Godly Play: St. Thomas Aquinas

January 28 was the feast day of St. Thomas Aquinas and I told the children his story on this quiet Saturday afternoon. I have to admit that I fell in love with this story of the saint who "thought for God". In this story, we learned that Thomas had many questions about God and wrote pages and pages about God and his two favorite kinds of books, the Bible and those by Aristotle.  But in the end, he found that the most important things about God were beyond words and could only be expressed in being close to God.

Our materials for the story of St. Thomas Aquinas

For the story, we needed:
- a St. Thomas figure
- two felt books to represent the Bible and the works of Aristotle
- a wooden ox, because Thomas was called "the silent ox"
- a map of Italy to show where Thomas was from (a piece from a Europe puzzle)
- a bit of straw, because Thomas felt at the end of his life that all he had written was like straw in comparison to being close to God

My 6-year-old daughter, who was so eager to play with the materials as I was making them, said she did not really like the story. (In fact, she is still playing with them as I have added them to our Candlemas Winter nature table.) My 8-year-old son, who was not so impressed by the materials, found the story riveting.  I'm not entirely sure if the different reactions were due to age or personality or a combination of both.

Our Wondering phase was fairly quiet until I mentioned that the part of the story that told something about me was that Thomas loved books (just like me!). My son suddenly became attentive again and exclaimed, "I like books, too!" Then, my daughter started examining the felt books and asked if she could draw in them. When I explained that we might need them to tell the story again, she asked if she could make her own book. Since I had some extra felt in a closet, I thought, "Why not?" and pulled out the materials for her.  Then, my son decided that he wanted to make one as well.  They made the two books pictured below, cutting the felt themselves and binding the paper with a needle and thread. The red one is my daughter's and the black/green one is my son's. 

The felt books that my children made during the Creative Phase.

My daughter drew detailed pictures of Mickey Mouse in hers (which is, of course, just fine).  Expecting my son to draw super heroes in his, he shocked me by writing out The Lord's Prayer in English in his book. (He knows this prayer much better in German and usually only wants to say it in that language.) Then, he drew a "map of heaven" as he has been trying a lot lately to picture what heaven might be like. Then, he drew detailed sketches of the human body including the outer layer and then the internal organs. And when we visited the Berlin Aquarium on Monday, he insisted on taking the book with him to make sketches of the fish. 

A peek inside their felt books.
(I asked their permission to take this picture!)

So suffice it to say that our Creative Phase turned out much differently than I had expected or could have planned. But then again, that is one of my greatest joys in working with children: you never know what they are going to do next!

I will always treasure this story of St. Thomas Aquinas, because of what we learn from his relationship with God and for how my children have perceived and experienced it. 

linked to Catholic Icing

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