saints and be informational and educational yet independent for our first graders.  I also wanted it to be something that only took 10-15 minutes to complete at most.  And then I had my "Ah-Ha" moment - a Catholic Saints Coloring Book.    

 I took the same information that we were using on our Saint Interactive Notebooks, but turned it into an informational coloring book.  Now, when the students come in, all they do is color the Saint for the day.  Once everyone is finished, we read about that Saint using the text from the coloring page and often go into more detail with the help of some of our favorite Saint books for kids.  It is working so well and saving us so much time.  I feel like the students are still learning and doing meaningful work when they first arrive, but we have more time for everything else in our lesson plans.

I created the coloring book with 56 different Saints and it was just updated with even more saints for a total of 78 saints.  Since we only meet 22 times throughout the year in our program, I just picked out some of the Saints I thought the students would be most interested in or already have schema about.  I copied them, printed the cover on cardstock and had them spiral bound at Staples.

For each of the 78 Saints that I included in the coloring book, there is their name, a few facts, a virtue, feast day and what he/she is the patron of.  It is short and sweet which makes it great for young learners like preschool - 1st grade, yet could still serve as a fun introduction to the saints for older children.

The following Saints are included in my Catholic Saints Coloring Book:
St. Agnes of Rome
St. Albert the Great
St. Aloysius Gonzaga
St. Alphonsus
St. Ambrose
St. Andrew
St. Anne
St. Anthony of Padua
St. Barbara
St. Basil
St. Benedict
St. Benjamin
St. Bernadette
St. Brigid of Ireland
St. Catherine Laboure
St. Catherine of Siena
St. Cecilia
St. Clare
St. Damien
St. Dominic
St. Dominic Savio
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
St. Elizabeth of Hungary
St. Faustina Kowalska
St. Frances Cabrini
St. Francis De Sales
St. Francis of Assisi
St. Francis Xavier
St. Gemma Galgani
St. Genevieve
St. Gerard
St. Ignatius of Loyola
St. James
St. Jerome
St. Joan of Arc
St. John Bosco
St. John Neumann
St. John the Apostle
St. John the Baptist
St. Joseph
St. Juan Diego
St. Kateri Tekakwitha
St. Lucy
St. Luke
St. Margaret of Scotland
St. Maria Goretti
St. Mark the Evangelist
St. Martin De Porres
St. Mary
St. Mary Magdalene
St. Matthew
St. Maximilian Kolbe
St. Monica
St. Nicholas
St. Patrick
St. Paul
St. Peter
St. Peter Claver
St. Philip Neri
St. Philomena
St. Pope John Paul II
St. Rita
St. Robert Bellarmine
St. Rose of Lima
St. Scholastica
St. Sebastian
St. Stephen
St. Teresa of Avila
St. Teresa of Calcutta
St. Therese of Lisieux
St. Thomas Aquinas
St. Thomas More
St. Thomas the Apostle
St. Valentine
St. Veronica
St. Vincent de Paul
St. Wilfrid

I've created a free sample with 10 of the Saints included.  In the free sample, you will get the cover, St. Barbara, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, St. Dominic Savio, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Peter, St. Damien, St. Benedict, St. John the Baptist, and St. Bernadette.  This is a gift to you with the hopes that you can use it in your classroom or even in your homes with your own children.

To grab your freebie, enter your name and email address into the form below.  Once you fill in your information, your freebie will be emailed directly to you.