12/30/14 The Holy Prophet Daniel and the Three Children: Ananias, Azarias and Misael

Hello there!

I hope you all are staying warm! It is freezing here in Colorado. We are trying our best to keep warm.

This week, our Circle Time/Finger Play activities are:

• My Cross
• The Wheels on the Bus
• Baa Baa Black Sheep
• Old MacDonald Had a Farm
• This Old Man

For our Saint’s Life today we read the story from the Prologue about the Holy Prophet Daniel and the three youths. This has always been one of my absolute favorite old testament stories. I let Theia watch the Veggie Tales story about the three youths. She enjoyed it, because in the show, the idol is a giant chocolate bunny.

For our “Pre-Writing” activity we made sculptures using play dough and pipe cleaners.

For our “Nativity Activity”, we worked on our “Twelve Days of Christmas” unit. The eighth is: “On the eighth day of Christmas a wonder do we see: Eight chickens clucking, Seven donkeys braying, Six oxen lowing, Five angels sing! Four shepherds, Three wise kings, Mary and Joseph, and the holy babe lying in a cave.” She loved doing her hens and the big rooster!

Well, that is all for today. I will let you all know what we do tomorrow!

In Christ,

D. Kyriake

P.S. Please read yesterday’s post if you haven’t already about the calendar! I would love to hear from more of my readers about it.

12/29/14 Saint Theophano the Empress

Hello Everyone!

I hope you all had a very nice weekend. We had a great time on our trip up to Dormition Skete. It is always so refreshing to go visit the Monastery. I have a hard time explaining it, but you always feel energized spiritually, and it is always sad to leave. So, I mentioned in my previous post that I would talk a little bit about the “Old” and “New” calendar, so here we go…

When Christ founded the Church through his Apostles, the calendar that everyone was using was called the Julian Calendar. This calendar was established by Julius Caesar in 46 BC. When I say “everyone”, I mean it was the predominant calendar used throughout the world. Now, many many many many many years later, in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII introduced his own calendar. The calendar reform was initially adopted by the Catholic countries of Europe, since it was their Pope who designed it. Protestants and Eastern Orthodox countries chose to stick to using the traditional Julian calendar for quite some time, but they eventually adopted the Gregorian calendar reform for the sake of convenience in international trade. The last European country to adopt the reform was Greece, an Orthodox-Christian country, in 1923. The very last country in the world to fully convert was the Orthodox-Christian country of Russia, or should I say the Soviet Union, in 1929. By 1930, all countries that had used the Julian calendar had discontinued it. You can see that, in the history of the world, this is a fairly new change. The Orthodox-Christian Church has still not changed its calendar, and rightfully so. If we were to change to the Gregorian Calendar we would be celebrating all of the feast days on the wrong date! For example, lets look at Christmas since it is fresh in everyone’s mind. Everyone knows that Christ’s Nativity, or birth, was on December 25th. It was recorded on the 25th of the Julian calendar – the calendar being used at the time of His birth. So, when you celebrate Christmas on the 25th using the dates from the Gregorian calendar, you are really celebrating it early – on the 12th of December. That is why the Orthodox celebrate it on the true 25th of December (on the Julian Calendar), so that we are truly celebrating the day of his birth! Another note on this day…the Church celebrates Theophany (Christ’s baptism) on January 6th using the Julian calendar (January 19th on the Gregorian). If you were to celebrate Theophany on the Gregorian calendar’s January 6th, you would be celebrating Christ’s baptism before celebrating His true birthday! That doesn’t make too much sense, does it? So, that is why Orthodox Christians celebrate Nativity (Christmas) “late”. I really hope I did a good job of explaining that.

Alright. Now for today’s lesson!

This week, our Circle Time/Finger Play activities are:

• My Cross
• The Wheels on the Bus
• Baa Baa Black Sheep
• Old MacDonald Had a Farm
• This Old Man

For our Saint’s Life today we used the felt board to tell the story of St Theophano the Empress. She had a beautiful life story. The most notable thing about her life is: The Emperor Leo, her husband, wanted to build a church over her grave. When the Patriarch refused to allow this, he built the church of All Saints. He said that: if Theophano were a saint, she would be glorified together with the others. At that time, the feast of All Saints was introduced, to be celebrated on the Sunday after the feast of the Holy Trinity.

