Monday, January 23, 2012

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

5 comments:

  1. Wow, Sheila! That's a great find, the Clickety Clack flames! I've been coveting those for some time! Thanks for sharing your work!

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    1. Jill, They also have some great water and rainbow stackers as well! I have the rainbow one and I am going to order the water one the next time we are in the States.

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  2. Oh I love this set! I need ideas liek this to held introduce the saints to my children. Thank you for sharing this on KCCO!
    XO

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  3. Absoloutly love the wooden stackers on the site! What size peg people have you used and did you get from the same site? Another question did you have these posted to Germany if yes what was the postage like?

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    1. Hi Alljoinin, The stackers are from an Etsy shop called "Clickety Clack": http://www.etsy.com/shop/ClickityClack?page=2 . I had friends bring them over from the States, so I am not sure about postage. The peg dolls are from a local shop here in Berlin called "Wilhelm Ruether" and are about 7cm. Glad you liked everything!

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