Making St. Thomas Aquinas

Homemade materials for the Godly Play story of St. Thomas Aquinas

Last week in this post, I mentioned that I had purchased Godly Play Volume 7 and was planning on telling my children the story of St.Thomas Aquinas on January 28. Because the materials are expensive and I also wasn't entirely satisfied with the suggested materials, I began making a St. Thomas peg doll.

After carefully studying images of St. Thomas from the internet, such as the one below . . .  

Source: http://www.marypages.com

I began the work. First, I painted the peg doll's hair and white monk's robe. I intentionally left off any facial features (other than the distinctive haircut) to encourage the children to use their own imaginations during the Wondering phase.  (For a great discussion of why this is a good practice, please see this post by Storyteller at Wonderful in an Easter Kind of Way.) Then, I cut out three pieces of felt: two brown ones for the monk's cloak and a yellow dot to represent the sun that usually depicts St. Thomas' heart.

Voila! With the help of a little glue and thread, St. Thomas Aquinas emerged . . . 

Below are the completed materials for the story: 
- St. Thomas
- a wooden ox from our Nativity since St. Thomas was called the "silent ox"
- his two favorite kinds of books, the Bible and anything by Aristotle, made with red felt and paper
- a bit of straw to represent the important revelation at the end of his life

And just for fun, here is the fire stacking toy that I am painting for Pentecost. My son saw it and said. "Wow, that's the burning bush that Moses saw!" (Brilliant - why didn't I think of that?) I've always been a fan of these, but they cost around 30 Euros each. Through another website, I found unpainted DIY ones at Clickety Clack that are very affordable.  They are beautiful and well-cut, so I highly recommend them.

Stay tuned to see how the storytelling goes!






linked to Frontier Dreams