Pandamania Printables Treats - Wrapper and A&Wesome Treat

A week of Pandamania is done!  Woot!  I had a blast with the kiddos teaching them the daily bible lesson.  The last day I had them for an hour and 20 minutes and we had lots of fun discussing the bible story of how God gave Hannah a Baby - God Gives Good Gifts - Thank you God!!!   We acted out the story with our counselors.  Then we sequenced pictures from the story.  We played the Where is Hannah's Baby game too!!

I wanted to share some of the printables I created for the last day of Pandamania, perhaps someone else can use them!!! 

We reviewed all the bible stories by playing Panda Mania Bingo.  Which you can download my cards here:
We used M&M's to mark off our cards.

Since my class was so Panda-rrific, they got a little treat on the last day of camp.  A Panda-rrific Candy bar.  It had all the weeks phrases on it!  Click here to print the PDF!

 I had four wonderful counselors to thank as well.  They each got a little A&Wesome Treat.  It had a chocolate Pretzel in it as well as some A&W soda.  You can download my A&W gift tag here.

Now I am ready to focus on Back to School--- Teaching Heart Style!!!

Busy at VBS Pandamania...

I decided to teach VBS at my church this week.  I have a third grade class and we have been having lots of fun during our "Together Time"!  I get to teach a lesson each day based on the Theme and Bible story of the day.  It's lots of fun...  Here is some of the fun we have had. 

Today we talked about how God Watches Over You - THANK YOU GOD.  We went over the Bible story about Jonha and the BIG fish.  We made fish scenes with bible story stickers from Oriental Trading.

After we saw the story acted out and we heard the story read to us, we played a board game in our crews.  It had us answer questions about the Jonah bible story. 

Yesterday we made shaker Pandas to go along with the Theme, God Hears You!!!  Just two plates stapled with rice inside.  The template for this craft came from First School.  On the back of the plate the kids taped a little reminder of how the Shaker Panda reminds us that God Hears You.

YOU MADE a Panda! 
My ears stick up because I like to listen.
My ears can remind you that  God Hears You!!
In today’s bible story, Elijah called out to God,
and God listened to him.  God always listens to
you too no matter how softly or loudly you pray. 
Shake this Panda and you hear.  Think or say a prayer and God will hear.  He may not send fire like he did in today’s bible story… but He always listens to you.  Remember, GOD MADE YOU AND KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT YOU NEED!

Thursday we will hear about how Peter Denied Jesus Three times...  We will make a Rooster to remind us that God Loves Us No Matter What.

Creation Bible Ideas - God Created YOU!

A few interesting creation ideas I found on line.

This one has printables and would be good for Pre-K to K.

Here is a creation coloring page.  Creation Crosswords here!  Check out DLTK for lots a great lesson ideas and printables.  Be sure to stop here for so many ideas and printables...

 

Make Rice Krispie Snacks as Globes...  Bottles to Back Packs will show you how.

Be sure to print this creation poem poster.

I have used this printable memory match game in my CCD class.  From Christian Preschool Printables.

This bulletin board set is great and comes with a creation word search coloring page...

Free First Communion Banner & Communion Talk...

I am so excited; my son will make his First Holy Communion in a few days!  It's a bittersweet moment.  It amazes me that he is old enough to take part in the Eucharist.  He's getting so big...  Before I know it Confirmation will be here. 

We are just doing a family party.  About 4 kids and 16 adults.  My husband’s family is coming in from VT, Virginia, and Maryland.  My Aunt and Uncle (my son's Godparents) are flying in from Florida.  This is a special surprise for me son...  He does not know his Godparents are coming!!!!  He will be thrilled to see them here!   I hope he feels special knowing so many people came from all over to see him.  He is very blessed!!!

