Last year my children absolutely loved celebrating the Fifty Days of Easter with “The Garden of the Good Shepherd: A Sticker Calendar to Count the Fifty Days of Easter
We started late last year, so I’ve been working on coming up with a few ideas for this week’s special activities to go along with our readings each day. (You can check out Charlotte’s creative list, from last year, here.)
The theme for the first week is:
“The Good Shepherd’s Pasture.”
I added the bible versus to read, in case any of you would like to join in, but don’t have the Garden of the Good Shepherd.
The Good Shepherd : Read John 10:14-15
- Easter Sunday!! CELEBRATE!!!
The Shepherd’s Crook: Read Psalm 23:1-6
- Candy Cane’s served with Hot Cocoa
- Read The Legend of the Candy Cane
or watch the DVD
- Another idea would be to make a Candy Cane Coffee Cake, but I am just not up to baking again today! 😉
The Sheepfold : Read John 10:1-6
- Make “God’s Sheep” (Popcorn) for a snack.
~ God’s Sheep ~“We all, like sheep, have gone astray; each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him all our sin. Isaiah 53:6”Air-pop the popcorn and serve it warm, if possible. Butter, if desired, can be melted in a saucepan on the stove. Popcorn is white and fluffy, like sheep, and when air-popped, sometimes a piece of popcorn comes flying out of the popper and flies across the room, like a lost sheep. Remind the children that, like sheep, we wander astray sometimes.
The Gate of the Sheepfold : Read John 10:7-10
- Make the Heaven’s Gate Collage Craft.
- Watch The Secret Garden
The Ewe and the Ram : Read John 21:15-17
- Make this Ram Craft.
- Add a few Schleich Animals
(a Ram & Ewe) to our collection .
The Lamb : Read John 1:35
(Some of these ideas could also work for The Sheepfold or The Ewe and the Ram.)
- Stop by and visit the Lamb of God at the adoration chapel or attend Mass.
- Serve Lamb for dinner or Lamb of God Rolls.
- Make a Lamb Cake or Lamb Cupcakes.
- The Hershey’s Lamb with Kisses would be super cute and could be refilled next year.
- I purchased a package of Lindt Candy Lambs — it came with 5, perfect!
The Wolf : Read John 10:11-12
- Read the story of St. Francis and the Wolf found in Legends of Saints and Beasts by Ann Marie Jauss.
- Make Wolf Paw Cookies
Jessica,
Thank you SO much for doing this! I didn’t have time to order the calendar but you are making it possible for me to do this with my family anyway. I appreciate all the time you take to supply us with these wonderful ideas. Thank you and GOD BLESS YOU!!
Again, I am in awe of posts like this. How do you have time to do all those links? You are a super Blogger, my friend.
Jodi ~ Thank you for visiting! I am glad that you will be able to use some of the ideas! Happy Easter!
Michelle ~ You are so funny! I think I’ve gotten pretty quick at linking — with all the practice. 😉
i love this idea jessica. thanks for all your hard work in putting the plans together. and thanks for giving me an excuse to buy another tomie de paola book! i love him!
Thanks for all the great ideas. I am using some of them to help create a Garden for our family. You are such an inspiration to me!
I love this idea. I have ordered the sticker book, but am starting a felt version that we will do bit by bit all season. I have a question though. In the right of the picture there is something I can’t identify, it looks like a stream is flowing form it- is it a bridge? We don’t want to wait to start the background until the book arrives.
Thank you for this beautiful resource and ideas.
Shannon
Thank you everyone!! I hope you are all enjoying it as much as we are!
Shannon ~ I’m sorry to take so long in getting back to your questions, I just haven’t been feeling very good the last couple days… I think you may be talking about the fountain? On Day 43 we add “The Water” flowing from the top of the fountain. I was hoping to make a felt background and symbols myself this year, but only have a few completed… I’d love to see yours when you are done!
Thank you for posting these great ideas. Im going to try very hard to do these activities with my little ones. Hopefull I do better than I did with our Jesse Tree and activities:(