Sneak Preview: St. Columba

Columba was always one of my favorite saints. Because he loved books. Because he made terrible mistakes and learned from them. Because he was Irish.  I'll be very excited to tell this story to my kids later on this year. 

The weather was cold and rainy on Saturday, so we spent most of the day inside having arts and crafts time. (Though we did get outside for an hour - I am a firm believer in spending time outside every day no matter what the weather is like!) And Mom got to work on some Godly Play materials.

This story in Godly Play Volume 7 calls for several items. The first is a Columba figure that I made out of a peg doll. I added some brown wool roving for his beard and a blue and yellow felt hat.

I also needle-felted a dove. I am very new to needle-felting, so this is the first time that I have tried to make a living thing. I used ideas from this tutorial about how to shape a bird's body. My daughter says it looks more like a white duck, but I think it'll do.

Then, I printed out and mounted pictures of the monastery at Iona and illuminated script from the Book of Kells on canvas board.

You'll have to wait until June, though, to hear more about the story.: )

Here's a look at all the saints that I have made so far:

L to R: Thomas Aquinas, Valentine, Patrick, Columba, Elisabeth of Portugal, 
Teresa of Avila

My next one will probably be Mother Teresa of Calcutta in September.

Godly Play: St.Valentine

As preparation for celebrating St. Valentine's Day on Feb. 14, I decided to go ahead and tell this story from Godly Play Volume 7 early. As many of you may remember, I started working my way through this volume last year. Since it is only available in English, I have been using it mainly for my own children. As I'm only averaging about 4 saints a year, I'll have them all done hopefully at the end of 2014.: )

Materials for the story:
1. St. Valentine peg doll
2. mortar & pestle
3. white felt crocus
4. scroll with "From your Valentine" written inside
5. purple underlay (since Feb. 14 falls during the time of Lent this year)

You may notice that this peg figure has eyes, while my other saints do not.
My dilemma was that Valentine is usually pictured with a beard, and
he would have looked really strange with a beard and no eyes! Maybe
I will have to add eyes to the others.

To tell you the truth, I avoided telling this story last year. Why? Because there are so many different versions of Valentine's story, and it is difficult to trace his historical facts. The legend may even be a conglomeration of two different persons. And because my children first learned about Valentine from a book with a slightly different take on his story, I thought it might confuse them to tell the Godly Play version.

But as I read and re-read the Valentine story in Volume 7, it began to grow on me, because it is a great example of someone selflessly loving another. A common thread running through each of the stories in Volume 7 is a dramatic childhood experience, either in the life of the saint or someone that he/she loved. In Valentine's story, this child is the jailer's daughter, who has been born blind.  As he is led away to his execution, Valentine thinks not of himself, but of the little girl that he has befriended. The story ends with the little girl's father reading her the note that Valentine has left for her. As she opens it, a white crocus, her favorite flower, falls out of the rolled up note. When she bends to pick it up, she realizes that she can see it. 

As I had previously suspected, my kids (ages 7 and 9) were thrown off by the differences in the details of Valentine's life that they had previously read in a storybook that we have. In that book, a big deal is made of Valentine marrying people in secret, because the Roman emperor had outlawed marriage in order to get more recruits for his army. In the GP version, Valentine is a doctor as well as a priest and more is said about his gathering herbs to help cure his patients. The kids had lots of questions about why the Godly Play story does not mention him marrying people. My response was to say that maybe the writer of the story decided that this was something we could leave out and still have everything we needed for the story. :) I then added that we don't have many written historical facts about Valentine from that time period, so there are several legends about him. I think any storyteller should be prepared for questions like this from children about Valentine's story, because the truth is that we can't historically trace much of his life.

After we got beyond this, we able to wonder about his life. What did we like best in the story? That Valentine prayed for his patients and he prayed for the little girl the most. That he was friends with the little girl. What was most important? That he thought about her in his last moments and not just about himself. What part of the story tells something about us? One child answered that he liked herbs just like Valentine. 

One of our children wondered some more in the Response Time:

The picture is unfinished, but you can clearly see elements of the story. It was unusual to see this child wondering about the story that was just told - in Godly Play children often wonder about a story they heard earlier and not the one that was just told - but very nice.

Hope your Valentine's celebration next week is lots of fun! 

You can read about our family's traditions in this post from last year. 

Linked to Montessori Monday at Living Montessori Now

and Eco Kids' Tuesday at Organic Aspirations and Like Mother - Like Daughter

and Waldorf Wednesday at Seasons of Joy

Godly Play: St. Teresa of Avila

On the last green and growing Sunday of 2012, I shared the story of St. Teresa of Avila, found in Godly Play Vol. 7. This is the only saint story so far that has elicited a genuine belly laugh from the kids.

The materials for the story:
- a Teresa figure
- a wooden bed
- a donkey
- a crystal
- a map of Spain

(Note: Usually the Teresa figure would not be used in the actual story, but in the introductory story of the saints. Rather than using the wooden figure in the story, there is a booklet with a picture of the saint and a timeline inside. I choose to replace the booklet with my own figures for two reasons: 1. The figure holds the attention of my 6-year-old better; 2. It is difficult for me to obtain the booklets, because these stories have not been translated into German and are not produced by our GP supplier here in Germany.)

