Liturgical Calendar w/ Beads

01/30/2013

2 Comments

 
I'm currently teaching my kids about the Liturgical Calendar.  I wanted to do something more hands on for them to help them better understand how colors and season work together to tell the story of Jesus' Life.  

Since I have a plethora of colored beads on-hand (these are given as rewards that kids can  exchange for treats), I figured a beaded liturgical calendar was in order!  

I pulled some yarn and cut them into strips about 12 inches long.  I then had the kids sort the colored beads into their proper seasons and string them, in order, onto the yarn. Once completed, they tied their ends together to create an easy to follow (and portable!) liturgical calendar!

These are what the looked like:
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The basics!
The best part about these (aside from how cheap and easy they are to make), is they can be customized to suit the level of your children!

Older kids can do a calendar that features Holy Days of Obligation (the above is only Sundays plus the Triduum).  Or maybe they want to do the ENTIRE calendar and see if they can't coordinate the feasts of martyrs, the Blessed Mother and other saints while still paying attention to season.
Picture
This one features a few of Our Lady's solemnities.
I was so pleased with how these turned out that I plan to do one with Vincent!  He'll enjoy stringing the beads, and even though he doesn't have much concept of Church colors, we can match them each week when we go to Mass so he can begin to "follow along" in his own way.  

Yay!

So there's my liturgical craft for the night.  You folks enjoy!
 


Comments

Deo Volente link
01/30/2013 11:07

Perhaps you might wish to attempt to do a Liturgical Calendar using the Traditional Calendar rather than that used for the Ordinary Form? For example, this past Sunday was the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time using the current calendar, but "Septuagesima Sunday" using the traditional calendar. Septuagesima (derived from the word for "seventy") advises the faithful that there are 70 days until Easter. Also, the liturgical colors for the day were Violet (and not Green), and the Gloria was omitted. The Mass goes back into antiquity and even the "Alleluia" is "buried" (do a good scan of the web for more info--fascinating stuff!). This coming Sunday is Sexagesima Sunday which is 60 days before Easter. The biggest "shock" is that there is no "Ordinary Time" in the old calendar. Ordinary refers to "ordinal" or numbered. Oh, Sundays are numbered but they always refer to some major feast (we just finished the Season after the Epiphany). It is a stark contrast to the newer calendar, but was used for centuries. Perhaps you can even find out what Ember days and Rogation days were for! Nice project, Gina! Oh, and one can find calendars that have both the Traditional and the Ordinary Form calendars on one calendar. One can find them on Amazon.com!

D.V.

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Gina
01/30/2013 21:49

True! You could definitely use the Trad calendar! A colleague of mine was just explaining Septugeasima Sunday (and all the other Sundays with the entertaining names) this week! He strictly attends TLMs, so he's been my go-to person when it comes to all things traditional. That's so funny!!!

And yes, I actually tried explaining to my children the origins of "Ordinary" time. They all thought it was "ordinary" because nothing "special" happens when "green stuff" is out.

*Shakes head* These kids...

But no TLM colors for them at this point. They're having a tough enough time with the NO. Ha ha ha. I want them to be able to use their beads at the Mass they attend so they're able to start pulling together a better understanding of our traditions in real-time.

Their homework for this week is to figure out which bead we're on. Ha ha ha!

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