Training Happy Hearts: Enjoy a Make a Book Stand Design Challenge for St. Kenneth's Feast Day {Free Printable!}

**If you just want the free printable, scroll to the middle of this post. If you'd like to see how last week's challenge went and to read the "lesson plan" for this one - which includes helpful links - read it from the start.**

First: a Flashback to Floating a Boat

Last week, after my children learned about about St. Theodore Guerin, who took an arduous journey by ship across the Atlantic to become a missionary in America I challenged their friends and them to Float a Boat.

They did an awesome job with their team work.

And met with total success using a minimum of materials.

Then, later in the week, I presented the same challenge to a co-op class that I am teaching: Problem Solving with the Saints.

The teams there had to use our motto, "try, try again" as this one (somewhat sinking example shows...)

However, the eventually met with some degree of success through redesigns, retests...

...and succeeded with all "passengers" safely aboard.

Because the teams in my co-op class are younger, I opted not to use the challenge sheets with them, but, rather, to simply offer them the challenge verbally. I also opted not to time them.

Now: Onto St. Kenneth and Making Book Stands

Continuing our saint-inspired designed challenges, my children and I (and, later, my my co-op class) learned about St. Kenneth this week -whose feast day is October 11 - before taking on a Make a Book Stand design challenge.

If you and yours would like to take the challenge, too, here's our plan:

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St. Kenneth Chat, Story and Scrapbook Page

We'll open by asking if anyone can find Ireland, Scotland, and Wales on a map or globe. Then, I'll ask the children what Irish saints they can name. If no one names Saint Kenneth, I will, and will then explain that St. Kenneth was a monk in the mid 500's who founded the monastery of Agahanoe and served as its first abbot. He was also invaluable to missionary efforts in Scotland. Legend tells that a local stag would hold St. Kenneth's Bible with its antlers while he was praying as a hermit, and it is from this legend, that our design challenge will spring. But, first, let's learn more about St. Kenneth.

https://www.amazon.com/Saints-Among-Animals-Cynthia-Zarin/dp/1442472960/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&linkCode=ll1&tag=traihapphear-20&linkId=c94030da0875358dd9ad21865b0ab0f7

To do so, we'll listen to (or read) Holy Spirit Interactive's short biography about Saint Kenneth and, then, practice/recite the Sign of the Cross, maybe even acting out the miracle when the pagan King Brude of Scotland went to strike St. Kenneth and his fellow missionary St. Columba with a sword, whereupon St. Kenneth made the Sign of the Cross, and the king's hand was suddenly paralyzed, saving St Kenneth and his colleague.

We'll also read "A Few Short Tales of Saint Canice" in Saints Among the Animals (which, with my own children, we might compare and contrast with the stories of "St. Cannaic and the Mice", "St. Cannair and the Sea-Birds", and St. Cannaic and the Stag" in Beasts and Saints, which also appear on CelticSaints.org.)

As I read, the children will be encouraged to create a scrapbook page about St. Kenneth by drawing images or taking notes about anything they want to remember about him, and noting that:

He was also called Canice, Kenny, Canicus, or Chainnech.
His feast day is October 11.
He lived in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.
He is patron of the Diocese of Ossory in Ireland and of the shipwrecked.

I will also ask the children to draw an image St. Kenneth on their scrapbook pages or paste one on that I will print out from Wikipedia.

As we conclude our conversation and scrapbooking time, I will note, as found on JClub: A Catholic Place for Kids, that:

St. Kenneth knew how to make the best of a difficult situation. His good humor won him many friends and helpers in preaching the Good News. We can ask St. Kenneth to show us how to be as good and cheerful a friend as he was.

I will, then, ask the children for examples of how and when they have been (or could be) "good and cheerful".

I may also throw in details about St. Kenneth that I have read about on OrthoChristian.com and Encyclopedia Britannica, before seguing into our design challenge - which, as I already mentioned, is inspired by the legend that a stag used to hold St. Kenneth's Bible while he prayed.

St. Kenneth Make-a-Book-Stand Design Challenge

Since Saint Kenneth was said to have used a stag and his antlers as a book stand, we will make our own book stands which will hold a Bible at least three inches off the table for 12 seconds.

This challenge is inspired by a Book-Support Challenge shared as a pdf by Rogers Public Schools.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6Lk1nwk2KPdM0FueVQySmZDa3M/view?usp=sharing

Just as was the case with our challenge related to St. Theodore Guerin, I want our St. Kenneth challenge to do multi-duty: to be used in my Problem Solving with the Saints co-op class, to help my children remember St. Kenneth's faithful reading of the Word, and to serve as an activity for the children's Destination Imagination Club.

Because Destination Imagination is not a faith-based initiative, I have created a challenge sheet that does not contain the St. Kenneth tie-in in the main printable portion, but, rather, only mentions it on the first page of the printable.

If you'd like to try the design challenge, too, get your FREE MAKE A BOOK STAND INSTANT CHALLENGE PRINTABLE here!

I'd love to hear how it goes for you. Please share a comment here or even show me a picture on our Facebook page.

Looking Ahead to All Saints Day

My children and I are also beginning to think ahead to which saints they would like to dress up as and what game they would like to host at a local All Saints Day party, so we've been looking back at pictures and ideas from years past. If you'd like some inspiration, we invite you to do the same by clicking through any of the images below: