Lenten Memory Verse Garden

I asked my kids what kind of Memory Verse project they wanted to do this year, and they chose the flower garden from years ago. But we decided that each child would make their own small garden this year instead of one big one, and I'm hoping that will mean less cutting that our window garden. If you want the bigger garden, follow the link above.

I shrunk the original pdf to fit on one page. It can be colored first, cut out as you go, and glued onto a clean sheet of paper to make a garden. There are notes on the paper to tell you what color to color each shape and what flower they make. The memory verses are the stems. Use the guide below to know which flower to use each week. The photo above might also be helpful. You can print a second page if you want extra flowers or leaves.

WEEKLY GUIDE 

1. Sunday of the Publican and Pharisee: 1 red Poppy (color triangles yellow): “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” – Luke 18:13 

2. Sunday of the Prodigal Son: 2 yellow Blackeyed Susans: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.” – Luke 15:18 

3. Sunday of the Last Judgment: 2 purple Crocus with 2 yellow centers: "Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.”- Matthew 25:40 

4. Forgiveness Sunday: 1 Phlox (purple oval with 12 small blue flowers glued on top) “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” – Matthew 6:21

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1. Sunday of Orthodoxy: 1 yellow Marigold : “Come and see.” – John 1:46 

2. Sunday of St. Gregory Palamas: 3 purple Asters with yellow centers: “When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven you.’” – Mark 2:5 

3. Sunday of the Cross: 2 Carnations (use green for bottom section of flower, pink for top): “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” – Mark 8:34 

4. St. John of the Ladder: 3 blue Morning Glories with white star centers and 1 bud (assemble along one stem to make it look like a vine): “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” – Mark 9:23 

5. Sunday of St. Mary of Egypt: 1 Rose (draw green tiny triangles for thorns): "Whoever would be first among you must be servant of all.” – Mark 10:44 

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1. Palm Sunday: 3 Ferns: “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” – John 12:12 

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1. Great and Holy Pascha: 3 EASTER LILIES: “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” – John 1: 4,5

I realize this guide started with the Triodion and so now we're behind, but we'll catch up, and, hey, its ready for the future.

Printable Lenten Passports and a Memory Verse Garden

Following up on last week's post of Lenten resources, I organized my memory verse garden with rocks and put together a very simple Lenten Passport. Details below.

The last time we made a Lenten garden, the girls were really little and picked all he flowers. But now we're old enough to try again. I wrote a phrase from each week's memory verse (from the Sunday Gospel reading) on a rock and lined them up leading to a jar. The last rock covers the jar opening like Christ's tomb. I will turn the rocks upside down and only turn over the verse for the current week, to mark where we are on the path. We planted a couple of succulents around the cave, put moss around the rocks, and then sprinkled wheat over the back. We love watching how quickly our wheat grows during the Nativity fast, so we're excited to use it again for Lent. (I meant to plant it during Clean Week, but the kids were excited, so we put it together during Cheeseweek!)

planning out the garden, before planting

a baby food jar, covered in dirt makes a cave

We covered all the dirt with moss, and planted a few succulents around the hill,
laid in our rocks, and sprinkled wheat seeds in the back where
they won't hid the rocks or cave as they grow.

Rocks turned over, except the first, revealing the first
memory verse we are learning for Forgiveness Sunday.

I used the Lent cartoon cards/stamps that I made for our calendar into stamps for a little passport. The passport is very simple, but it includes the memory verse for the week and extra space to write other things (almsgiving activities maybe?) - so I think it will keep all our Lenten educational stuff in one place.  St. Spyridon's in Loveland, CO has a really beautiful and really inexpensive color passport with icon stamps that you can order here.

The passports are embedded here for you to download or print. Print the pages front and back, and take out the page of stamps before stapling into a book. (The last page is blank because its the back of the stamps.)

Passport preparations begun!
L colored the image and wrote her almsgiving plans for each week.

Lent Resources!

Whew, Lent seems early this year, and I'm trying to get ready. It has been a hard year, and I'm feeling a little broken down by it all. So, I'm looking forward to the struggle and the intensity ahead. This time of preparation is beautiful and difficult, and it calls me back to a place of deep joy.

Last year I wrote about the Christian origins of Lent and Pascha. If you're still thinking early Christians kept this feast because they secretly didn't want to give up their pagan traditions, you may want to check out that post. They had the greatest reason of all to celebrate this day with joy, and so do we - even with eggs and baskets!

So, here are a few resources! First, some printable calendars - we keep one of these on our fridge and color in the days as we go to mark our progress. Just grab and print on regular paper.

simple calendar with line drawings from
the OCA education website

calendar using my own cartoons, including Annunciation,
to match the services at our parish for 2017. 

And this pdf version is mostly blank, with a 2nd page of stamps you 
can add in to match your own church services. 
(Or get the printable passport with stamps here.)

Second, a Memory Verse Guide using the Sunday Gospel readings. This year I think we'll be writing them on rocks and laying them in a garden. At least, that's the plan, I haven't started yet. ;) You can check out our Memory Verse Tree and Memory Verse Garden printable, or just use this guide to do memory verses your own way. I left a blank to write in the date, so you can use the same printable every year. 

A potted Lenten Garden we made many years ago. 

Finally, here's a Holy Week Map I made for our parish. Each day has a brief description of what is remembered on each day and a suggestion for simple, tangible ways to participate in the day. Last year, we printed this as a tri-fold pamphlet with our parish's service schedule on the outside. 

Wishing you a good fast!

Lenten Memory Verse Tree

We're doing a Lenten Memory Verse Tree this year, much like our Memory Verse Garden last year. We're using the same verses from Sunday's Gospels, but we've simplified things by just adding leaves to our tree each week. I'm feeling pretty good about this lower maintenance version, and I like using a tree as our imagery going into Lent and Holy Week.

