Angel Puppet for The Annunciation

Last week, my daughters were enamored with watercolors and crayon resist, so we used that technique to paint some wings for an angel puppet.  

In December, we made Mary Puppets from wooden spoons, which we used to dramatize the journey to Bethlehem.  Around that time, I found a post explaining how to make angel ornaments at Designs by Birgit.  Birgit had linked her post to several Christmas link ups, and I had hoped to make some of her ornaments, but did not have a chance to do so before Christmas, although I decided that I wanted one to dramatize The Annunciation, celebrated on March 25.  

Last week we finally made the angel, inspired by Birgit’s ornaments.  Because our Mary puppets are made from wooden spoons, I decided to use a wooden handled spatula with a plastic head that had seen one too many hot pans to make the angel, so each of the puppets is nearly the same size.

For the halo, I wrapped a gold pipe cleaner around the top of the spatula.  Then, we traced the spatula onto cardstock to make the face, and drew a gown below.  My oldest daughter drew the angel’s face and painted the gown.

I placed the spatula on a piece of cardstock and drew the wings around it using a white crayon, including the letter “v” here and there to represent feathers.  Then, each of my daughters watercolored one wing, including the fringe at the bottom to show hanging feathers.  When the paint was dry, I cut out the wings together with the middle space all in one piece so that they could be glued to the spatula.  Then, we decorated the wings and gown with glitter.

Lastly, once the glitter dried, everything was attached to the spatula with the glue gun (my very first glue gun project).  Be sure to check out Brigit’s link above in case I have forgotten to write down any important steps.

To dramatize The Annunciation, we read Luke 1:26 - 38 and acted out the conversation between Mary and the Angel Gabriel using our puppets.  We even started with our angel up in heaven moving down to earth. 

The book Mary’s First Christmas by Walter Wangerin, Jr. also contains a version of this story; the book begins with The Annunciation and covers the events through the Holy Family’s return to Nazareth from Egypt.  You can learn more about this book by clicking on the image of Mary and the infant Jesus in the Children’s Book Carousel in the left sidebar.  FYI: when you click on the book image, you will open a window to the Amazon website.

Our new angel puppet is now standing on the mantel waiting for another play or dramatic opportunity.  In the meantime, he reminds us of our guardian angels and that God guides us and helps us.  He also gets to lead the saint parade of puppets we have made recently.

Read about how we used our spoon puppets to dramatize the Visitation here.

Read about another angel made from a paper plate here.

In 2013 I am linking with: Tactile Tuesday, Making It Count, For the Kids Friday, Weekly Kids Co-op, Hobbies and Handicrafts, Kids Get Crafty, We Made That

In 2012 I linked with: Saints Cele-linky, What are you doing for Lent?, Catholic Bloggers Network, Lenten Link up, Faith Formation in Young Children, Catholic Decor Ideas

Saint Patrick Holy Trinity Shamrocks

As I was thinking about what to do and whether to post for Saint Patrick’s Day, I found a post linked up at Lacy’s First Friday Link up for March that reminded me about an art project I did as a child.  Alicia at Through My “I”s posted about her crayon resist art project for Saint Valentine’s Day.  Thank you, Alicia, for inspiring my Holy Trinity Crayon Resist Art Shamrocks!

I thought crayon resist with watercolors would be a great way to highlight Saint Patrick’s metaphor for the Holy Trinity.  I used a fat white crayon to draw a shamrock on card stock, and a thin white crayon to write “God” (in Spanish) in the middle and each part of the Holy Trinity on the leaves.  My older daughter wrote the words herself, but I wrote them for my youngest.  She had so much fun watercolor painting and watching the letters appear!

An easy and quick way to do this is to use a wide brush and long strokes, but for kids who want to “find” the letters, painting little by little works too.  Who says shamrocks only come in green?

Another way to make a trinity shamrock that does not involve painting is to cut one out of green construction paper and write the words with a crayon or marker.  Here is the one we made last year.  I used a pencil to draw three hearts together with their points touching, added the stem and cut it out.

You can read about many more activities to teach The Most Holy Trinity at my Trinity Link up.

My daughters had so much fun with the watercolors that they wanted to watercolor Saint Patrick, too.  I printed the Saint Patrick coloring page drawn by Vee (Paper Dali) on cardstock, and they painted him yesterday.  Vee’s post also includes a Unit Study with other ideas for learning about Saint Patrick and additional Irish saints.

What have we done for Saint Patrick’s Day?  My Catholic Moms group made Lacy’s Saint Patrick puppet.  And, I printed a Saint Patrick’s Day Word Find from Sanctus Simplicitus that the girls are still working on.

We are also currently making an angel puppet to dramatize The Annunciation, so we used the crayon resist with watercolors technique to paint some angel wings, although we forgot to “resist” the angel’s gown.  Check back in a few days to see the results!  My girls are enjoying crayon resist, especially the water coloring part, so I’m thinking we’ll make some decorated Easter egg cards next month.  Did you know you can do crayon resist on actual boiled eggs and cascarones (egg shells) before painting them?  We like to write names on our cascarones; check back in a few weeks to find out why. 

In 2014, I am linking with: Welcome Home, Hearts for Home

 
In 2013 I linked with: Faith Formation in Young Children, What are you doing this Lent?, Making It Count, Tactile Tuesday, Kids Get Crafty, For the Kids Friday, Weekly Kids Co-op, Hobbies and Handicrafts, We Made That, New Evangelist Monthly

In 2012 I linked with: Saints Cele-linky, Catholic Bloggers Network, First Friday, Saint Patrick’s Day Journey.