Pentecost Nature Tables

It's still Pentecost here in Germany! We get Pentecost Sunday and Pentecost Monday as well. I slept in, went for a long jog, and now we have the rest of the day to hang out together and read books. A perfect day - gotta love public holidays in Germany!

I found an old draft of our interactive Pentecost nature table from 2015 that for some reason I never posted. So I thought I'd share it with you now. It focuses on the Great Commission part of the Ascension and Pentecost stories.

Some of you will recognize the apostles' shields and end scene from the Godly Play Pentecost story where the apostles are filled with the Holy Spirit and go out everywhere to spread the good news of God's love. To make the table interactive, I place the shields and pictures of the 7 continents in in a basket, and encouraged my family to place the shields and continents where they wanted and say a prayer for the people on that continent. (Okay, I know there are no people on Antarctica, but my kids are concerned about penguins and their well-being!)

This year, I just did something simple. Again, I used Godly Play materials, this time from the Good Shepherd and World Communion story, to remind us how God's Spirit fills us with strength and love to do his work throughout the earth. I also placed a blood-red peony (called a Pfingstrose - "Pentecost Rose" in German) and a jar of cool shells and rocks on either side of the communion figures. 

Happy Easter!

Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed!

Der Herr ist auferstanden!

Er ist wahrhaftig auferstanden!

Hopefully some Easter grass will begin growing here during Eastertide!

Happy Easter!

Frohe Ostern!

New Twist on Advent Nature Table

Hi Everyone! Hope you are enjoying the first week of Advent! I wanted to share some photos from a friend of mine who recently made her own Advent Nature Table with her son. Irena lives in a place where it can be a bit difficult to find wooden nativity figures, so she and her son came up with a good solution: they made their own out of modeling clay!

Aren't her figures and Advent Nature Table lovely? I especially love how she added the four candles along the way.  I honestly think it's a blessing when we can't find ready-made things easily, because it causes us to use our imagination and creativity!

Our family celebrated Thanksgiving on Saturday, since last Thursday was a normal working day here in Germany. (The German Thanksgiving, "Erntedankfest" is in September and is always on a Sunday.) We baked a turkey and had lots of friends over to share in the festivities! 

So on Sunday, we hastily gathered materials to make our Advent Nature. My children did much more of the work this time choosing the rocks and the nature finds themselves. 

I'll have some Advent Club news for you soon, as well as another Advent craft!

Interactive Autumn Nature Table

This year I wanted to do something different with our autumn nature table and take it a step beyond the imaginative play by making it a little more interactive. While my 7-year-old still loves to play with wooden animal figures, my 10-year-old needs something a little different. Being a fan of Land Art, I decided to put a "blank slate" of sorts in the middle of the table that could be used as a palette for  creations with nature materials.

Below you can see the "slate", a wooden plate used for table decorations. Around it in small bowls are chestnuts, berries, bark, acorn caps and seed pods to be used as art materials. I used felt leaves, since we don't have any real ones that have changed colors yet.

Here are a couple of mandala-like pictures made with the materials.

I am a big believer in not buying lots of expensive stuff for nature tables, and almost everything you see is something we already had. The only exception are the four wooden animals that we bought for sixty cents each at a craft show. They were unpainted and unfinished, so I let my kids have at them.

And here is the result. Aren't they adorable? The kids used watercolor and vinegar to make a stain for the background colors. Then, they used permanent markers to draw in the details.

And my little girl, who still loves her wooden figures, made a nest for the squirrel with a mint leaf and gave him an acorn.

Linked to Montessori Monday at Living Montessori Now

Ascension & Pentecost Nature Table

Dieses Jahr haben wir Himmelfahrt und Pfingsten auf dem Jahreszeittisch zusammen getan. This year we combined the themes of  Ascension and Pentecost to set up our nature table. 

 Unten kann man Jesus mit den Jüngern sehen, 

bevor er zurück zum Vater in den Himmel fährt.

Die Flamme aus Holz stellt das Geschenk des Heiligen Geistes dar.

Here you can see Jesus speaking last comforting words to the disciples

before he returns to the Father. 

The stacking flame represents the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Schmetterlinge sind in der Waldorpädagogik traditionell zum Pfingsten. Diesmal haben wir sie mit dem Filznadel trocken gefilzt. Sie hängen vom Fensterrahmen und sehen so aus, als ob sie "fliegen", wenn der Wind weht.

Butterflies are also traditional at Pentecost, also called Whitsun. 

This year we decided to needle felt them. They are hanging from the top of the window sill and appear to be "flying" when a draft comes through the window.

Meine 7-jährige Tochter wollte auch beim Filzen mitmachen. Bis jetzt habe ich wegen dem schrecklich großen Nadel gezögert sie's probieren zu lassen. 

Aber sie überzeugte mir, dass sie vorsichtig wäre, und benutzte eine Ausstechform um die Fingern zu schützen.

My 7-year-old daughter also wanted to try her hand a needle-felting. I had been a little hesitant after having accidentally stabbed my self a few times with the needle, but I relented when I saw that she would be careful. We used a cookie cutter to make the butterflies and protect little fingers.: )

Dann filzte sie diesen wunderschönen Schmetterling und eine Tulpe.

She went on to make this lovely butterfly hovering over a tulip.

Ein wunderschönes Pfingstwochenende an euch allen!

