Ordinary Time

Glittery Jesus Fish Craft- Make a Mobile!

January 11, 2012 By Lacy

This week we made a Jesus fish craft using only cardboard tubes, glue, and glitter. The kids had so much fun with this one!

This was such a simple process. Take a cardboard tube (such as a toilet paper roll or a paper towel tube) and flatten it. Then cut it into strips. You’ll end up with football shaped rings. Cut the ring apart at one fold, cut 2 slits, and fit together in the shape of Jesus fish.

Once you have your basic Jesus fish shape, you can craft with it however you want. It would be fun to just paint them, but we decided to glitter ours. To do this, put some white glue in a cup and add a little water. (About 1 part glue to 1 part water). You can paint the glue onto the Jesus fish using an old paint brush.

Once it’s all covered in glue, it’s time to add the glitter! We placed our Jesus fish on a piece of paper and shook the glitter over the top of the fish.

Once there’s a lot of glitter on the paper, you can pinch it and sprinkle more over with your fingers. What a fun, crafty mess!

Keep rolling, pinching, and shaking the glitter on until the whole fish is covered.

Set them on another piece of paper and wait for the glue to dry.

We found that darker, more saturated, colors of glitter looked nicer than pastel glitters.

Check out some of our finished Jesus fish! We made a whole glitter rainbow of them!

These were so much fun to make and my children were so pleased with the results! I love crafts that allow children to succeed, and there’s really no way to mess these up. When kids are successful in their crafts, it builds artistic confidence.

I was trying to decide exactly what to do with these new creations and thought they would make a cute Jesus fish mobile.

To make your own mobile, just cut a strip from card-stock and staple it into a loop. Then punch some holes for hanging.

We used embroidery floss that matched the colors of our fish to hang them. Just tie the string around the fish- the glitter grips the string and holds it in place. Hang them from the holes in your card-stock at different heights.

You’ll need to punch 3 holes in the top as well and suspend it from more string so you can hang it up.

These would be a great craft to make for Vacation Bible School, CCD, Sunday School, or at home. Keep your eyes peeled for glitter at the Dollar Tree- it’s so cheap there and I often find a great variety of colors! Happy crafting!

Jesus Fish Chalk Craft- Fun for Kids of all ages!
Round-up of Jesus Fish Crafts
Fishers of Men Crafts, Activities, and More
“Toss Your Nets to the Other Side” Craft
“Toss Your Nets to the Other Side” Fun Food Idea

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Filed Under: 00 All The Time, Bible Crafts, Crafts for Kids, Fishers of Men, Jesus, My Crafts, Ordinary Time, Summer, Vacation Bible School 27 Comments

Frame a Prayer with Children

February 16, 2011 By Lacy

Catholic ABC’s Week: 21
Letter of the week: P
Theme: Prayer
Saint of the Week: St. Peter
Craft: Prayer Craft

I was really torn about what the focus for “P” week should be, but ultimately decided on “prayer” because it’s so important, and such a basic concept. This is a craft Lydia made at our preschool co-op, and it has been a great tool to encourage us to pray together.

Materials Needed to Complete This Craft:

Jumbo Craft Sticks
Paint and/or other decorations
Printed off prayer of your choice
String
Glue

Start by gluing the Jumbo Craft Sticks in a square for your frame. Decorate as desired with paint, stickers, glitter glue, or anything else you’d like! Tie on a string for hanging, and then glue the prayer onto the back of the frame.

(back)

Hang this up somewhere in your home to help you and your child remember to pray daily. Ours hangs on our china cabinet. Ya, we’re classy like that.

Here are some other crafts you can find here on my blog that would also be great for the letter P:

Make a prayer book with kids. (I love this craft!)

Craft some Priest peg dolls.

And of course the Edible Papal Flag I ran on Monday.

Grab Bag Ideas for the Letter P: (be sure to check out the Classroom Script
for directions on using the grab bag.) Peanut, Papal flag, Priest, Prayer card, St. Peter holy card or statue, plate, pen, pencil, pecan, parrot, my little pony, ponytail holder, popsicle stick, post-it note, potato, potato head, pretzel, princess, puppet, purse, puzzle.

For More Resources, check out the Catholic Toolbox lesson plans for the Letter Cc. (Her Pp lesson is on “Plagues”)

Catholic ABC’s runs here at Catholic Icing every Wednesday with the new
letter of the week. You can find the details of the program here.

PS. Please keep voting for Catholic Icing! Your computer can vote once a day! Thank you so much!!!

Filed Under: 00 All The Time, Catholic ABC's, Christian, Crafts for Kids, Liturgical Year, My Crafts, Ordinary Time, Prayer 2 Comments

Nun Craft – Paper Bag Puppets

February 2, 2011 By Lacy

Catholic ABC’s Week: 19
Letter of the week: N
Theme: Nun
Saint of the Week: St. Nicholas
Craft: Paper Bag Nun Puppets

Materials needed to complete this craft:

Paper lunch bags
Assorted construction paper
Glue
Googly eyes
Manila File Folder
Scissors
Assorted supplies for “extras”

I developed this craft to use with my preschool co-op class, who are all 2 years old. This is the version I intended for them to make. (They didn’t get to make theirs yet because class was canceled this week due to weather).

