The Year of Faith- The Apostles' Creed 'I Believe'

In the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI declared this year (October 2012-November 2013) the Year of Faith.  Certainly, as someone mentioned to me the other day, every year is a year of faith, or should be, right?  Yes!  However, I always feel like the more opportunities, reminders, encouragement and big picture focus I can get helps me to practice each year, day, hour of faith as it comes. 

So, because of the Year of Faith for our religion classes on Wednesday nights we have been working on teaching and studying the Apostles' Creed and will continue working through it all year- hopefully.  For our Religious Education Parents' Night this year I took on the same theme- "I Believe- the Apostles' Creed" and ran with it.  I thought I'd post our station activities and snack here in case anyone else was interested.

Station 1-
Apostles' Creed Mini-books

Station 2-
Creed Races and Relays  I adapted this game, after the first two rounds of ordering the prayer they took it to the gym to really relay race with the pieces.

Station 3-
Apostles' Creed Game  I took the questions from this game and paired them with this game board, a di and two markers.  Then families played as teams.  If they got a question right, they shook the di and moved.  If not, they stayed put play continued till someone won or the team who traveled furthest in the time allotted won.

As you can see, I can't take much credit for the activities.  However,  I will say coming up with a snack that went with our theme as in past years was tricky.  Google got me nothing!  (In years past- we've done a cupcake rosary, devils food cake with swords for St. Michael, liturgical Sundaes for our Mass themed night...you get the picture.)  Anyway, here's what I eventually came up with- delicious!

Apostles’ Creed Snack Mix

The Year and Our Children (original edition I purchased at a book sale) includes in the back ideas for symbols representing saints, including the apostles...so that's where I started. Imagination, inspiration from the Holy Spirit and the dollar stores get the rest of the credit.

The Apostles—

·         St. Peter, the first Pope represented by the ‘pope’s hat’ or mitre aka Bugles

·         St. James (the Great), shared the faith in present day Spain baptizing many represented by the scallop shell for baptizing aka marshmallow

·         St. John, was a fisherman with his brother James represented by fish aka goldfish

·         St. Andrew, also a fisherman represented by nets aka pretzel nets

·         St. Matthew, a tax collector represented by money aka money mints

·         St. Philip, remembered for his part in the miracle of loaves and fishes in the Gospels represented by loaves aka pretzel loaves

·         St. Thomas, the doubter felt Christ’s wounds represented by wounds aka cinnamon reds

·         St. James (the Less), leader of the early Church in Jerusalem was stoned  to death represented by stones aka M&M’s

·         St. Simon, went by ship to spread the Good News represented by the ship’s life savers aka fruit loops

·         St. Bartholomew, skinned alive as a martyr represented by knives aka pretzel sticks

·         St. Jude, pictured with fish from his time traveling by sea or his presence at the miracle of loaves and fishes represented by a fish aka Swedish fish

·         St. Matthias, the apostle that replaced Judas Iscariot after his betrayal  represented by  a carpenters square or dice for the lots cast to choose him aka cheez-its