Celebrate the Exaltation of the Holy Cross with Kids

It's no secret that my family likes to celebrate the liturgical year in our domestic church - and sometimes out and about with friends.

   

Last year, we did both for the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on September 14th.  We enjoyed a simple meal at home and an easy, yet engaging, nature hide-n-seek game outside with friends.

Enjoy a Simple Symbolic Meal for the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

In the morning I put together a simple symbolic meal for breakfast, which we lingered over chatting about the history of the feast day, the meaning of the cross, and more.  

We also read related excerpts and stories from Saints: Lives and Illuminations and Angel Food for Boys & Girls, Volume IV.

For our meal, I knew I wanted three symbolic things:

• red foods and drink to remind us of God's sacrificial love for us.  

• basil because tradition holds that sweet basil grew over the hill where St. Helena found Holy Cross and in Greece the faithful are given sprigs of basil by the priest. 
• something that could be made into the shape of a cross that could be taken apart.

Looking at what I had in our cupboards and fridge, I ended up serving red juice (for Jesus' blood shed on the cross for us)...

...cherries (to remind us of Jesus' heart), salad greens (to remind us of the hill where the True Cross was found by St. Helena) and eggs with basil (the eggs to remind us of our new life through Jesus Christ since eggs are a symbol of new life and the basil to remind us of traditions for this feast day)....

...apples (which continued the red symbolism but also hearkened back to original sin and Jesus' triumph over sin),and toast put into a cross shape (which we could take parts of, much like people took parts of the True cross).

We also decorated with a red cloth (again, symbolic of sacrificial love), a globe with a crucifix atop it (because the cross of triumph is usually pictured as a globe with a cross on top to remind us of the triumph of our Savior over the sun of the world)...

... and an image of Jesus overlaid on the cross (to remind us of how the cross - once an instrument of torture and death - became the instrument of our salvation through Jesus' death and resurrection).

Enact St. Helen Finding the True Cross by Playing a Nature Cross Hide-n-Seek Game

Later in the day, friends met us at a local park where we continued our fun and learning.  

There, I set up a blanket with a few candles, a globe, a cross, and a copy of Story Library of the Saints.  

Then, after praying and chatting with the children about the Exaltation of the Holy Cross a bit, I challenged them to go find natural materials that they could make a cross with while I read them the story of Helen of the Cross from the Story Library of the Saints.

After that, I marked one cross with red - as our "True Cross", then, had the children take turns hiding that cross and two others...

while the other children hid their eyes...

...then went our to seek the "True Cross" just like St. Helen did.

We played round after round of our this easy Exaltation of the Holy Cross hide-n-seek game, enjoying ourselves so much!

It's such an easy game to prep and play, reminds children of the story of the cross, and gets them up and moving, too.

I encourage you to try it!

If you're looking for other ideas, you might enjoy:

Celebrate the Memorial of the Exultation of the Cross with Food, Reading, and More!

A Quick and-Easy Craft for the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (Plus Some Ideas for Mary's Birthday Today!)

Have a wonderful Exaltation of the Holy Cross Day!

O God, who willed that your Only Begotten Son should undergo the Cross to save the human race, grant, we pray, that we, who have known his mystery on earth, may merit the grace of his redemption in heaven. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

~ The Collect Prayer as found on Catholic Culture

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Enjoy a Fresh Water Habitat Exploration Day - A Pictorial Report and Free Printable Lesson Plan

Would you like to get outside to explore rivers, ponds, and streams with friends?  Then, you might appreciate the free printable Fresh Water Habitat lesson plan and pictorial report I am finally sharing today!

{Some links which follow are affiliate ones. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.}

I say "finally", because a blog reader recently brought to my attention the fact that I never finished sharing about the Habitat Explorers Co-op class I taught four years ago in May,  My apologies!  I thought I had done so and am happily doing so now at her request.  I hope doing so benefits you, too.

A Free Lesson Plan for You!

First things first: you can get a FREE pdf of the Freshwater Habitat Plan I made to print and adapt for your own family, co-op, or club's use.

