(I should probably put in here that, while my husband and I were both raised Catholic, we're not quite sure what we are doing with Q and Z, although we do want them to have exposure to religion and Q does go to a religious preschool and attend chapel there. Some of my favorite family debates have been over religious doctrine and I'd like to continue that with my children. Ask me sometime about when my oldest brother and I woke up my parents on Christmas Eve to get the copy of the Catechism off their bookshelf as we were debating what, exactly, is meant by the virgin birth. According to my brother, Jesus popped out like a muffin from the oven. I said Mary experienced the pain of childbirth. Unfortunately, as is so common with our faith, the Catechism declared it to be a mystery. I guess you don't need to ask me as I just told you. Oh, and my sister, who bakes, says muffins don't always come out easily.)
Back to Activity #7 - For the Holidays
First, I went to Amazon and looked up children's bibles. I found Child's Story of the Bible by Mary A. Lathbury. Her middle name is Artemisia and if that isn't enough to sell you on it, the book is free for the kindle. I have linked through Project Gutenberg, because it has a downloadable copy available with images. I may need to do that as I downloaded the non-image one via Amazon. This version of the bible is great and all the dialogue is from the King James's Version or, as I like to think of it, 'the Linus from The Peanuts version.' It was originally published in 1898 and, as I said, it's great. Alright, so now we had the words.
Next, I brought our nativity set, which was given to us as a wedding present, into the play room and set everything up. Well, I pretty much just put Mary in front of us and added different figures or the manger as the narrative called for them.
Q sets up the nativity while Z watches from her Boppy Chair O' Luxury
Finally, Q, Z, and I acted out the nativity. Q moved all the figures around and I pretended Z was the angel. Q declared that Z wasn't the angel, but was in fact Z. When I said we were pretending, Q then said that Z wanted to be God. I said Z was just going to be the angel.
While some of the finer points of theology might have been lost - such as who 'little Jesus's daddy' is as Q had a hard time embracing the concept - I think I can declare it a successful activity as Q insisted that we do it again. She even performed some of it for her dad and then made us act it all out again today. Unfortunately, the shepherd's hand, the one which held his staff, was broken off during clean up. I'll be super gluing that back on before next year.
Q adds some personal touches to the Nativity. Obviously, the Santa Reindeer is in the apocrypha.
Bonus: while thinking about having Q color some pictures of a menorah, I found the Online Menorah, which lights another candle each night of Hanukkah. How awesome is that?
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