The Feast of the Epiphany

The Happiest Search

Our first week back after a wonderful Christmas break was spent celebrating the manifestation of the Lord with the Feast of the Epiphany.  We prepared for this feast day with all sorts of fun crafts, stories and songs. 

We started with our atrium Infancy Narrative box to tell the story of the three kings.  This led us to a fun art project that introduced two interesting, new concepts:

symmetry and silhouettes

Everyone cut a silhouette of one of the wise men on a camel (which was quite a challenge).  After adding it to black paper, the munchkins used "royal jewels" to create a symmetrical design around the border.  They were beautiful!

Each afternoon of this week we had fun singing the crazy Christmas song The Twelve Days of Christmas.  Even more interesting, though, was to dig deep into the real meaning of the song.  We created an amazing lapbook filled with the hidden meanings of each of the twelve gifts given by the "true love" (after discussing who that True Love is).

The munchkins worked so hard on the lapbook.  There was so much cutting, folding, gluing, coloring and especially...following directions!  It was a huge task and helped develop so many different skills. 

Plus, it was just fantastic when it was completed.  I think every little munchkin commented on how they couldn't wait to show Mom and Dad!

This mini-unit gave us the chance to practice our writing skills too.  The munchkins wrote their own books titled Kings.  The sight word "here" was our main focus, as well as using the special ending "ing".  Considering we had been out of school for two whole weeks, the munchkins did a wonderful job remembering all the conventions of sentence writing.

Here's just a sample.

They were very proud of their finished books...as well they should be.

We ended our week with one last fun project.  The munchkins created the setting and character pieces to retell the story of the visit from the Magi.  

Probably the most fun was the fact that the character pieces were little finger puppets and the setting could stand up on its own!

In all, we had a great first week of January and a great first week on the new year.  

Until next time...

Giggles,
Mrs. D. 

Feast of the Three Kings

Celebrating the Epiphany

Our first week back from Christmas break was such a special one.  It was so nice to see every back...smiling & refreshed.  We took this week to prepare for and celebrate the Epiphany. 

We got our liturgical calendar from our Atrium back out and reminded ourselves how many weeks the Christmas celebration is.  Then we used that to count the days on the classroom calendar and everyone realized that the Christmas celebration was not quite over with yet!  We hadn't reached Epiphany. 

So we used this week to learn just what the Feast of the Epiphany is all about.

We used our Atrium story box to retell the story of The Visit of the Magi from the Bible.  The munchkins love to work with these pieces.  They find it very interesting to learn that (contrary to most pictures we see of the Nativity) Jesus, Mary and Joseph were not still in the stable when the Magi arrived!

We also created our own little setting and story pieces to take home and retell the story to Mom and Dad (although ours does end up looking more like a stable than a house when it is done).  Hmmm...

We wrote our own version of the story using our best kindergarten writing.  What a great opportunity to use some of our sight words and work on some special new skills we need to know:  the "ing" ending, and adding "s" for more than one.   These books turned out beautifully.  The munchkins created wonderful illustrations and their writing was fit for a king.  (Yes, pun intended!)

The title page:  Four Kings

Page one:  Here is one king.

Page two:  Here are two kings.



Page three:  Here are three kings.

Page four:  Here is the king of kings.

Then we took a couple of days to work on an amazing lap book that explains the meaning of the song:  The Twelve Days of Christmas.  It is absolutely beautiful when done and filled with more Catholic doctrine than you can imagine!  The munchkins loved putting it all together and learning the "secret" of each verse.  Of course, singing the song while we were working was a hoot to say the least!



So much cutting and gluing! So many tiny pieces to keep track of!  So much folding and arranging!  We were expert bookmakers by the time it was done!

And it was soooo cool!

Well...our week wasn't over, and we couldn't pass up the opportunity to have a fun snack to go with this topic, so...

We created crown cupcakes.  It was planned to add skittles jewels, but we just didn't have time.  But never fear, they tasted delicious anyway!

Then we finished it all off with one last project. 



The kings...

and the queens!

Hope you all had a blessed Epiphany!

Until next time...

Giggles,

Mrs. D