Easy, Low Cost Saint Costumes and Games

Last year, my daughter’s school was on holiday for All Saints Day, so I planned a number of crafts and learning activities about several saints to keep us busy.  This year, we attended an All Saints Day party hosted by my Catholic moms group, so we have lots to review about some new saints we haven’t studied yet.  

A few weeks ago, one of the moms organizing the party, Jessica, shared her idea for easy saint costumes: big t-shirts!  A tunic or dress doesn’t get easier than that, especially if you already have appropriate colors on hand.  My oldest daughter chose to dress as an angel and my youngest agreed to be Mary.  So, I raided our closet, grabbing my husband’s white polo shirt and my light blue t-shirt.  

For the angel costume, she wore the white shirt backwards with the polo collar folded in slightly.   We added angel wings and a halo from a store-bought costume we used a couple of years ago.  The folded collar looks purposeful and the angel wings cover the shirt’s logo in the back.

For Mary, she wore the shirt inside out (to hide the logos), folded and clipped in the back at the collar to slim it down.  A blue ribbon tied around her waist also helped with that.  For the veil, I used a white pillowcase clipped under the chin.  My friend Bea also dressed her oldest as Mary, and wrapped the veil around a hairband.

Vee at Paper Dali has collected links with more super easy costume ideas.  You can read her post here.  Also, be sure to check out her saint coloring pages and paper dolls; they are amazing and so fun to color!

Saint coloring pages are our main activity for learning about the saints; I tell the saint’s story while my girls are coloring.  If you can’t find the coloring page you are looking for at Paper Dali, you can find many more choices with a quick internet search.

Last October, we made images of Saint Francis and St. Therese of Lisieux on their feast days from wooden spoons.  The samples I’ve seen on-line were dressed with cloth, but I made ours by drawing a rough form out of construction paper.  Just fold the paper around the spoon, draw a tunic or veil that touches the fold, cut it out, and attach to your spoon with tape.  Draw a face on the spoon, and objects of the saint on the robe.  Leave the drawing to your children to find out if they were listening during the lesson.

We decided to have a parade with our images of saints, and made more with a paper doll pattern that includes all the shapes you need for different saint clothing and objects.  You can find the Catholic Icing blog post that includes links for wooden spoon saints and the paper doll pattern here (scroll down to the bottom of the post).  Link to the original source for the paper dolls here.

Above, you see Mary, St. Patrick, St. Theresa of Avila and the Blessed Mother Theresa.  Yes, we like saints named Theresa, and my girls sometimes want to make their habits more colorful.  However you make your saint images, line them up for a parade and sing “When the saints go marching in.”

The blogosphere is full of posts detailing different games for All Saints Day.  Xhonane at Familia Católica posted about simple versions that you can put together with items you have at home.  Her post also includes a link to the original source of her ideas.  Her Spanish language blog includes the Google Translator at the top. 

In 2012, I am linking with:

All Saints Day DIY Ideas Link up at Catholic Inspired.

The Monthly Round up at Catholic Bloggers Network.

Making It Count Link up at Revolution of Love. 

In 2011, I linked with:

All Saints Day Link up hosted by Silvia at Homeschooling Católico.  

Saints Cele-linky and Liturgical Calendar Linky hosted by Monica at Equipping Catholic Families.