For our “Pre-Writing Activity” today we worked on tracing straight lines and curvy lines. I realized while we were doing this that it had been a long time since I had just let Theia color! She loves coloring, so she absolutely enjoyed coloring in her page after she drew her lines.

For our “Outside Activity” we stayed inside, due to extremely cold weather, and played red light/green light, sort of. Theia does’t quite get the idea yet, she would rather run in circles around Apfeya, but it was fun to try. 🙂

For our “Nativity Activity” (haha, that rhymes), we worked on our “Twelve Days of Christmas” unit. The sixth is: “On the sixth day of Christmas a wonder do we see: Six oxen lowing, Five angels sing! Four shepherds, Three wise kings, Mary and Joseph, and the holy babe lying in a cave.”

The seventh is: “On the seventh day of Christmas a wonder do we see: Seven donkeys braying, Six oxen lowing, Five angels sing! Four shepherds, Three wise kings, Mary and Joseph, and the holy babe lying in a cave.”

That was the end of our day! I will talk with you all tomorrow!

In Christ,

D. Kyriake

12/24/14 Our Holy Father Daniel the Stylite

Hello Everyone!

I hope you all had a great day today. We kind of, sort of, had an off day. I was feeling really ill last night and it sort of carried over to today. We still managed to do most of our work, but we did skip our kitchen activity today – which was baking cookies. Its okay though because my mom was kind enough to bring some cookies over, so we got to eat them anyway!

This week, our Circle Time/Finger Play activities are:

• My Cross
• Going on a Bear Hunt
• Two Frogs in a Cream Jar
• The Dark Room

For our Saint’s Life today we read about Our Holy Father Daniel the Stylite. He became a monk when he was only twelve years old! Many people do not know what a Stylite is. A stylite, or pillar-saint, is a type of Christian ascetic who lived on pillars, preaching, fasting, and praying.

Like I mentioned above, we skipped our kitchen activity. I am sure I will make this one up. Maybe I will do gingerbread cookies though. 🙂

For our other activity we worked on our “Twelve Days of Christmas” unit. The fifth is: On the fifth day of Christmas a wonder do we see: Five angels sing! Four shepherds, Three wise kings, Mary and Joseph, and the holy babe lying in a cave.

Tomorrow we are taking a trip to visit Dormition Skete. We will call it a field trip. I may, or may not be doing a blog on Friday. I haven’t made up my mind yet. 😉 I will let you know what we are up to either on Friday or Monday. I hope that everyone who is celebrating Christ’s Birth on the 25th of December according to the “New” Gregorian calendar has a wonderful Christmas day. For those Christian’s who are Orthodox and following the “Old” Julian calendar, we will be celebrating with you on the 25th of December according to the Julian Calendar (January 7th). I think I will talk more about this in a future blog. For now, goodnight.

In Christ,

D. Kyriake

12/23/14 Saint Angelina

Hello Everyone!

I hope you all had a great day today. We went on an adventure today out into the wind, snow, and ice! We survived and enjoyed most of it.

This week, our Circle Time/Finger Play activities are:

• My Cross
• Going on a Bear Hunt
• Two Frogs in a Cream Jar
• The Dark Room

For our Saint’s Life today we read the story of Saint Angelina and her son, St John the Despot. Her life is very, very beautiful and very encouraging to all the wives and mothers. I highly encourage you to read it! You can read about her life here, and here.

Today was Theia’s ballet class, and today little Apfeya got to come with us. She sure had a lot of fun watching her big sister! It was a little challenging to help Theia in her class with Apfeya too, but we did it!

We worked on our Christmas/Nativity gifts again today for one of our activities. I know, I know. Enough with the gifts! I think we are done with them today and can move on tomorrow with some other activities.

For our other activity we worked on our “Twelve Days of Christmas” unit. The fourth is: “On the fourth day of Christmas a wonder do we see: Four shepherds praising, three wise kings kneeling, Mary and Joseph, and the holy babe lying in a cave.” We used construction paper, scissors, glue, and a marker. Lots of fun!