So thus, I prepare to give him some memories of this special time in his life.  Cross cookies to make.  Oreo balls to make (those I cannot make till the night before, because as hard as I try I find myself eating them and they have to be at least 300 calories a pop!).  I ordered the cake from Bethel Bakery.  I had decided on the menu.  Since he will be doing his First Communion at the five o' clock mass we will have dinner following via crock pot.  Meatball Sandwiches (my homemade meatballs), pulled pork sandwiches, salads, and cheesy potatoes. 

Some party fun:  I purchased Easter Eggs on sale at KMart.  They were filled and were like $1.00 for 50.  I am making a game for the kids with the eggs.  Inside a few of the eggs will be a first communion cross.  The person that get those gets a special prize.  I even have favor bags for the four kids.  Dollar store has stained glass Jesus crafts.  They also had religious coloring books.  Sometime back I got Sarris crosses on sale and those will go in the bags.  Plus a few springtime things!  Should be fun!!!

I just finished making a banner I will hang.  Click here to download and use too!  When printed and strung together it will say God Bless!!!

I have been online trying to see ideas and will list some of the good sites I found below that give Communionn ideas. 

A Diary of a Sower shares some First Communion Decorations as well as a favor idea:

I love these lamb pops from Bakerella...http://www.bakerella.com/i-have-a-problem/  If only I had the time!!!

First Communion File Folder Game is free to print at The Catholic Toolbox! Als, Find Holy Eucharist Bingo!

My son is getting a  lego rosary from Memento Moose. You push the legos together before praying and pull them apart as you pray.  I ordered his in green and blue!!!

  

Religious Candy Bar Wrapper Printable

I just finished my first year of teaching Faith Formation (CCD) to third grade.  I had a blast with my group of 21 students every Sunday.  We had so much fun discussing the weekly Gospels and going over the lessons.  I feel truly blessed to have had such a great experience.  I can hardly wait to do it again in the Fall. 

I thought I would share a printable candy bar wrapper.  I gave the kiddos  a candy bar as a parting gift.  They were thrilled to get the bar.  The wrapper above is for any student; but I personalized their wrappers with their picture and name.  They got a kick out of it.  The wrapper fits a standard Hershey bar.  I used the white chocolate cookie kind. 

Click here for the PDF Wrapper

Be sure to check out my two other free printables for a Faith Formation Class.

Catholic Bingo
Resurrection Eggs

Also, the websites below were a huge help to me when planning weekly Gospel Lessons:

Catholic Icing

Sermons For Kids

Catholic Tool Box

Catholic Mom

A Handshake from Heaven

My son will make his First Holy Communion in a few weeks.  Hard to believe that the little baby dressed in white for baptism is NOW the huge eight year old I see before...  People, say that days last forever but the years fly past.  It is so true!!!

It's crazy scary to think in a flash he will be sixteen and I will be blogging about the scary world of having a teenager... 

If you know me, you know I love a good children's book and whenever something is going on, I try to find a book to read to my kids.  Like when we were having my daughter we read tons of big brother books.  Or when I potty trained my kids, we read every child's book on potty time.  When my kiddos were in a wedding, I found a great children's book to match.  You can find a children's book to go with any topic. Of course we have every going to Kindergarten book made. Children's books make great cards!  I would much rather spend ten dollars on a great book than six dollars on a card someone will throw away...  Thus, I have been reading lots of books on First Communion.   I found one that really touched me and I knew this would be the one I would share with my son the night before his First Communion. 

It is called a Handshake from Heaven.  My first read through the book equalled tears...  It is beautifully illustrated and has such a warm feeling that comes with it.  The text is simple and easy to read.  This book helps explain how we touch God every time we accept the Eucharist from our priest, pastor, or Eucharist minister.  "The book talks about how we touch God when we hold those we love and when we touch his gifts (flower, butterfly, puppy). But when we receive the Eucharist, God opens Heaven's door each and every time. And nowhere else on earth can we touch a part of Heaven, except in the Eucharist. And someday, when God chooses, He will reach down and touch our hands once more, and this time, He will hold on tight. He'll walk us through Heaven's door and hold our hands forever because we chose to touch Heaven while we lived on His earth, every time we went to Communion." The whole concept of touching God through the Eucharist as a preliminary experience to joining God in Heaven was just beautifully done. 

