Children's Rosary Projects
Making Rosaries and Religion Class Crafts
Share the timeless beauty of the rosary with children through hands-on projects.
It's an “old Catholic” tradition, but the rosary has timeless appeal to all ages. Children, especially, are often fascinated by repetitive prayer.
If you are teaching children about prayer, take time to teach the rosary. Here are some ideas for making your own rosaries with children, both as a group and individually. As you craft each part, pray the rosary, in unison or with each child taking a turn to lead a prayer.
Egg Carton Flower Rosary
You will need:
- 5 pastel Styrofoam egg cartons
- Green pipe cleaners to make 59 4” pieces
- 59 beads or pompoms
- Heavy twine, 12-13 feet long
- Cross
To make individual flowers, cut out the cup sections of the egg cartons. Using 59 cup sections, clip down from the top edge toward the bottom and round off the edges to create petals or flower-like fringes. Poke a hole in the bottom of the cup.
Insert one end of a pipe cleaner through the bottom and attach a bead or pompom in the center inside of the cup. You will have 59 short-stemmed flowers.
Tie one end of the cord to a point about 24” from the other end, forming a rosary-shaped string. To this cord, attach the cup flowers by wrapping and twisting the short pipe cleaner stems around the cord, following the traditional rosary pattern. Attach a cross at the loose end of the cord.
Giant Rosary
This is a project you can do as a group. Have your students start collecting lids in advance. It requires a lot of prep work, but the result is worth it!
You will need:
- 53 small margarine container lids
- 6 large Cool Whip container lids
- Thin to medium rope
- Light blue spray paint
- Silver spray paint
- Large cardboard cross
Spray paint the small lids light blue and the larger lids silver. Using a sharp knife, cut two slits in each lid. Using the small lids as Hail Marys and the large lids as Our Fathers, thread through the entire rosary, starting with the beads on the rosary’s left side, sliding each lid almost to the end, leaving a large amount of rope as selvage: 10 Hail Marys, a space, an Our Father, a space, 10 Hail Marys, a space, an Our Father, a space, repeating the pattern three more times, ending with 10 Hail Marys. Wrap what you’ve done into a large circle and bring the two rope ends together. Now thread both rope ends through an Our Father, leave a space, three Hail Marys, a space, and another Our Father. Trim whatever rope ends you have left over and attach the cross.
Tissue Paper Flower Rosary
For each child you will need:
- A printed sheet with rosary illustration
- Small tissue paper squares
- Glue
- New pencil with eraser ends
To prepare for this project, draw a rosary on plain white paper with circles to represent each rosary bead. Give a copy to each child. Have the children place a tissue paper square on the pencil eraser and twist. Keeping the tissue paper on the pencil end, dab it into glue and then dab it onto one of the rosary bead circles. Repeat until you have a rosary pattern made of tissue paper flowers.
Other rosary lessons:
- Print out illustrations of the Mysteries of the Rosary and describe each one. Explain the different groupings of mysteries.
- Have students bring in rosaries from home and talk about the similarities and unique qualities of each. Show the class finger rosaries or rosary rings, rosary bracelets, and other forms of the traditional rosary.
For more Catholic religious education lesson ideas, see:
