Garden of the Good Shepherd ~ Week 3
I’ve been working on collecting some ideas to use this coming week, along with The Garden of the Good Shepherd. Like usual, I am sure that we won’t get to all of these activities, but we sure are having fun trying! My children have really been enjoying the Bible readings each day and adding a sticker to our calendar.The theme for week 3 is:
15. The Sun : Read Psalm 19:1-6
Last year we made a paper plate sun craft.- Make a Sparkling Sun Catcher.
- Make Sun Tea Punch and Sun Cupcakes.
- Serve Sun Chips with lunch.
- Make Sunshine Shakes: in a blender, combine one 6-ounce can unsweetened frozen orange juice concentrate, 3/4 cup milk, 3/4 cup water, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and 6 ice cubes. Makes 4 servings.
- Read Sunshine Makes the Seasons
by Franklyn Branley, Sun Up, Sun Down
by Gail Gibbons, and The Sun
by Seymour Simon. (While I was at it, I also ordered Who Owns the Sun?
by Stacy Chbosky and The Sun Egg
by Elsa Beskow from the library too!)
16. The Cloud: Read 1 Kings 8:2-11
- Browse NASA’s links to some General Cloud Information.
- Read The Cloud Book
by Tomie dePaola,
- Make Mashed Potato Clouds for with Dinner.
- Make Cloud Cookies, Angel Cloud Cream Puffs, or Whipped Creamy Clouds.
Whipped Creamy Clouds: Provide each child with a piece of waxed paper and a spoon. To make a treat, a child scoops a large spoonful of nondairy whipped topping onto their waxed
paper. Then the child uses their spoon to create a cloud shape. Freeze each child’s cloud; then serve.
17. The Rain : Read Matthew 5:43-48
- Listen to the story Noah and the Ark on Tales from the Old Testament. (Here is a link to a great Noah’s Ark Coloring Mural we’ve enjoyed in the past.)
- Since Jesus compared God’s mercy to a gentle rain, we will talk about how God has been merciful to us and read some excerpts from God Loves Us All
.
- Make a Rain Gauge.
- Read Where Does the Butterfly Go When It Rains?
, Rabbits and Raindrops
, Down Comes the Rain
, and Rain Drop Splash.
- Read about the Rainforests and make Rain Forest Trail Mix
- Surprise my children with their own bottle of Talking Rain’s Sparkling Ice, it’s a favorite around here…
18. The Lightning : Read Job 28:20-26
- Read Flash, Crash, Rumble, and Roll
.
- Read about lightning online and do one or two of the suggested experiments.
- Read Thunder Cake
by Patricia Polacco and bake a cake to go along with the story.
19. The Hail : Read Job 38:28-30
- Read Rain & Hail
.
- We have a Pampered Chef Ice Shaver which we rarely use, but this might be a perfect day to make some Shaved Ice!
- Play “Here comes the
RainHail”
Here Comes the Rain/Hail Gamefrom Little Saints Pre-School Program
Prep: Take 2 aluminum pie pans and place 1/4 of beans in one of them. Staple the other pan on top. You will also need couch cushion and/or child’s special blanket.
1. Discuss how animals seek shelter when it rains. Have child choose to make believe they are an eagle, dove or butterfly. Instruct them that they will have to listen carefully in this game so they can hear the storm coming and seek shelter before they get wet.
2. Have them place the cushion (nest) or their blanket (tree) where their nest/tree will be.
3. Have child pretend to fly around; butterflies seeking nectar, doves and eagles seeking food.
4. Hidden from view, gently start to shake the pie pan, building up to storm level.
5. Once the children have landed in their nest or under their tree safely, slowly stop the “rain/ hail” and repeat.
20. The Wind : Read Ezekiel 37:7-10
- Learn how to measure wind speed, Blow Bubbles and/or make a Paper Bag Kite
- Read Feel the Wind
, The Wind Blew
, and When the Wind Blew
.
21. The Rainbow : Read Genesis 9:12-15
- Watch Signing Time # 6 and sign/sing Colors of the Rainbow.
- Read Planting a Rainbow
by Lois Ehlert.
- Paint a rainbow with finger paints.
- Serve Rainbow Pasta for lunch.
- Make Rainbow cupcakes. You can frost them different colors and arrange them like a rainbow, color the batter to look like a rainbow, or decorate the top with either a frosting rainbow or candy’s such as Skittles/M&M’s.
- Play Noah’s Rainbow Race.
- Make a Rainbow Fruit Salad which contains all the colors of the rainbow. Use Strawberries or Watermelon, Oranges or Cantalope, Pineapple, Green Grapes or Kiwi, Blueberries, and Purple Grapes or Plums. Serve with whipped cream, ice cream or yogurt, if desired.
- Rainbow Kabobs with Cloud Dip would also be a fun alternative to the Rainbow Fruit Salad.
I hope you are all having a very blessed Easter season!