Have a wonderful Pentecost weekend!

Linked to Eco Kids' Tuesday at Like Mama-Like Daughter and Organic Aspirations

A Closer Look: Easter Nature Table 2013

I wanted to give you a closer look at our Easter Nature Table that I mentioned in the last post. 

Overnight, our table transformed from Lent . . . 

to joyous Easter . . . 

Here are some of the Pysanky that we made this year.

Our sad, purple cross becomes a symbol of triumph.

And we find the stone rolled away and an empty tomb.

A few close-ups of our Easter tree ornaments:

And last but not least, we've included various bunnies and chickens that the kids made in school.

 . . . 

Unser Jahreszeittisch verwandelte sich über Nacht von einem Fastenzeitstisch zum einem fröhlichen Ostertisch! 

Da haben wir einiges ausgestellt: ein weißes Kreuz, das leere Grab von Jesu, unsere Pisanki-Eier, selbst gebastelten Hasen u. Küken und natürlich den geschmückten Osterbaum. 

Frohe Ostern an euch alle!



Linked to Friday's Nature Table at The Magic Onions

Beginning Lent

Lent has become a special time for our family to slow down a bit and take more time for God and each other. Although we fast by abstaining from meat during the week, we try to focus on what God wants to give us in this season rather than on what we are giving up. 

At our Sunday Brunch and children's service, I finally found a way to hang up my Circle of the Church Year. The kids knew exactly where the hand of the "clock" should be - on the last Sunday of the green, growing season (also known as "Ordinary Time") before Lent. 

Since I neither grew up Catholic nor in the state of Louisiana, "Fasching" (what we call Carnival or Mardi Gras here) was not part of my tradition. But it is celebrated here in northern Germany as a children's holiday on Shrove Tuesday, and the kids have parties at school. It is a fun way to say good-bye to Ordinary Time before greeting Lent.

This year, we had a doctor in the house . . . 

and a visit from Legolas . . . 

(If you'd like to know how my husband made those elf ears, click here.)

Then we enjoyed a "Pfannkuchen" (pancake) for afternoon tea.

It's actually more of what Americans would call a doughnut and filled with jelly. We call it a Pfannkuchen, but Germans outside of Berlin call it a "Berliner". And this is incidentally what caused the roaring laughter in the crowd when John F. Kennedy said, "Ich bin ein Berliner!" Because he used the indefinite article, he inadvertantly referred to himself as a jelly-filled doughnut.: )

Today, we began to build our Lenten Nature Table. 

It's tulip time in Europe right now, and they are my absolute favorite. I couldn't resist adding them to our nature table.

On Sunday the children made Lenten prayer pots. My daughter made a new one, since she made the last one when she was four.

and my son still loves his old prayer pot, 

so he created something new for the nature table . . .

We ended our day by attending an Ash Wednesday service at a church near our home. The children had the experience of getting ashes on their forehead for the first time, and found it to be a meaningful symbol. 

Many blessings on your Lenten journey!

Lenten Nature Table 2012

We just finished putting up our nature table to begin our Lenten journey in 2012. While there are some  familiar elements from last year, we've added a few new things as well. These symbols of our faith are powerful reminders that we are on a special journey with God during Lent.  We set aside more time to draw closer in relationship with our Creator, to allow him to change us, and allow him to prompt change in the world through us.

Below is our Christ Candle surrounded by the things we are finding in our park as of late. I love having the Christ Candle in our kitchen where so much real life takes place. We eat, talk, do homework, art and have breakdowns in that room. The Christ Candle is a gentle reminder that God is always there with me, no matter what our day may turn into. The leaves are from an evergreen bush much like holly and the berries are signs of life that show the winter is thawing. The red berries are called "Hagebutte" in German and they are often used to make tea. The white berries we call "Knallbeeren"("crack" berries), because they make a fun sound when you step on them.: ) And the dark berries we call "Vogelbeeren" (bird berries), because the birds love to eat them.

Four figures in the desert, one for each member of our family. This year, I let each person pick out their own figures. You can probably guess which ones are my son and daughter. A bowl of water reminds of God's power to cleanse and renew. It also reminds us of our baptism. And since our children have not yet been baptized, it reminds us to talk with them about what it is all about.

The puzzle pieces are from the Godly Play story, The Mystery of Easter. This is a brilliant story that helps children (and adults!) understand why we need six weeks of preparation to celebrate with God at Easter. In it, the storyteller and children put together a puzzle that is a cross. Since I couldn't fit my wooden cross puzzle on the window sill, I had the idea from  So Many Joys to make one out of felt.

The puzzle pieces become this . . . 

and then this . . .

The two colors represent both the deep sadness of the Crucifixion and pure joy of the Resurrection that we experience at Easter.

I couldn't resist picking up a yellow crocus to put on the table. These beautiful flowers are the heralds announcing that we are in a transition and that change is about to come. Also, our jar with the pictures of  the children we sponsor through World Vision. (More about that in an upcoming post!)

And on the kitchen table, we have a single pillar candle and a prayer pot that the children made last year. Over the next six weeks, we will put objects in it that go with specific prayers that will lead us up to Easter.

May you be blessed on your Lenten journey!






This post is linked to the 
Celebrating Lent Link-Up Party 




and The Magic Onions

and Catholic Icing

and Crafty Moms Share and Mama Mia's Heart 2 Heart