Have you ever had trouble teaching your child basic Catholic prayers? Was it hard to keep their attention and interest?
Look no further– an EWTN YouTube mini-series called, “Let's Pray with Tomkin,” just might be your solution!
Each video features Tomkin, a little cowboy, who teaches his friends essential Catholic prayers.
Currently, you can pray with Tomkin as he makes the Sign of the Cross, prays the "Our Father," "Hail Mary," the popular Guardian Angel prayer, Grace before and after meals, and even the Act of Contrition!
The videos feature an animated child praying. They also include the words as he says them, making it easy for a child to follow along.
Watch Tomkin pray the "Our Father" below:
Sam Zamarron, the creator of this YouTube mini-series, recently spoke with ChurchPOP to discuss his inspiration behind the videos and more.
Zamarron shared that the idea of Let’s Pray was inspired by answering a void in Catholic content for children.
“There was a need for fun and visually appealing catechetical material that parents and teachers could share with children," he said. "It had to be simple and to the point, allow repetition, and it needed to have the text along with the audio as a visual reinforcement.”
Zamarron shared that the feedback has been extremely positive.
“The prayers had been posted on YouTube for some time, but in the last two or three years, the Our Father Prayer and the Hail Mary Prayer gained the most momentum.”
The 'Our Father' video alone has generated more than 2.1 million views and the 'Hail Mary' video gained 1.2 million views.
It has become normal to give toddlers an iPad and let them endlessly scroll on YouTube, but these Let’s Pray videos offer so much more. They provide an easy way for children to learn the important prayers of our Catholic faith.
“These basic prayers are central to our daily Catholic prayer life," Zamarron noted. "The beautiful "Our Father" prayer in particular is how our Lord Himself taught us to pray. So, it is essential that children know them by heart from a young age.”
The first "Tomkin" short, “Caring for the Sick” was completed in December 2015. While this was the first full episode, the series did not take off until EWTN released “Called to be Saints."
“In the episode, Tomkin really gets started after Mother Angelica lets him, and all of us know that we are all called to be great saints!” Zamarron shared.
Zamarron added that future plans for the series include meeting new worlds and characters.
“A first step into those new worlds is the Nativity decade — an animated Joyful decade of the Rosary following the journey that the Holy Family took that first Christmas," he said. "The hope is to also translate Tomkin into multiple languages, which some of that work has begun, and bring this little cowboy and other EWTN Kids programming to new audiences across the globe - God willing.”
Teaching your children to pray can be difficult, but animated shorts such as “Let’s Pray with Tomkin,” offer a creative assist!