Enjoy a St. Patrick's Day with Art, Music, and a Poet-Tea

Would you like to add a little art, music, poetry, food and fun to your St. Patrick's Day this year? 

Then, you may wish to take a peak at how we enjoyed a St. Patrick's Day Poet-Tea with friends last year.:
 
"AMP"ing Up the Liturgical Year

First, for those who are unfamiliar with our A.M.P. It Up Club endeavors, a quick synopsis:

Since 2015, some friends and I have been getting out children together for a once-to-twice a month club to "amp up" our focus on art, music, and poetry in our lives.  Typically, at our meetings we:

• recite (and sometimes write verses of) poetry.
• briefly study composers, compositions, music styles, or instruments.
• experiment with different styles of artwork, sometimes after completing quick picture studies.

We also tie our meetings to the liturgical year at times, since all of us are Catholic and enjoy celebrating together. That's exactly what we did for St. Patrick's feast day!
 
The Setting

We kept our setting fairly simple:

• an off-white tablecloth (because the lacy, white tablecloth I wanted to use, reminiscent of Irish lace needed to be laundered after a just-us celebration earlier in the day)

• green and blue candles (because the color green is now associated with St. Patrick's day, but St. Patrick was often depicted in blue in earlier art)

• several Irish-themed knick knacks (just for fun since we had them out already)

• a shamrock candle holder that my niece had welded and given us as a gift (to remind us of the legend that St. Patrick used shamrocks to teach about the Trinity)

• Prayers to My Favorite Saints (so we could view the illustration of St. Patrick in in and read the prayer) 

• a print out about Celtic crosses (so we could explain them to the children)

A St. Patrick's Day Poet-Tea

{Disclosure: Some links which follow are affiliate ones.}

To begin our Poet-Tea, we prayed grace and chatted about what we knew about St. Patrick the Saint and other St. Patrick's day traditions and lore using the food on our table as a starting point.  The fare included:

 Green Matcha Donuts (going with the Irish green theme)

 Potato Hashbrowns (because Ireland is known for its potatoes)

 A Potato-and-More Frittata with "Shamrock" Garnish (because we all need a little protein!)

 An "Irish Flag" Veggie Tray

 Traditional Irish Stew

 A Fruit Rainbow (for the leprechaun legends)

 Green Smoothies(for Ireland's green)  "Liquid Gold" Juice (for the leprechaun legends again), Chocolate Silk (just because we like it) and Irish tea

 More Potato Hash (for Ireland's potatoes)

Leprechaun Gold Juice Wigglers (because my children love juice wigglers)

Oatmeal (because some of mine loves "Irish" oatmeal)

I also drew the children's attention to the illustration and text about St. Patrick in Prayers to My Favorite Saints and led them in further prayer. 

As the children began to eat, for the poetry portion of our Poet-Tea, I read them St. Patrick's Breastplate and some Irish Blessings, (but only a few, so we could all enjoy just eating and chatting together.)  

Then, while we cleaned up the tea, those who wished to took turns playing with our green bodysock (which my children always ask me to pull out at this time of year!)

After that, I offered the children their choice of copywork of Irish blessings or St. Patrick's Breastplate (found FREE at Proverbs 22:6 Academy!) to do for a brief time and encouraged those who wished to pen their own Irish-style blessings.

Music Appreciation and Games

After a short period for copywork, we knew the children were ready to move and groove, so I played some traditional Irish music while the kids danced.  

We talked a bit about what types of instruments we heard in the music and played a bit of "dance freeze".

Then, I asked if anyone could tell me about St. Patrick and the bells and shared a bit from one of our favorite seasonal picture books, St. Patrick and the Three Brave Mice, before taking everyone outside to play our old favorite Snake Freeze,which is always a hit. 

The children so enjoyed playing sneaky snakes.

Running up to steal the bell..

Trying not to be heard...

 

And catching one another...

The Mamas did, too!  So many laughs were had by all.

Imaginative Landscapes Artwork

Once we everyone had had turns at our game, we gathered together to do a picture study about landscapes in my ARTistic Pursuits Elementary Book One.  

Then, we browsed some of the beautiful landscapes illustrations in Ann Tompert's Saint Patrick and other seasonal picture books I had in our book basket before setting to work using pencils, Cray-Pas and Crayola Oil Pastels to create our own imagined landscapes. 

Some of the children went with the Saint Patrick's Ireland theme for their artwork and others did not.  See:

 

All enjoyed our time together observing Saint Patrick's Day with art, music, poetry and more.  In fact, once the children completed their artwork, they were not quite ready to stop celebrating...

Indeed, they decided it was time for a parade.

 
Some Final Fun

In years past, my children have enjoyed many Irish and St. Patrick's day themed picture books, including:

Patrick, Patron Saint of Ireland

St. Patrick's Day in the Morning

The Last Snake in Ireland

Thus, little family traditions of having our bells and drums out around St. Patrick's day and parading around with them have sprung up.  This year, these traditions were shared with friends in our own little noisy parade.

