Craft for Catholic Kids - Make a Monstrance!

April is the month dedicated to the Holy Eucharist! We've been learning about the mass and Eucharist around here, plus I've been teaching my kids about adoration, so this is perfect for us! :-) My daughter has been pretty fascinated by monstrances ever since "M" week around here, so we recently crafted these monstrances.

What you need to make this Catholic Monstrance Craft:

• A Pool Noodle (yellow)
• Pipe Cleaners (yellow or gold)
• White Paper
• Popsicle Sticks
• Craft Glue
• Gold glitter and or glitter glue

This is so incredibly cheap and easy to do that it would be a great craft for a whole class of kids, like for instance a first communion class. I actually had enough pieces left over from our pool noodle rosary make several of these! This is also a good craft to do in preparation for adoration for kids. Here's what you do:

Before you begin, slice the pool noodle up. I got our pool noodle from the Dollar Tree, and it was flower shaped, but I have confidence that the craft would be cute with regular round pool noodles, too. I like to slice pool noodles with my bread knife- just be careful! You'll also need to make 2 cuts for inserting the popsicle stick. You can do this with scissors. Each monstrance you make will need one pool noodle to have a cut in the bottom, and the other one in the side. See the picture:

Each child will need 2 slices of pool noodle, and 1 Popsicle stick. (We happened to have yellow popsicle sticks, but a regular one would work, too. You could also color them yellow with a marker.)

You can cut the pipe cleaners in fourths with scissors. Have the children insert them around one pool noodle slice- they will stick right in. My 5 year old and 2 year old were both able to do this.

 Decorate with gold glitter and/or glitter glue. Lots and lots of glitter makes children very happy! Plus, monstrances are supposed to be special for Jesus. :-)

We also added jewels with red and green glitter glue. (You can get packages of gold, green, and red glitter and glitter glue at most Dollar Trees).

Put a little glue on the ends of the popsicle stick before inserting them into the pool noodle to keep them secure. Cut a white circle from paper and insert it in the middle for the "host". If you stick the popsicle stick all the way through, you should be able to glue it right onto the stick. Cover anything that's still visible in yet even more glitter. :-)

We made our top pipe cleaner piece into a cross with another section of pipe cleaner, because monstrances seem to have crosses on top. This was super fun and easy, plus they came out pretty cute. Even the one 2-year-old Julian made. :-)

If you're looking for something even easier, don't forget

about our Gold Doily Monstrances we made!

Happy Catholic Crafting, everyone!

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Craft a Monstrance with a Gold Doily

Catholic ABC's Week: 18
Letter of the week: M
Theme: Monstrance
Saint of the Week: Mother Teresa
Craft: Monstrance Craft

Supplies needed to complete this craft:

• Gold Doilies (Available in the cake decorating section of your local craft store. I got a package of 12 for about $2.50)
• Gold Paper (I bought just one sheet in the scrapbooking aisle for 60 cents. It was enough for about 10 monstrances.)
• Glue Stick
• Stick on Jewels (also available in a craft store)
• Foam Board and/or Paper (You can get foam board at the Dollar Tree, and each board will yield enough to make 4 of these).
• Marker

This week in my preschool co-op class, M is for "Monstrance". This was a great craft for my class!

I cut the pieces out ahead of time so the kids could put them all together. If your kids are good with scissors, I would let them cut the pieces themselves. I first had them glue down a piece of green paper for the table (so the monstrance wouldn't appear to be floating). We used green because we are currently in ordinary time. Next they glued on the golden sticks for the monstrance, and then the doily. The "host" I just cut out of white paper and drew on a cross with a marker- have them glue it in the middle and decorate with jewels however they want.

As they're working on their craft, talk to them about how the monstrance is gold and decorated with precious jewels because of how special Jesus in the Eucharist is to us.

I really like the one my 4 year old, Lydia, made on purple paper! I would have liked to offer the kids in my preschool class to make them in different colors, but it wasn't feasible with so many kids.

 

Because Lydia is older than the kids in my preschool class and she is learning to write her letters, I wrote the word "Monstrance" lighly with a pencil and let her trace over it with a black marker- then erase the pencil marks. 

We also talked about circles at preschool this week, so this craft went along perfectly as a Catholic circle craft! Also, consider a field trip to adoration this week for your child to see a real monstrance. Our church has a special hour for children's adoration, and I'm taking them tomorrow (weather permitting...).

Grab Bag Ideas for the Letter M: (be sure to check out the Classroom Script for directions on using the grab bag.) Monkey, Money, Man, Monster, Moon, Moose, Mother Teresa holy card, Motorcycle, Mouse, Mug, Magnet, Marble, Mouth (from Mr. Potato Head), Monk.

For More Resources, check out the Catholic Toolbox lesson plans for the Letter M. (Her M lesson is on Moses.)

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 Classroom Script.

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St. Clare Doll and Monstrance Crafts

St. Clare's feast day is coming up on August 11. She had such a devotion to the blessed sacrament that her symbol is the monstrance, so I've included monstrance crafts and snacks as well. Of course, a monstrance craft would also be great for Corpus Christi, or a generic Catholic craft for any time! :-)

I love this little St. Clare doll made by Joyfilled Family!

No advanced skills necessary, and she links to the

embroidery pattern. So cute! 

Learn how to make an edible monstrance with the 

Catholic Craft Corner.

Here's a monstrance craft I found over on 

The Week of Graces. *Updated to Say- Popular opinion is that
these are made from clear plastic plates on an upside down plastic
wine glass with doilies behind them and decorated with stick on jewels.*

Here's a monstrance craft that I found on

God's Canvas, along with some other Catholic Crafts.

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