This story begins with details of Teresa's happy family life, and then moves on to the two greatest challenges in her life, the death of her mother and her poor health. Teresa's life changes when she suddenly becomes aware of God's presence in a more intense way. It makes her more playful and loving.

The part where the children laughed so hard was a story about Teresa crossing a river while riding on a donkey. The saddle starts to slip, but Teresa doesn't notice, because she is praying. She lands in the water and says playfully, "God, is this how you treat your friends? No wonder you have so few friends!" (I love that Teresa was so sure of her relationship with God that she could joke like that!)

The story also does a fine job of explaining Teresa's greatest work, The Interior Castle, in which prayer is described as a castle made of very clear crystal. When you reach the innermost room, it is "so light that all you can see is God".

During the Wondering, both children said the story about falling into the river with the donkey was their favorite part.

When asked what their favorite part was, one child answered, "That Teresa had a mother and father. Otherwise, she wouldn't have been born!"

And when asked if a part of the story told something about them, one child answered, "Well, I like to collect rocks, too. And I like books, too!" Neither of my children usually answer this question, so it was interesting to get a response from one of them this time. 

Here are the other Godly Play saint stories that I have done this year:

Thomas Aquinas

St. Patrick

St. Elisabeth of Portugal

To see how I made St. Teresa of Avila, click here. 



Linked to Waldorf  Wednesday at Seasons of Joy

Sneak Preview: St. Teresa of Avila

I'm still working my way through Godly Play Volume 7 which contains enrichment stories of the saints. There is a saint story for each month of the year, plus two introduction the saints stories, the story of the child's own saint, and the story of the child's life. Sixteen lessons in all and I'll have managed 4 this year. (At this rate, I'll be finished in four years!) We have one more "green" Sunday before Advent starts, so I am going to use it to tell the story of St. Teresa of Avila.

It is said that Teresa's The Interior Castle is a book that every Christian should read before they die. I am currently reading it on-line here.

I think that Teresa's story tells us much about how to find contentment in difficult situations. She lost her mother as a teenager and then became sick and bed-ridden as a young adult. Though her general condition improved, she was plagued by ill health the rest of her life. That did not, however, stop her from being a positive influence on others and being a joyful person. Experiencing friendship with her Creator helped Teresa come to terms with and make something wonderful out of the natural boundaries she faced.

 I've just finished a figure of her for the story. I think it turned out much better than the one I did of St. Elisabeth of Portugal.

I made the headwear for Teresa's habit with felt, but glued it onto black cardboard to help it keep its shape. 

We'll see what the kids say about it all on Sunday!

On another note, please keep adding your posts to the Exploring Advent and Christmas Link-Up!

Godly Play: St. Elisabeth of Portugal

I must admit that I was not previously familiar with this fascinating woman's story. Living in Germany, I am much more familiar with her great-aunt, Elisabeth of Hungary (known as Elisabeth von Thuringen here in Germany), for who this Elisabeth was named. Elisabeth of Portugal was ahead of her time intellectually, politically and environmentally. 

This Godly Play story comes from The Complete Guide to Godly Play: Volume 7 by Jerome Berryman. Peter Privett pointed out to me that each of the saints in this volume have a difficult childhood experience in common. Elisabeth's was family intrigue and in-fighting. Through it all, she learned to be and remain a peacemaker. 

Each of the objects above represent something about Elisabeth's life:
1. map of Portugal -  Although Elisabeth was a princess of Aragon, she married Denis, king of Portugal at age 12 and became his queen
2. rose - Elisabeth consistenty refused riches and gifts throughout her life and gave everything to the poor. Legend has it that one day when Denis demanded to see the gold coins in her apron that she was planning to give away, they turned to roses. 
3. pine tree - Denis and Elisabeth planted pine trees along the coast to prevent further soil erosion.
4. donkey - Elisabeth bravely prevented her husband and oldest son from killing each other on the battlefield by riding a donkey in the middle of the two armies. 

In my own background research for the story, I found out some other interesting things about her. Elisabeth apparently received a great education as a child and was adept at languages and singing. In this article, I read about her engineering and architecture skills as well. Elisabeth not only funded hospitals and other institutions for social well-being, but designed and oversaw the actual building process as well. 

Her marriage was not an easy one. Denis was said to be a philanderer and the dispute mentioned in the story with his oldest son came about as a result of the father's favoritism shown to an illegitimate child.

During the Wondering time, my children were very verbal. This has not always been the case with the other saint stories. They were shocked that Elisabeth married so young. And both seemed impressed by her courage to come between two armies ready to tear each other apart. (Living in Europe, they have seen lots of medieval weapons in museums and can picture somewhat how terrifying it must have been!)

Above all, Elisabeth knew what it meant to love her neighbor, even if it cost her a great price. She knew how to make peace an active thing. And I pray that we will follow her example and continue to allow God to transform us into active peacemakers as well. 

Click here to read how I made the materials for this story.