If you’ve been keeping up-to-date with the news, you’d know that Pope Francis is due to arrive here in the Philippines tomorrow, January 15. He is currently in Sri Lanka, where he canonized St. Joseph Vaz, Sri Lanka’s first saint.

I have been busy with catching up on work deadlines and helping out with sharing updates about the Papal Visit — and still am — but I thought I’d take a break and share some simple activities parents can do with their young kids in honor of His Holiness’s visit.

I pray that this will be useful to you, especially if (like me) you won’t be able to attend any of the activities in person because you have little ones who might not be able to take the discomforts and difficulties that come with being in massive crowds. (Believe me, if I didn’t have a toddler to consider, we’d be planning on which activity to attend, despite all the sacrifices it might entail!)

Anyway, without further ado, here are my suggested activities in honor of the Papal Visit (this is one way to make the holidays in honor of Pope Francis’s visit meaningful!):

1. Read aloud Matthew 16:13-20 (Peter’s Confession about Jesus) from your Bible or Children’s Bible (or Bible storybook, if it has it). This narrates when Jesus established Peter as the “Rock”, i.e. the moment the papacy began.

Explain to your child that Pope Francis is the successor of Saint Peter. If you have a children’s book about St. Peter, read it, too.

2. Join the Church in welcoming Pope Francis by ringing your own bells at home, tomorrow, January 15, 2015, at 5.45p.m. 

You can do this anywhere you are, actually. If you don’t have bells, you can make your own if you want to, or use homemade shakers/maracas instead.

If you won’t be able to welcome Pope Francis this way, you can still ring the bells when he leaves. 😉

3. If you have a picture book with the Pope as one of its characters, like ,  you can use the story as a jumping point for a discussion about the Pope in general, then zero in on Pope Francis.

If you don’t have a book, you can proceed to #4. 😉

4. Watch a short cartoon video about the life of Pope Francis:

Alternatively (or additionally), you can read this simple book about Pope Francis for kids, which Sanne of The Learning Basket made. (You can download it for free!)

5. For a bit of Geography/Social Studies, locate Argentina (the Pope’s birthplace) on a map, atlas or globe and then locate the Vatican. Since the Pope will be coming from Sri Lanka, you can look for it, too.

Ask your child to trace the Pope’s route from the Vatican to Sri Lanka to the Philippines with his or her finger. Or you can ask him/her to use a colored pen (if you don’t mind any writing on your map/atlas).

6. Get a set of the official Papal Visit stamps (or print the image below out — image credits go to ) and talk about each image.

If your child is the “artsy” type, you can even ask him/her to try drawing a picture based on the stamps. 🙂

7. Make a scrapbook about the Papal Visit, with pictures you can print off the Internet. Fellow Catholic homeschooling momma Stef of And These Thy Gifts suggested as a source. You can also get stuff from CBCP’s Official Coverage of the Papal Visit.

8. If you’re a homeschooler (but even if you’re not one), sneak in a bit of handwriting practice during the official holidays in line with the Papal Visit and have your kids copy one of Pope Francis’s quotes, like this one:

If your child can’t write yet, you can ask him/her to draw a picture of Pope Francis or simply trace over a simple sentence like “We Love the Pope!” or something like that.

9. Talk about the main reason behind the Papal Visit. Your kids — especially the older ones — can stand to learn a lot from Pope Francis. Here are 5 things. Focus on Mercy and Compassion.

10. Taking off from the previous activity, think of something your family can do as an act of mercy and compassion to others during Pope Francis’s time in Tacloban (January 17). It can be something as simple as handing out sandwiches and drinks to streetkids (which is what we plan to do).

For more ideas, you can check out this link for Pope Francis activities for kids.

If you want to brave the streets of Manila to catch a glimpse of Pope Francis, you can find a list of the routes he will be taking here.

Of course, let’s not forget to include the Holy Father in our prayers. May God bless us all! 🙂

How are you preparing for the Papal Visit to the Philippines?