Tabletop Rosary

Back in April, we started a tabletop shrine to Our Lady in the living room.  In addition to serving as a constant reminder to pray, the shrine keeps clutter off the table, and my children enjoy changing the arrangement of the items (especially the flowers), including changing out the Mary statue (we have a handful of them).  We have even on occasion arranged the flowers in the shape of a rosary.

In the photo above, we used some plastic flowers, crocheted flowers (they help children to keep count of the Hail Mary prayers while saying the rosary), and a cross made from grass.  This particular version has more than a decade of flowers, but that could easily be adjusted; it serves more as a reminder to pray. 

You can also see my oldest likes to draw; the tabletop above includes her picture of The Assumption.  She draws rosaries sometimes; the one pictured below has hung on our refrigerator and laid on the table (tape keeps it from blowing away when we pass by).  

I have tried many different activities to grow my children’s interest in praying the rosary.  This is just one way I hope to remind them of the power of praying the rosary during the month of October, but especially when we celebrate Our Lady of the Rosary this Sunday.  

One of the activities I plan to do all month is to have them use different objects to represent a decade of the rosary on the table or on paper as a prelude to our prayer.  I’m thinking about giving them beads, small toys, pasta, dried beans, square letter tiles, even checkers!  You can read about a visual marker I made to help with this idea here.

I think we may also use magnets to create a rosary image on the refrigerator or dishwasher.  What ideas do you have for letting children “build” a rosary decade to display?

Linked with Rosary Fiesta, Extraordinary Ideas for Ordinary Time, Catholic Bloggers Network, Faith Formation in Young Children, For the Kids Friday, Weekly Kids Co-op, My Favorite Things and Catholic Autumn Decor.