I will let you know what we are up to tomorrow! Have a great evening!

In Christ,

D. Kyriake

12/22/14 The Conception by St. Anna of the Most Holy Mother of God

Hello Everyone!

This week, our Circle Time/Finger Play activities are:

• My Cross
• Going on a Bear Hunt
• Two Frogs in a Cream Jar
• The Dark Room

For our Saint’s Life I tried something new. I had Theia hold the Icon of St. Anna holding the Theotokos while I told her the story. Did you all know the the Archangel Gabriel, who appeared to St. Joseph and the Theotokos about Christ’s birth, also appeared to St. Anna and St Joachim about the conception of the Theotokos?! Theia enjoyed holding the icon while I told the story, and so did Apfeya!

For one of our activities we worked on our Christmas/Nativity gifts. So, I can’t post pictures. 🙂

For our second activity, we worked on our “Twelve Days of Christmas” unit. The third is: “On the third day of Christmas a wonder do we see: Three wise kings kneeling, Mary and Joseph, and the holy babe lying in a cave.” We used construction paper, scissors, glue, fabric, ribbon, and a marker.

Well, thats it! It was snowing all day today so we didn’t go out. Have a great evening everyone. I will let you know what we are up to tomorrow!

In Christ,

D. Kyriake

12/18/14 Our Holy Father Sava the Sanctified

Hello Everyone!

For the last time this week, our Circle Time/Finger Play activities are:

• My Cross
• Six Little Ducks
• Chubby Little Snowman
• Falling Snowflakes
• Snow

For our Saint’s Life we used the felt board to tell the story about our Holy Father Sava. Did you know that Saint Sava left his parents to become a monk at the age of eight? Can you imagine what an amazing child he must have been? During his lifetime he founded seven monasteries. He and his neighbor, Theodosius the Great, are considered to be the greatest lights and pillars of Orthodoxy in the East.

For one of our activities we did “footprint art”. I can not post a picture of the final piece of art because they are meant to be gifts for Nativity and the people who they are meant for may see this post. 😉

We did not go out again today…I really am waiting for the snottyness to end before I do. I hope we get out tomorrow!!!

For our final activity of the week we worked on our “Twelve Days of Christmas” unit. The second is: “On the second day of Christmas a wonder do we see: Mary and Joseph, and the holy babe lying in a cave.” We just used construction paper, scissors, glue, and a marker. Such fun!

I hope everyone has a great weekend! I will “see” you all on Monday!

In Christ,

D. Kyriake

12/17/14 The Holy and Great Martyr Barbara

Hello Everyone!

This week, our Circle Time/Finger Play activities are:

• My Cross
• Six Little Ducks
• Chubby Little Snowman
• Falling Snowflakes
• Snow

For our Saint’s Life we read the life of Saint Barbara. Hers is a truly unique, truly amazing story. Even though her father had her basically shut up from everything, and she had no human teacher to bring her to the knowledge of Christ, she came to know God as the one true God and Creator. Saint Barbara is know as the protectress from sudden death because she was saved from death when her father went into a rage when he found out about her Christian faith. A cliff opened and hid Barbara from her irate father. Holy Martyr Barbara pray to God for us!

For one of our activities today, I had Theia help me finish decorating an ice-skate that we had started working on last week.

We did not go outside again today. The girls still were a little stuffy. But, for our second activity we worked on something really neat. I am a little late in starting it because it is an activity to do throughout the Nativity Fast, but with the move I didn’t get a chance to set it up until today. It is called the Theotokos’ “Star Walk”. It is an idea I got from the Garden of the Theotokos. You set up a cave, like the one I previously made. Behind it you hang up a dark blue cloth. In the front of the cave you make a path of 40 stars for the 40 days of the feast. You make bigger stars for each Sunday during the feast as well as for the Eve of Nativity. Each night after prayers you move the Theotokos to the next star and hang the one for the day up in the sky. On the final night, after the Theotokos has made it to the cave and all the stars are hung up, you place the baby Jesus in the cave with her. You can also place other figures in the cave on this night as well. Then, when the children wake up on Nativity, before they rush to their presents, they will see that baby Jesus finally came! This is the first year I am trying this, and I have to say tonight it was a lot of fun.