If you are looking for a "touching" book to give to a child who will be making their first communion, I suggest this one and I have read quite a few. 

Resurrection Eggs Idea With Printables

Easter Season is around the corner with Ash Wednesday this week!!! 

To start the season off, I finally decided to buy Resurrection Eggs for my family and CCD class. Call me lazy because you could surely make these yourself, but I liked having them done for me instead of searching for the pieces for inside the eggs....  Plus the resource book included came in useful.  This gave me more time to create a hands-on printable to share with you...

I also have a copy of Benjamin's Box: The Story of the Resurrection Eggs . The story is great and matches the eggs perfectly.  It is nicely illustrated and each page tells a story to match the item in the egg. The kids seem to enjoy the story and hearing it from the point of view of a little boy.  I highly recommend getting this book to compliment the eggs.

I hid the eggs around my house and told my kids to find them but not open them.  Once we had all 12 eggs we took turns reading a page from the book and opening the egg that went along with the page. 

We then made our own Resurrection Eggs (based off of the ideas found on Just Call Me Jamin's Resurrection Lapbook) at so that we could retell the stories on our own and recall how Jesus died for us and then rose from the dead.  I made my own printable to match JCMJ's!  The printable has an egg you open and inside the egg you glue a part of the story and a symbol from the egg.  My kiddos had fun coloring the eggs and then gluing the pieces onto the file folder.  I also plan to do this activity is pieces with my Third Grade CCD (Faith Formation) class over the next few Sundays. 

I made a printable to create this book.. You can download it free here. It is five pages.  The last page (foldable eggs) you will need to print three times on colored card stock.  All other pages get printed once on regular paper.  My kids enjoyed making the books and we will refer to them through the season.

I also plan to make the books with my Faith Formation class (CCD).  We will do it in stages over the next few weeks.  Last week I hid two eggs from the Resurrection Eggs around the room and picked four kids to go on a hunt for them.  Once they found both eggs they got to open the eggs and tell us what was inside the egg.  We then read the first two stories from Benjamin's Box: The Story of the Resurrection Eggs.   Each week I will pick four kids to hunt for the next two eggs.  Slowly we will work on parts of the book so that they will each have their own book to share with their families. 

Must See Site!!! 

For more resources, Catholic Icing is such a great blog and it has many examples of Resurrection Eggs found around the web.  You also should print out her Lent Calendar for kiddos.  It is great.  I have one on my refrigerator and gave one to each of my CCD kids.  Be sure to look at her Easter cookies too!  What a wonderful happy resource.  It surely is built with love!!!

Christian Christmas Children's Book Review

Pretty soon we will pack up the Fall books and bring out all the winter and Christmas stories.  Here's a new one I just reviewed for the Amazon.com Vine program.  I really enjoyed it and thought I would share it with you!

17 Christmases is a Christmas adventure for a family that goes on a holiday road trip to visit relatives and friends in 17 states.  They start in California make their way all over the USA seeing new things and experiencing how Christmas is different depending on where you live.  One thing that remains constant is the celebration of the birth of Jesus by their family and friends no matter what state they are in.  We enjoyed reading this especially because my eight year old son loves Geography.  They discuss 17 states and many of which we were familiar with and the ones we weren’t we learned a little about.  My 4 year old daughter enjoyed the story.  The text is fun to read with the rhyming on each page.  The illustrations do a good job of showing what a certain state may look like at Christmas Time. Then the ending of the story finds the little boy thankfully climbing into bed in his home state saying, "I thank God for Jesus and family galore, For seventeen Christmases---never a chore."  I highly recommend this Christmas story especially if you find yourself traveling from place to place to celebrate the birth of Jesus. 

For more Christmas and Winter Lessons, Book Ideas, and More follow the link below.

http://www.teachingheart.net/xmas.html