Resources for Our Fresh Water Habitat Lesson

For our freshwater lesson in nature, we used:

Crinkleroot's Guide to Walking in Wild Places 

At home, we had plenty of other related books available for browsing and research.  Some of them included:

 

Near One Cattail

Crinkleroot's Nature Almanac

 

Rivers and Lakes (Nature Hide & Seek) 

Highlights from Our Fresh Water Habitat Meeting

 

Now, enjoy a peak at how the plan became reality:

We began the outing by gathering in a field, reintroducing ourselves, and reviewing prior learning.  Then, we got right into the day's focus: fresh water habitats by having a chat and playing a game.

I asked the children what they already know about fresh water habitats and what they hope to explore or come to know, and, then, explained that there are three main types of freshwater habitats:

1.  ponds and lakes
2. wetlands
3. streams and rivers 

I, then, asked three children to stand holding signs that said “pond and lakes, “wetlands”, and “streams and rivers” before grouping the rest of the children up so non-readers and readers could be together and giving each pair or group a strip of paper with a description on it.

The children then had to run to the child who held a sign for whatever water habitat they thought the descriptor matched with and hand their strip to that child. 

After that, children ran back to me for new strips.

Once all the strips had been matched by the children, I explained that some of the descriptors could match more than one type of freshwater habitat, but that, for the purpose of the game, each type of habitat should be described by ONLY four descriptors. I, then, had the children discuss ideas and make possible adjustments so that each type of fresh water habitat had four descriptors before, finally, revealing the “right” answers and discussing any observations and questions that came up.

After that, it was scavenger hunt time!  I gave small groups of children a checklist of items to spy - and photograph if they wished - as we explored the nature preserve.  Without delay, they were off and runnig!

We had barely made it onto the trail when children were calling out for photographs, "I found wet leaves!"

The hunt helped the children notice things around them as they joyfully trekked through the paths.

My heart never tires of seeing children walking together in the woods.

It also never tires of seeing them explore - as my youngest did as soon as we hit our first water crossing!

That crossing soon found many friends literally jumping into our day's focus - fresh water!

Everyone was having so much fun, we took a long break at this crossing.

Walking in water just drew the kids in!

Seriously, they were crossing over the water on the bridge, then through it down below, then back over it... enjoying themselves so much!

Finally, we moved on and continued along the trail to our lunch spot, where I read a book to those who were interested during our lunch break.

After lunch, it was time to find the leaf litter nets we'd placed in the moving water the week prior.

The older children enjoyed adventuring to collect the leaf litter bags.

Although we thought we had put them in good spots, we could not easily find them all at first.

But, keen eyes prevailed!

And the bags were recovered.

Meanwhile, one child found a dead fish, which ended up becoming a specimen for learning.

The leaf litter became the larger draw though.

The children were given tweezers, magnifying glasses, and more so they could pick through the litter to find creatures.

Of course, some crazy kids opted to take breaks to explore the water further and - eek - one or two of them also ended up with tiny leeches which we had to pull off!  (Oops!  That was an unexpected lesson!)

Other children enjoyed taking breaks to toss pebbles into a pond.

Even our youngest friends, though, did not take breaks long, but, rather, dug right into our explorations!

It was wonderful to see friends so engaged in discovery!

Better yet, one of our moms has a biology background and was able to help the children pinpoint the different species of critters they discovered.

They sure did discover a lot of them!

I cannot express how glad I am that this lesson engaged the children so much!  It was a bit beyond my background, but, together with other moms and the kids, it became an experience we all enjoyed and learned from!

Then, after our formal explorations ended, it was time for free play and fellowship.  Bubbles...

Hugs and love!

Stick play.

Private chats. (I still wonder what secrets were being shared here...)

And even a friend gifting my then recent First Holy Communicant with a saint book he relishes to this day.  (The gift was an unexpected surprise and just one example of how wonderful it is to share time with fellow Catholics!  I just love when learning, fellowship, and faith come together!)

As you can see from all the photos,the outing proved to be another absolutely ideal day of Habitat Explorers.  In fact, it remains among my fondest homeschool memories.

Our final day of the co-op - on meadows - does, too.  I will try to get the lesson plan for that outing up within a week or so!

In the meantime, feel free to browse all o f our other Habitat Explorers Co-op posts.

 

All the Plans!

Getting Started

Favorite Habitat Books

Intro Lesson

Woodland Habitat Outing

If you use all or parts of this lesson, I'd love to hear about it in a comment here or on the Training Happy Hearts Facebook page.  I'd also be delighted if you'd take the time to share your own tried-and-true inspiration and resources, which may inspire our future outdoor experiences!  Thanks!

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