Join us as we journey along in training up our children (and ourselves!) to live fully, love deeply and learn passionately, with faith that promises (and delivers!) truly happy hearts.
Here, along with waking to goodies in shoes, reading "virtue letters" from St. Nicholas, and going to Mass, my children and I made time for a long-time family tradition: gifting a neighbor with a St. Nicholas basket!
If you're looking for a fun idea for encouraging secret service and neighborhood cheer, St. Nicholas neighborhood baskets are an easy and enjoyable way to do it!
Some years, we have been delighted to see snowflakes popping up on other doorways in our neighborhood.
Other years, we are just happy to gift some happiness to whatever family we drop a basket to whether they share forward or not. All years, we enjoy spreading some secret cheer close to home.
Perhaps you and yours will enjoy this tradition, too.
However you choose to spend your St. Nicholas Day, we pray is blessed with love and service.
Saint Nicholas, you were a kind and generous man and a special friend of children. I pray that I may always show my gratitude to people who are good to me. May I return their kindness with love and may I never hesitate to share their care with others. Amen.
Special thanks to The Christmas Star from Afar for providing "St. Nicholas" a kit for my children to enjoy and another for me to offer one lucky reader here as a giveaway.
Happy St. Nicholas Day!
This morning, my children were surprised to find a gift alongside their treat-filled shoes. In fact, they were delighted to discover The Christmas Star from Afar, a lovely wooden nativity set and game that celebrates the TRUE meaning of Christmas.
Truth be told, I am happy, too. I have long wanted a beautiful, yet simply designed wooden nativity playset for my children and Star from Afar is just that and more! What Is Star from Afar?
Star from Afar is a nativity set and book that helps families create new Advent and Christmastide traditions that place the focus on Christ through a fun hide-and-seek game. The idea is for you to set up the single-sided wooden nativity scene, sans its star and wise men. Then, you hide the star a distance from the nativity scene and, ask your children to find it. When they do, they can place the wise men near the star.
Then, the next day, you hide the star somewhere new, each day, hiding
the star closer and closer to the manger, until finally, you place the
star atop the manger scene, reminding your children of the true meaning
of Christmas: Christ being born!
As a bonus, you may also want to add Bible verses to the daily hide-n-seek game. In the companion book are daily verses that you can copy and place near the star or may simply read once your children find the star. It's Flexible and Fun (Plus Ties in Well with Learning!)
Of course, though, you need not use Star from Afar exactly as suggested. In fact, one thing I love about the gift set is how flexible it is! The pieces of the nativity set are sturdy and perfectly sized for young children to play with. The Bible verses quoted in the book are dated with one for each day of December through Christmas, but, really, they can be used anytime. The hide-n-seek game is meant to be played as a countdown to Christmas, but could be used equally well between Christmas and Epiphany. Truly, you can make Star from Afar your own, adapting it to your family's needs and traditions.Here, we are doing just that this year.
As regular readers know, our family already has a Works of Mercy Wise Men tradition that helps us focus on one way we prepare our hearts and home for Jesus: service! The Star from Afarcould easily be layered into that tradition and, indeed, may be in years to come. However, this year, we have decided to use the star in a different way.
For, while our hearts are already becoming more and more prepared for Christ this Advent season, our home remains in a less-than welcoming condition. Daily, we make efforts to clean, declutter, and organize some of the mess we've let accrue. However, there is just so much to be squared away that we are beginning to feel discouraged. Thus, I suggested to my children that we focus our Star from Afar game before Christmas this year on literally readying our home for the celebration of Christ's coming to earth. Then, from Christmas through Epiphany, we can play the game the way others typically play it, helping our wise men journey towards Jesus. My children agreed to this idea, so our plan is that throughout the rest of Advent, instead of having ME hide our star daily, any one of us who notes a mess that could be taken care of in 15 minutes or less may take the star and hide it within the mess. Then, as soon as another of us finds the star, we will all take a break from our lessons and activities to set a timer and see if we can beat the clock in cleaning up the mess to make a safe spot for our wise men to hunker down in until they are ready to continue on their journey.
If we succeed in beating our timer, we can take a break until the timer goes off. If we don't, then we shall simply persevere, hopefully, making a bit more headway on our home before Christmas and having fun along the way.
Then, from Christmas through Epiphany, we can simply enjoy hiding the star, celebrating Christmas, and knowing we have a home that is, literally, a bit more ready to welcome others!
We also have a plan for the book that comes with with set.
When we read the story and noted the Bible verses, we realized how easy the list of verses could make our copywork and studied dictation efforts this month and next. Each week, the children are responsible for picking a passage o use for copywork and one for studied dictation. We've all decided that theStar from Afar verses will make a great go-to list for choosing this season's handwriting and spelling work.
Yippee! I just love it when a fun product can dovetail into existing goals and lesson plans, acting both as a tool for fun and one for greater independence. I am delighted that both the nativity set and book in The Star from Afar gift set are quality items we can easily use and enjoy right away and for years to come. Enter a Giveaway! If you would like to help your children reconnect with the true meaning of Christmas using The Star from Afar, today might be your lucky day!
We're hosting a GIVEAWAY* and I am making entry easy:
On your honor, pop on over to The Star from Afar website to watch a video about the kit or to get more ideas for using it. Then, before 6:00 p.m. on Friday, December 9, leave a comment on this post telling what you already do to point your children to the true meaning of Christmas and how you envision The Star from Afar playing into your Christmas and Epiphany traditions. Be sure to leave a way for me to contact you in case you win, too. For we will be selecting and notifying a random winner on Friday night, and, if the winner does not respond within 24 hours, we will pass the opportunity onto a new random winner.