More St. Patrick's Day Ideas

If you'd like other ideas for celebrating St. Patrick's Day, you may wish to click on through to some of these:

• Feast, Learn, and Enjoy Sensory Activities for Saint Patrick's Feast Day

   

• Planning a Sense-able St. Patrick’s Day Tea and Playdate

• A Sensory-Friendly St. Patrick’s Day Story and Play Time 

• Throw the Snakes Out of Ireland (get your FREE Printable challenge sheet)
  
  he Kennedy Adventures Shamrock Sandwiches How-To 

• The Kennedy Adventures Irish Frosties recipe

• The Kennedy Adventures collection of St. Patrick's Day Snacks

• Life, Love and Sacred Art's adorable FREE printable St. Patrick Coloring Page

• Fun ideas at A Slice of Smith Life

 I'd love to hear about how YOU celebrate St. Patrick's Day or approach art, music, and poetry. 

St. Patrick, pray for us!

This post was shared at the 40 Days of Seeking Him Link up

6 Ways to Celebrate Epiphany

Happy Epiphany Sunday!

Life got a bit harried here this end of Christmastide, so we were unable to celebrate Epiphany with all the traditions that we have in the past (like doorway chalk blessings).  However, we still observed both the traditional day of Epiphany (January 6) and this Epiphany Sunday with moments of prayer and joy.

Some highlights of our observances - which I pray will inspire you to slip in celebrations even during your own crazy, busy days - were:

~1~

Sharing Stories

(Disclosure: Some links which follow are affiliate ones.)
I did not have time to borrow all our favorite Epiphany read togethers from the library this year, so we simply shared two that we own.

Humphrey's First Christmas has gorgeously expressive illustrations and engaging text which tells the story of a cranky, yet endearing camel, who starts his journey "all about me", but ends "all about Him".  The book seemed especially meaningful this year as some preteen attitudes began infiltrating our home.  The message of being overwhelmed with love and letting that love change you hit home! 

I also love that the book ends with the name of Jesus since January is dedicated the Holy Name of Jesus.

Every year at this time, we borrow the single copy of the out-of-print The Story of the Three Wise Kings that our library owns.  This, year, though, we did not have to. 

Why? 

Much to my delight, The Story of the Three Wise Kings has been reprinted in a collection called Joy to the World: Tomie's Christmas Stories, which was (and still is!) on sale and, thus, became my children's Epiphany gift.

We are all thrilled to own our own copy of the first Epiphany picture book story we ever read together.  It truly has become such a family tradition to read this story together that it does not seem like Epiphany for us until we do.

 

~2~
Enjoying Faith through Food

We love celebrating faith through food here, so, even when things were a bit crazy here on Friday, I set aside time to put together a quick and easy celebratory dinner that, this year, included a dout stable, a blueberry sky with cashew Star of Bethlehem, pineapple and pineapple juice "gold", chocolate-nuts-seed-dried fruit-spice "frankincense", and greens "myrrh".

The kids could not wait to dig in after we prayed, snapped a photo or two, and chatted about symbolism.

~3~

Celebrating Mass

Traditional Epiphany found a few inches of snow on our ground and Epiphany Sunday found a foot-and-a-half of the white stuff, but that did not stop us from celebrating Mass. 

I was blessed on Friday to have some quiet time on my own at Holy Hour with Divine Mercy, and, then, my husband and children joined me for the Mass which followed. 

Then, this morning, we were among those that braved shoveling out to get to Sunday Mass.  So glad we did!

~4~

Enjoying a Pageant

Truth be told, we had two reasons to shovel out this morning!  One, of course, was Mass.  The other was the children's Christmas pageant. 

For the first year since we had children, our parish decided to host a Christmas pageant.  Because the Christmas season is so busy for so many, those organizing the pageant decided to hold it just before the vigil Mass for Epiphany Sunday.   However, Mother Nature had another plan.

A blizzard postponed our final rehearsal and show until this morning!

That caused a bit of chaos, as our cast members, accompanist, fellow Mom volunteers, and audience members had to work hard to shovel out to get to the church, and, unfortunately, our set person never made it. 

Despite that, though, the pageant turned out well.  All the children did a beautiful job, including my three children, who were cast in five roles:

My girlie was the Angel Gabriel.

My youngest was Caesar Augustus and, then, a shepherd.  (Somehow, we failed to get a photo of him as the latter, which is too bad, because he looked so cute!)

And, my oldest was a prophet, and, then, a townsperson.

Yours truly volunteered to co-direct and enjoyed doing so.

~5~

Praying for Babies

Every year, our church hands out baby bottles at the beginning of Advent to be filled with change through Epiphany to support the work of the Respect Life Committee.

My children love filling the bottle with loose change and bills, making secret offerings to it, as well as ones we make as a family. 

Due to the chaos from the blizzard this morning, we did not remember to bring our bottle to return this week (but will get it to the committee later!)  We did, though, remember to make special time to recall how Jesus came to earth as a baby and to offer extra prayers for babies today.

~6~

Learning about the Star of Bethlehem

We haven't actually done this yet, but as we settle for bed tonight, we are going to snuggle up with a library copy of The Star of Bethlehem. 

We have never watched this documentary before, but it was recommended to me by friends, so we are excited to see what we might learn from it.

May this Epiphany bring you blessings and joy, no matter what else may be happening in life!