I will let you all know what we are up to tomorrow!

In Christ,

D. Kyriake

12/16/14 Saint John the Silent (the Hesychast)

Hello there everyone. I hope you all had a wonderful Tuesday. We had a lot of fun today, although little Apfeya was feeling a little run down today. 😦

This week, our Circle Time/Finger Play activities are:

• My Cross
• Six Little Ducks
• Chubby Little Snowman
• Falling Snowflakes
• Snow

For our Saint’s Life we used the felt board to tell the story about Saint John the Silent. In the earlier days of his life he was ordained the Bishop of Colonia, however after seeing all of the evils of the world and realizing his inability to correct them, he left the city and entered into the monastery of St. Sava. He later had to confess to the Patriarch that he was indeed a Bishop. I enjoyed reading this about his life, as well as the rest of it. It made me feel like I am not the only one who wishes they could “change the world” and then gets disappointed when they really can’t correct anything about it. You just have to come to realize that it is yourself you have to worry about, your soul, your sins…

For one of our activities we made an ornament for our tree. We used pom poms and glue. So, Theia got to work on her pre-writing skills by pinching the pom-poms and dipping them in the glue, then placing them on the paper. Apfeya really wanted to help with this one :).

For another activity, Theia played with some play-dough. She made a tower. 🙂 Apfeya wanted to help again.

Today was also Theia’s ballet class. 🙂 I will count that as our outside activity!

I hope you all have a wonderful evening. I will let you know what we are up to tomorrow!

In Christ,

D. Kyriake

12/15/14 The Holy Prophet Habakkuk

Hello, hello, hello!

So, our move into our new home really threw our schedule off – then we got sick – and now, we are finally back! I hope you all are doing well and I am sorry for the lengthy absence.

So, for this week, our Circle Time/Finger Play activities are:

• My Cross
• Six Little Ducks
• Chubby Little Snowman
• Falling Snowflakes
• Snow

(Can you tell its winter? 🙂 )

For our Saint’s Life, we used the felt board to tell the story of the Holy Prophet Habakkuk. I would love to share with you a really amazing story from his life:

One day, when he (Prophet Habakkuk) was carrying lunch to the workers in the fields, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared to him and said: ‘Go, carry the meal that thou hast into Babylon, unto Daniel who is in the lion’s den.’ Habakkuk replied: ‘Lord, I never saw Babylon, neither do I know where the den is’ (Daniel 14:33 in the Greek text. It is omitted in the Hebrew Bible, and is to be found in the Apocrypha under Bel and the Dragon). Then the angel seized him by the hair and carried him straight to Babylon, over an immense distance, to the lion’s den where Daniel had been cast by King Cyrus because he would not worship idols. ‘O Daniel, Daniel,’ cried Habakkuk, ‘take the dinner which God hath sent thee!’ And Daniel took it and ate. Then the angel of God again took hold of Habakkuk and carried him back to his field in Judea.

Isn’t that amazing!?

For one of our activities today we worked on our Nativity cave. So, a lot of people have what is called a “Nativity Scene” that they put up for a Christmas decoration. It is meant to remind us of the true meaning of Christmas during this time – while the world and commercialism continue to try to erase it completely. However, every single “Nativity Scene” on the market depicts our Lord as being born in a stable. This is false. We all know he was born in a cave. This cave was used as a barn where they housed their animals. You can visit this holy place today in Bethlehem.

I don’t know exactly how there is so much confusion about it being in a stable. Anyway, this year we are working on making a proper “Nativity Scene” with our Church here in Colorado. So, we worked on adding to our cave today. So far we have the cave, some trees, and the Theotokos (Mary, the mother of Christ).

We were going to play outside, but Theia is still getting over her cough and it was pretty cold today, so we stayed in and played inside.

For our next activity we began working on a “Twelve Days of Christmas” unit. The first is: “On the first day of Christmas a wonder do we see: the holy babe lying in a cave.” We just used construction paper, scissors, glue, a metallic felt pen, and a marker. Such fun!Well, I will get back with you all tomorrow with our activities! Have a great evening!

In Christ,

D. Kyriake