Skip to main content

Hands on Holy Week for kids

As we make our way through Holy Week, looking forward to the glory of Easter Sunday, I thought I would share with you how I helped our children better understand exactly what Our Lord suffered for us, for our sinfulness.

Realizing that my children benefit from visual, hands on learning, I turned to Catholic Icing and Holy Heroes for help. Honestly, we did not participate in the Lenten Adventure every day, but most days we at least did the coloring page and maybe the word searches. We also did the Stations of the Cross with our parish every Friday but one. After daily Mass a few weeks ago, (our homeschool community gathers every Friday for Mass) one of our priests gave the children a "tour" of the Stations of the Cross. He asked the children if any of them could name all 14 stations in order. There was silence. Then one small hand rose from the group. It was my Anna. Could she? She could! Believe me, I can not. My heart was filled with happiness listening to her tiny voice carefully name those stations. My greatest desire is to lead my children into a deep and lasting relationship with God and their Catholic faith. I truly believe that by utilizing these websites, my children have a much greater understanding of their faith than I had even fifteen years ago. And that is a truly good and beautiful thing, my friends.

Catholic Icing has these wonderful downloads to make peg dolls. I bought the Passion set and some pegs and some paint. I will not tell you how much I spent to ship those things to Germany, but when Anna asked if she could try and paint their faces, I said "No way!". I am amazed at how wonderful they turned out. The kids also followed the instructions of how to build Jerusalem out of blocks. Now that we have all the parts assembled, tomorrow we can reenact the Passion of Our Lord in a very hands on way!

This was the development stage, trying to figure out how to best build the walls. We tried train tracks and regular blocks, but in the end, the Jenga blocks made the best walls.

Coming together, but we need to draw in the city now.

This has nothing to do with Holy Week, other than Peter needed to be distracted so that we could work. Every day, I have to find ways to keep him out of trouble. Most days, I don't succeed! Please don't pay any attention to the fact that he is wearing his sister's dress. I promise I dress him in his own clothes every morning!

I also promise that when showing them the layout of the city, I did not refer to the upper city and lower city as "the poor village" and the "rich village" as my children have labeled them!

Really, I had a lot of fun painting these! I am looking forward to making the Resurrection set and the Saint set as well.

Aren't they so cute!


That little guy in the background has already taken apart this version and we will have to rebuild yet again tomorrow. But that is OK. We still love him anyway.



Comments

  1. Wow! What a way to reinact the Passion. They will surely remember that! Your people look great. You did an awesome job -- love Pontious Pilate's face!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jenny,
    This took my breath away! Simply beautiful!
    I love and miss you, my Friend!

    ReplyDelete
  3. These are great! I made some peg saints too! I'm addicted to painting them now. =)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Door Table

Once there was a store in Georgia. It is no more, but how I wish it was. I likened going in there to treasure hunting. One never knew what was going to be in there, and you had to dig through and wade through all the "other people's treasures" to find your own. I once found a set of blue and white teacups and saucers from England. I found lace handkerchiefs, a rocking chair, and an end table. But by far the best find was my kitchen table. I had stopped by one day while the kids were taking horseback lessons and the then little ones were asleep. The store was not open, but I went up to the window to see if anything new was there. And it was there. The table. And six chairs too! We were in need of a bigger table with Jack on the way. My mom had offered to give us her old one, which I was going to accept if I didn't find something I liked better. I didn't want anyone else to even see the table because I knew it was supposed to be ours, but one can never tell abo

Fog and faith

 I stepped out into the coolness of the November morning to start the car and defog the windows, preparing to take Jack to school. Daylight had yet to appear. As we drove the many miles, the sky lightened, and we could see the mist hanging out just above the grass. We usually listen to a story together on our drive, adding commentary, exchanging a knowing glance or a shocked expression as the twists and turns unfold. I relish this time with Jack. I know that all too soon he will be preparing to leave the nest, like his sisters before him.  On the drive back, I pull my rosary from my purse and pray. By this time, the sun is just about to appear, making the sky a beautiful orange-pink on the horizon. I am pondering much as I pray, for the path I am on is once again rocky and uncertain. Such is life, whether we have faith or not. Faith makes it bearable. For the most part, the road home is a straight shot and I can see the ribbon of road laid out before me, narrowing in the distance. The

A Tale of a Tail (or the excitement of the day)

 First of all, I doubt anyone still checks this little old neglected blog, so I am probably talking to myself right now. But if by chance, there is still someone out there, I will tell the tale of the tail I came to tell. As little boys are apt to do, Peter left his rainboots outside on the front porch several days ago. As they do not add to the decor on the porch, I decided to bring them inside this morning and I put them by the back door, where they belong. There they sat, until the mail truck came by and tucked our mail into the box. I may or may not have mentioned that our property is surrounded by a moat during the rainy days. There is no going to collect the mail without rain boots. Seeing how Peter was supposed to be doing his math lesson, of course he eagerly volunteered to go get the mail. He hopped up from the table and went to put on his boots. The scream that came from him made me leave my seat! I thought he had hurt himself. He claimed there was a roach in his boot. I pick