*Note: This giveaway is open to U.S residents only, ages 18 and older, with no purchase necessary.
Good luck!
Take Advantage of a Discount Code
Even if you do not win, you can still enjoy The Star from Afarusing a discount code. Simply order The Star from Afarby December 25, 2016 using FOLLOWTHESTAR as a discount code for 10% off. Learn More
I realized last night that I never shared about our Sensing the Saints: St. Nicholas Learn-and-Play Date we enjoyed last year and thought now might be a prime time to do so. For, if,
like me, you're a last-minute Mom (Dad or Teacher) when it comes to
celebrating the saints at times, perhaps you can pull a few quick ideas
from what we did.
Circle Time
The kids played and browsed books after Mass while I set up for our playdate quickly at a friends' home. Then, we gatherted together to chat about St. Nicholas and his feast day. Among other things, we:
prayed the Sign of the Cross followed by a short prayer found in Prayers to My Favorite Saints (which sells used at Amazon for just a penny right now!), echo-style with the children echoing words and actions.
Saint Nicholas, you were a kind and generous man (gesture with hands over heart on “kind” and hands outstretched on “generous”)
and a special friend of children (do ASL sign for “friend” on “friend”)
I pray that I may always show my gratitude (do prayer hands on “pray”)
to people who are good to me. (hands outstretched to indicate everyone else on people)
May I return their kindness with love(hands on heart)
and may I never hesitate to share their care with others. (hands outstretched again)
Amen.
reviewed the names of the months, days of the week, and
counting to six for the littles when finding St. Nicholas' feast day on a
calendar.
Drew attention to the different images of Saint Nicholas on picture book covers from the books which follow and asked
children what they might share about St. Nicholas based on their prior
knowledge and guesses after viewing the book covers.
discussed where St. Nicholas was from (Turkey) and located the country on a globe.
chatted about what a saint is and expanded on kids' ideas with the thoughts that:
We are saints on earth when we love Jesus Christ and follow his teachings.
There are also saints in heaven, some of whom are named, like St. Nicholas.
The saints are saints that are canonized. One thing that happens before a saint is canonized is a miracle – or two.
Storytime
We then chatted about how St. Nicholas was known to have been
involved in many miracles and read The Legend of St. Nicholas, having children listen for miracles for examples of kind acts. As we read, we paused to discuss images, text and the
children’s reactions to the story and, after the story, we discussed what a virtue is (a habit for
good), what some virtues that St. Nicholas demonstrated were (generosity,
kindness, faith, etc.), and how we might live such virtues.
Of course, if you're super last-minute, you may not be able to
get any books about St. Nicholas in time for today. Never fear! The Saint Nicholas Center has lots of free stories and information online!
Choice Activities After storytime, it was onto choice activities.
I explained that the stories
about St. Nicholas’ kindnesses and miracles which we had just heard
about in the book are only a small portion of the ones attributed to St.
Nicholas and that they are what inspired our activities for the day,
which were:
Toss the Coin Like St. Nicholas, where children could get proprioceptive, tactile and visual input, in particular as they built a house with Duplos,
like the one the poor nobleman’s daughters lived in – leaving windows –
and then acted as Saint Nicholas by tossing coins through the windows.
(You could build the houses with just about anything if you don't have Duplos!)
Color the Bishop St. Nicholas, where children could exercise fine motor skills as they identified the symbols of a bishop and color pictures of St. Nicholas and recalled one thing St. Nicholas is patron to (children). For this activity, we used markers andcolor sticks, which are one our favorite coloring tools and so much better than crayons for one of my kiddoes, to color this image from the St. Nicholas Center.
Be the Patron Saint of Sailors,
where children thoroughly enjoyed the tactile input of sensory play
while remembering another thing Saint Nicholas is a patron to
(sailors!) We used waterbeads like these and the baot and a few figurines from our Tales of Glory playset (on sale at Amazon now for 32% off), but you could use any play boat and figurines.
Prepare to Give Grain Like St. Nicholas, where children again exercised fine motor skills while making snowflakes of their own design or using printables from First Palette. They also were encouraged to take printablefrom the St. Nicholas Centerhome
so they could use the snowflakes to make a secret gift for their
neighbors, thereby showing kindness and generosity like St. Nicholas. Roll the Cup, where children could enjoy proprioceptive and vestibular fun while recalling
one of the miracles attributed to St. Nicholas. (We used golden
goblets from a mini Mass kit we own, but I forgot to take pictures.)
Write a Letter, where children could do as children in Bavaria do and write letters to the Christ Child in Heaven. After all that fun, of course, there was clean up and free play.
Later, at home,my children put together a basket which we secretly dropped off at a neighbor's home.
I know one of the other families that attended did the same.
Free Printable Plans I hope some of our activities inspire your own. In case you'd like to use all of them, I am sharing the FREE Sensing the Saints: St. Nicholas lesson plan I created, which has materials lists, objectives, assessments, etc. included. Please feel free to download and use it in your own homes, co-ops, or classrooms and to point others to this post to do the same.
Have a most wonderful St. Nicholas Day! I'd love to hear how you play and learn about this inspiring saint. Do leave a comment here or on our Facebook page.