This is a generic nun craft. Lets call her Mother Superior. She’s made out of black construction paper and white copy paper. Because the kids in my class are only 2, I cut out the pieces ahead of time but allow them to assemble the pieces themselves. Here are the pieces you’ll need:

To get the size of the dress right, just trace the paper bag onto black paper. First glue on the rectangle for the dress, then the side pieces of the habit, then the white rectangle of the habit, then the top black rectangle. Add the white collar piece. Then decorate the face as desired and add any additional pieces you’d like. When assembling, be sure to hang the head half way off of the bag flap so it functions as a puppet. Let the habit pieces hang down- don’t attach them to the body or the puppet won’t work.

Sometimes, when this craft is made by a 2 year old, it turns out like this. Who am I to argue with an “artist”? If that’s where he wants the eyes, I say “That’s very creative, Julian!”.

I wanted my preschool class to make little rosaries for their nuns. I think this will be a big hit, because 2 year olds love to string stuff. I’m providing half a pipe cleaner each and some regular pony beads. My plan is to encourage them to string on 10 beads for a 1 decade rosary. Stringing onto pipe cleaners is super easy to do because they’re already stiff, and the pony beads just stay on- no falling off the bottom. Bring the loop around, twist it shut, stick on one more bead for the “Our Father” and add a crucifix to the end. I have a pack of these crucifixes from Autom- they’re only 9 cents each! I love to let kids use them for crafts because they’re no good for regular rosaries. (They’re not much more sturdy than aluminum foil). You can just glue these rosaries right onto the puppet. If you don’t have any crucifixes, just cut some crosses out of paper.

Because we studied monstrances last week for “M”, Lydia was absolutely insistant that her nun have a monstrance instead of a rosary. My reply to that? “Sure! She can be Saint Clare!”. (Who, by the way, would actually have a brown robe).

This one was all Lydia. She did all the cutting, gluing, and designing. She (of course) chose the largest googly eyes I had, and multiple colored markers for the face. She even traced around a can for the head and cut the circle out herself. She’s almost 5. The monstrance she needed help with. I helped her to cut out the yellow piece like you would a simple snowflake craft by folding it first, and then cutting. We used felt for her habit because I actually ran out of black paper. Can you believe that? Then I made a nun with a monstrance, too!

So if adding a monstrance turns a generic Mother Superior to St. Clare, who does the nun become with some roses?

St. Therese! Sort of… but she actually also needed to have a brown robe. That would be so easy because you would just leave the bag brown! Anyway, her roses are made from tissue paper and green pipe cleaners. Nuns actually come in all different colors, so do a google search and make a bunch of them from all different orders! Pink and purple nuns definitely exist.

For extra fun, dress up like a nun when teaching your preschool for the letter “N”. You have no excuse not to because I posted directions for making the world’s easiest nun costume ever yesterday! (And now it allllll makes since.)

And dress your daughters up like nuns, too. So much fun!

Grab Bag Ideas for the Letter N: (be sure to check out the Classroom Script fordirections on using the grab bag.) Nuts, Napkin, Nail polish, Nurse hat, Necklace, Nun doll, bottle Nipple, Nail file, Nail (use caution), Name tag, Nativity, Nerds candy, Net, Newspaper, Notebook, Nickel, Noodles, compass for “North”, Nose (compliments of Mr. Potato Head), Nutmeg.

For More Resources, check out the Catholic Toolbox lesson plans for the Letter N. (Her N lesson is on Noah’s Ark.)

Catholic ABC’s runs here at Catholic Icing every Wednesday with the newletter of the week. You can get the details of this program by checkingout the Classroom Script.

We had a lot of fun with these! Expect to see more paper bag puppets from me in the future because my children adore them!

Filed Under: 00 All The Time, All Saints Day, Catholic ABC's, Crafts for Kids, Monstrance, My Crafts, Nun, Ordinary Time, Saints, St. Clare, St. Therese 9 Comments

Celebrating the Month of the Rosary!

October 1, 2010 By Lacy

October is here- the month of the Rosary! Today I’m having a special rosary link-up. You post about your rosary ideas, and then put your link at the bottom of this post.

The rosary idea I’d like to share with you today comes in an edible form!

This edible rosary is made from spagetti noodles, peas, and carrots. This is a LOT simpler to do than it first appears. All you do is take an uncooked spagetti noodle, and string on some green peas straight from the can.

Boil the noodles normally after the peas are on and they come out all flexible, plus the noodle expands and holds the peas on there really well!

To make the cross just break your raw spagetti noodles the

desired size and push 2 of them through one pea. Boil as usual.

For the Our Father beads I just used raw carrot slices.

Now it’s time to share your Rosary posts! Ideas you have from your archives are welcomed, and feel free to leave multiple links if you have multiple rosary ideas to share! Time to post those links This linky party is for any ideas you have for teaching kids aboutthe rosary, rosary making tips, rosary games/activities, and all funthings that are rosary! However, it’s not a place to advertise yourrosaries that are for sale. If you don’t have a blog or website, Iencourage you to post your pictures and ideas on the Catholic Icing facebook page to share!

To Post:

Click the button at the bottom that says “add your link”.
Enter the link to your specific Rosary post into the first box, not your generic blog address. Then enter your name and your email address. It will then let you choose a thumbnail picture of your post to share here at Catholic Icing.
Try to link back to this post if you can