Activities

Sasha and the Dragon – Helping Children Deal with Nighttime Fears

Recently my daughter has been very scared at night. Someone at school told her a scary story and she just can’t get the idea out of her head. The same week Ancient Faith also released their book called, “Sasha and the Dragon.” It is about a little boy who is scared of a lot of things. He has an icon in his room of St. Michael. He prays and a miracle happens that helps him through his difficult time. I’m going to keep the description brief because I don’t want to spoil the ending for you. 🙂 It’s really beautiful! And Nicholas Malara is an amazing illustrator! He captures scenes from different perspectives and uses light to communicate the mood of the story. It’s really awesome!  (more…)

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Setting Our Minds on Christ at Christmas & a DIY Nightlight Craft

When I was little, our manger had a baby Christ that you could remove. My parents would not put Him in the manger until Christmas morning. We loved looking at the manger and would check it every day until Christmas to see if Jesus arrived. Throughout December our minds were thinking about Christ’s birthday and helped us build anticipation for His birth. We would always looked at the manger first before our presents, which also brought our minds back to the true meaning of Christmas.

One of my favorite quotes and the inspiration to writing my books is from Colossians 3:1-4. It says, “If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. 3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.” (more…)

Christ is Risen Teaching Resource

At our church we always have a Holy Friday retreat for the kids. We have activities planned to help them learn more about the important events of the day and of Christ’s Resurrection. A couple of years ago I had to teach the kids the hymn, Christ is Risen. Since my group was preschool through 6th grade, a lot of the kids may not be reading or not reading well enough to read the bigger words. My teacher brain was thinking of ideas to help the non-readers be able to sing along. I’m sure many of you have seen early reader books where they have the text and a small picture that shows the word. I love how icons tell stories and especially love it when a hymn describes exactly what is happening in the image, so I decided to make a visual version of the hymn for my students.  (more…)

Fishing for Hearts

Do you ever feel like it’s difficult to find active games for Sunday School? Kids need to move around and I’m always scouring the web to find things that get the kids up and out of their seats! Well, I have a very fun game with an Orthodox twist to it. It’s perfect to do with your kids or in the church school classroom!

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Vasilopita Game

Hello! I hope you enjoyed reading my post about the life of St. Basil and the book, “The Lucky Cake.” Today, I’m going to share with you a fun activity I did with my kids. We made our own Vasilopita out of paper plates! They loved this game and want to play it over and over.

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The Lucky Cake & St. Basil

The new year will be here before you know it! I wanted to let you know about an awesome book to help your little ones learn about the tradition of the Vasilopita (vah-see-LOW-pita) and St. Basil. First, let’s talk about this neat tradition.  (more…)

Elevation of the Cross – Peg Dolls

I am so excited to share this activity with you! It was so much fun making these dolls! I wanted my kids and students to have a visual for the Elevation of the Cross story, so I decided to make peg dolls. What is that, you say?  It is a doll made out of a clothespin or a wooden peg. (more…)