Plan a St. Brigid and St. Verdiana Art, Music, and a Poet-Tea

February first is the Memorial of Saint Brigid of Ireland and also that of Saint Verdiana (although some calendars have Saint Verdiana's day listed as February 16th.)  It is also a day that our AMP It Up club is scheduled to meet.  Thus, I am planning another saint-based Poet-Tea, filled with faith, food, friendship, art, music, and poetry.

If you'd like to include saint-centered snacks and arts immersion on the St. Brigid's and St. Verdiana's feast day, I thought I'd share our Poet-Tea plans.

A St. Brigid and St. Verdiana Poet-Tea Setting and Menu
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Our poet-tea table will be decorated with:

• a white tablecloth (for the purity of the saint' love for God) layered with a blue fabric with golden "stars" on it (since St. Brigid's mantle is sometimes depicted as blue with stars).

• a green candle (to remind us that we are in Ordinary Time) and a white candle (also to remind us of the purity of the saints' love for God).

• several books depicting Saint Brigid and Saint Verdiana including:
  

 

Saint Bridget and the Fox and Saint Verdiana and the Snakes in Amazing Saints & their Awesome Animals

Saint Brigid  in Saints Lives and Illuminations

Brigid's Cloak: An Ancient Irish Story

Saint Brigid and the Cows

•  a St. Brigid cross (if I have time to fashion one) and some dry beans to remind us of how St. Verdiana, with her charitable heart,  gave away all her beans to the poor).

• a globe, so we can locate Ireland (for St. Brigid) and Italy (for St. Verdiana).
• perhaps some snake and cow figurines (since snakes play into St. Verdiana's stories and cows into St. Brigid's)

The food and drink we will serve s still being decided, but will likely include some of the following:

• bread, water, and herbs (because St. Verdiana's diet consisted of eating bread and water once a day, and, sometimes, eating herbs or vegetables.)
• beans (because Verdiana gave beans to the poor.)
• apples (because apples play into one of the tales of St. Brigid's miracles and charity.)
• coconut milk (because there are a number of tales and traditions related to St. Brigid and milk, but my children are cow-milk-free kids and one of our guests has both nut and soy allergies, so coconut milk is our only milk alternative)
• oat bread (adapted from traditional St. Brigid's oat cakes)
• blueberry jam (because it is traditional to eat on St. Brigid's day.)
• an "Italian Flag" fruit plate and an "Irish Flag" vegetable plate (because St. Verdiana was Italian and St. Brigid was Irish.)

Whatever the fare ends up being, I know, we'll pray pray grace, some spontaneous prayers, and a Traditional Catholic Prayer to Saint Brigid before digging into it and chatting more about the lives of Saint Brigid and Saint Verdiana, who were both known for their charity.

Poetry

We will revisit the poem The Giveaway, a long-time St. Brigid Day favorite of mine using a pdf from Clondalkin Village Parish.  Then, after reading about Saint Verdiana, I will ask the children to try their hand at writing a poem, inspired by The Giveaway, about Verdiana.

Music

Bridging from poetry to music, we will take a peak at the lyrics of the Hymn to Saint Brigid as we listen to it sung on a Youtube video:

We will also sing along to We Sing a Song to Saint Brigid.

Art

This file comes from Wellcome Images, a website operated by Wellcome Trust, a global charitable foundation based in the United Kingdom. Refer to Wellcome blog post (archive).

Finally, for art, we will notice how the illustrations in Saint Brigid and the Cows use hatching and how an engraving of St. Verdiana by Bartolozzi uses stippling, much like his other artwork did as demonstrated in the detail below:

Then, we'll explore hatching and stippling using simple exercises like this one:

Or, perhaps, by creating our own simple line drawings of items and creatures that remind us of Saint Brigid's or Saint Verdiana's story, and, then, adding value to our drawings through hatching or stippling.

More

Find loads of ideas, resources, and links for lessons inspired by Saint. Brigid and Verdiana as well as plans for a luncheon.

Enjoy some ideas for simple stories and notebooking -including a link to a free online story, take a peak at plans for a simple Saint Brigid Feast day for younger children, or flashback to how we celebrated one year when my children were wee ones.

Browse through Poet-Tea plans and photos for other liturgical celebrations.

Saint Brigid, pray for us.  Saint Verdiana, pray for us.