Shower of Photos 2009 :: Day 23
*I somehow really messed up the lighting on this photo (using a random manual setting) but I still thought it was pretty cute…
Celebrating the Feast of St. George the Dragon Slayer
Well, the thing with celebrating feast days at home with your children, and doing cool things like making a dragon cake for the feast of St. George, is that your children DON’T FORGET!!!
Even though it was a super busy day (I had a Little Flowers meeting to lead this afternoon) I couldn’t resist the fun, and made another dragon cake… Actually, it was quite a bit easier than last year, and didn’t take near as long. This time I used chocolate covered graham cookies for the spikes (like Charlotte and Renee did last year) which was sooo much easier than trying to frost cut-up pieces of cake. For the flames I just used some organic fruit leather, which wasn’t that red, but oh well! He still is nowhere near as cute as Charlotte’s dragons, but I do think he is an improvement over our dragon from last year…
Shower of Photos 2009 :: Day 22
Watching the sun set… …for about 20seconds! 😉
Ideas for the Feast of St. George
Tomorrow is the feast of St. George, one of the 14 Holy Helpers. With our plans for the Garden of the Good Shepherd in addition to a Little Flowers meeting, I am not sure how much we will be able to do to celebrate, but I thought I would update and share my plans from last year just the same…
Storytime
- Listen to the “Saint of the Day.”
- Read the story of Saint George on page 12 of Saints Lives & Illuminations.
- Read the story about Saint George on page 34 of Picture Book of Saints.
- Read and discuss St. George and the Dragon.
Crafts
- Color a picture of St. George from Fenestrae Fidei.
- Online coloring pages can be found here, but my favorite is the one from CHC.
- Make a Sock Puppet Dragon.
- Paint a St. George Wooden Saint.
Food and Drink
I’m not sure I am up to making another Dragon Cake this year… We still have cake left over from Monday! If I don’t have time to make it, I might just make a small round cake and place the boys Playmobil dragon on top, or maybe make dragon cupcakes and give them to my children with cocktail swords. We’ll have to see…
Women for Faith and Family shares a couple ideas from Joanna Bogle for setting the table as well as a recipe for Trifle for Saint George’s Day.
Prayer
Heroic Catholic soldier and defender of your Faith, you dared to criticize a tyrannical Emperor and were subjected to horrible torture. You could have occupied a high military position but you preferred to die for your Lord. Obtain for us the great grace of heroic Christian courage that should mark soldiers of Christ. Amen.
I am sure my boys will also be pulling out their swords and armor to reenact St. George and the Dragon once again this year, and most likely all their Playmobil toys too!
A few pictures from Chiquita’s birthday…
Well, with everything that has been going on lately, we didn’t do all that much for Chiquita’s birthday, but we still had a wonderful day.
Chiquita requested a Dora cake… She has never watched “Dora” (maybe an episode or two while traveling) but she has always been told that she kinda looks like Dora and has a few Dora dolls… No mater how I tried, after looking at a number of Dora cakes online trying to find one I might be able to make, I couldn’t talk her out of it… Anyhow, I didn’t want the cake to be just Dora, so I found a cute little Dora candle to add to a cake of my choice! 😉 She loved it!
As for birthday gifts, Chiquita really wanted a “little dollhouse” to go with the Castle they received for Christmas, but (since I didn’t have a chance to paint it decided to save it
I still can’t believe she is already four! She is growing up so fast!!
Shower of Photos 2009: Day 21 (Cinnamon-Sugar Bread)
No matter how many times I tried, I could not get this bread to look anywhere near as good in the pictures, as it tasted! It may not look that special, but this little loaf of bread that we made, for one of our Garden of the Good Shepherd Activities yesterday, was the yummiest bread we have ever made in our bread maker. In fact it was so delicious and easy that I made another loaf last night to have with breakfast this morning. Yum!
Ingredients:
- 1 cup milk
- 1/4 cup butter or margarine, softened
- 1 egg
- 3 cups bread flour
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/4 teaspoons cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons yeast
Directions:
- Place ingredients in the bread machine pan in the order suggested by the manufacturer.
- Bake using the sweet bread setting if your machine has it, if not, use white bread setting.
- When the bread is done, remove from the machine and let sit on a rack for 10 minutes before removing from the pan. (If it sticks, just loosen the sides with a pliable, plastic spatula and it should slip out easily.)
Yields: 1 1/2 pound loaf
Shower of Photos 2009 :: Day 20
One of my favorite day’s of Spring is the day that we hang our swing on the front porch!! Last year, due to our extremely long winter, we weren’t able to hang it until May. This year, since we have been having just gorgeous weather, hubby hung the swing for us Sunday night, since Monday’s symbol for the Garden of the Good Shepherd was “The Chairs.”
He also put together our new outdoor sofa as well, and we had such a lovely time reading books and doing schoolwork on the front porch!
Thank you all for all the birthday wishes for Chiquita. She had a fun birthday! I’ll try and post a few more pictures soon, but we have company coming over for lunch and another baseball game tonight… I hope you all have a great day!
Our baby girl…
Shower of Photos 2009 :: Day 19 (Divine Mercy Sunday)
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