Craft a Church Tithing Bank for Kids

Catholic ABC's Week: 20
Letter of the week: O
Theme: Offering
Saint of the Week: Our Lady of Guadalupe
Craft: Church "Piggy Bank"

Materials Needed to Complete This Craft:

• Small Milk Carton (or whipping cream carton, or Whoppers carton, or goldfish carton, or... you get the idea!)
• Paint (I suggest washable tempera paint)
• Pipe Cleaners 
• Coffee Filters
• Colored Paper 
• Glue
• Markers
• Scissors

This week, I thought it would be great if O were for Offering! I wanted to make some kind of bank my children could put change in and then take to church to add to the collection basket, and I came up with this craft that actually looks like a church! This was so much fun to make it left me wishing I had piles of tiny milk cartons to make a whole village! (As you can see from these pictures, this worked in nicely with some neighborhood crafts we've been doing, but I only post our "Catholic" stuff here). ;-)

The How-To:
Rinsing out your milk carton goes without saying. Start by having your kids scribble different colors on a coffee filter, then flick it with some water to make the colors spread. Set it to the side to dry. (This will become your stained glass windows).

Next, have them paint their milk carton. We used white because our church in real life is white- plus I thought it would help the bright stained glass windows to "pop". We used foam brushes, which are great for little hands.

Now put your milk carton to the side to dry and have your kids select bright sections of the coffee filter for their stained glass windows. (If your coffee filter isn't dry enough to work with yet, a 2 second blast from your hair dryer will fix that). I cut out a template for Lydia (age 4) and had her trace around it to cut out her own windows. Julian is only 2- I pretty much cut his out for him. You can attach the windows with a glue stick. Cut out and glue on a "roof" and a door from colored paper. Last, lay your church on it's back so you can glue on a "steeple" fashioned with pipe cleaners. I actually stuck ours on with a hot glue gun because I'm awesome and impatient like that. ;-) (The front of your church is the side of the milk carton you did NOT open). 

How is this a piggy bank? Easy! Just open it up like you're going to drink some milk, put your money in and close it back up. Take your church bank to mass on Sunday and empty the contents into the collection basket each week. I guarantee your kids will love this!

I was really pleased with the turn out of the stained glass windows! It was my favorite part of the whole craft!

(Lydia actually painted her windows with watercolor paints)

Grab Bag Ideas for the Letter O: (be sure to check out the Classroom Script for directions on using the grab bag.) Ostrich, Octopus, Orange, Olive, Oven (from dollhouse), Oatmeal, Owl, Oak tree leaf, Oval, Onion, Octagon, Our Lady Statue.

For More Resources, check out the Catholic Toolbox lesson plans for the Letter O. (Her O classroom lessons are also on "Offering"!) :-)

Catholic ABC's runs here at Catholic Icing every Wednesday with the new letter of the week. You can get the details of this program by checking out the my new Catholic ABC's Navigation Page! {{Yay!}}

I love these church banks! I can't wait to have my kids take them to church on Sunday and empty them into the collection basket!

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