 We're starting this week with the Triodion! Find the instructions and printables below.

PREPARATION INSTRUCTIONS

1. Make a tree on a poster or wall (or a window) using brown construction or kraft paper. I used kraft paper and packing tape I already had to make my tree, seriously, in about 5 minutes. The kids were very impressed, but it was very easy! [You can see an example with instructions here.]

2. Print memory verse leaves on green construction paper. You can either use blank leaves and write your own verses, or use the leaves with verses already on them. [These leaves fit 2 per page; if you are making a smaller tree, you may want to print your leaves at 50% or other scale.]

3. Follow the weekly guide, cutting out and adding leaves to the tree each week as you discuss the Sunday’s Gospel. [Remember you can bookmark the Sunday's Gospel page from the Antiochian website and listen each week!]

4. [Optional: We have dogwood trees in our yard. Dogwood flowers are white with four petals like a cross. I intend to cut out a dozen or so of these and put them on the tree on Pascha night as a pretty surprise for the children after the Liturgy. The Dogwood flower template is also provided, and you can find "A legend of the Dogwood Tree" by Catholic Icing. You could also add fake flowers, butterflies or other pretty things to your tree.] I'll try to remember to add pictures after Pascha.

WEEKLY GUIDE

1. Sunday of the Publican and Pharisee: “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” – Luke 18:13

2. Sunday of the Prodigal Son: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.” – Luke 15:18

3. Sunday of the Last Judgment: "Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.”--- Matthew 25:40

4. Forgiveness Sunday: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” – Matthew 6:21

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1. Sunday of Orthodoxy: “Come and see.” – John 1:46

2. Sunday of St. Gregory Palamas: “When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven you.’” – Mark 2:5

3. Sunday of the Cross: “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” – Mark 8:34

4. St. John of the Ladder: “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” – Mark 9:23

5. Sunday of St. Mary of Egypt: "Whoever would be first among you must be servant of all.” – Mark 10:44

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1. Palm Sunday: “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” – John 12:12

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1. Great and Holy Pascha: “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” – John 1: 4, 5

Pascha morning - you can see our tree full of leaves, and dogwood flowers added that morning. 

Lenten Memory Verse Garden (printable)

We're getting ready for a new little one around here - I'm due on Palm Sunday. So I wanted to think ahead to have something educational for the kids during Lent - even if I'm not up to doing much later. When a sick little one kept me home from church today, I spent most of the day preparing this little paper lenten garden.

Since we started homeschooling, I've always liked the idea of a seasonal table - but I've never actually had one. Occasionally we have a seasonal centerpiece, and this fall/winter we decorated our kitchen window with a seasonal-wintery scene. My paper craft lovers had fun with the window, so I thought we'd do that again for Spring/Lent! We actually made our winter scene while it was still fall, and now that winter has only barely begun, I'm trying to hold myself back from starting Spring too early. But I think adding a new flower each week throughout the triodion might be just the right pace. By Pascha it will be Spring, and we'll have a full garden!

So here's how it works:

1. Print! I made up templates for a bunch of flowers in the style of Lois Ehlert's Planting a Rainbow - which we love! I think the easiest way to get lots of color without lots of work (or using lots of ink) is to print these templates on colored construction paper, but if you want to print them on plain white paper and color or paint them, of course you could also do that. The stems have memory verses taken from each Sunday Gospel during the Triodion and Pascha. Once they are printed, keep them handy in a folder. This will be a great reminder to Teach the Story each week.

2. Cut! This will be the most time consuming part, but you could easily break it up and only cut out what you need each week. Or better yet, make the kids do it.

3. Assemble! Each week, cut out the flowers and stems and any little extra leaves or bits you need as described in the weekly guide. I think we will glue together the parts of the flower, then tape the flower to the window. (In the picture below, they are just laid out on the floor, so the pieces aren't all attached properly :P ). As you do assemble your flower (or flowers), you can listen to the Sunday Gospel for the week provided by the Antiochian Archdiocese, and then review the memory verse.

My older daughter came home and found me cutting out construction paper and insisted on playing along. So we cut everything out and arranged all the parts on the floor. I'm glad we did a test run because we ended up printing and cutting out a few extras of some things, which I have described in the weekly guide, and you can see one way of assembling the flowers. Of course, they don't have to be assembled in any particular arrangement. The pdf (download here or embedded below) includes printing instructions, the weekly guide (telling you what you need, how to assemble, and what the memory verse is each week), and all the templates.

A few tips: 

• The guide suggests printing all the pages one at a time to get the right colors, but I don't think its too difficult to do this: stack 1 white, 1 red, 1 yellow, 1 purple, 1 blue, 1 white, 4 green, and then print pages 1-10.
• Print at actual size to get the biggest flowers. Your computer may worry that some of it is outside the printable area, but it shouldn't be a problem.
• If you don't have white construction paper, use a medium weight drawing paper, card stock or regular typing paper in a pinch. The white flower page is the only sheet that contains color, but if you're printing all at once, go ahead and print in color.
• We printed extra ferns for Palm Sunday to fill in the awkward spaces at the bottom. That way it will be pretty throughout Paschaltide. :)
• Print the guide, too. Initially I thought I wouldn't print the instructions, but then I realized each week I will need to refer to what we need, and having that in the folder will be handy. On the same note, bookmark the Sunday's Gospel page so you can listen each week!
• And a final thought - you could use these to build a memory verse garden outside of Lent - just don't print my memory verses, and write your own on the blank stems!

The Triodion begins on Feb. 1!