St. Patrick's History

We had studied St. Patrick when we studied the early Middle Ages, but we reviewed it again by reading a chapter every night this month from this lovely living book on Saint Patrick.

It is filled with small, exciting chapters of adventure and heroism, for the life of Saint Patrick is an exciting one.

What we know about the life of the life of Saint Patrick is a mixture of fact and stories. We do know that he was taken from Britain when he was young by Irish raiders. He then lived in Ireland for six years as a slave, herding sheep and pigs, before escaping and returning to his family. After his return to Britain, he entered the church and later returned to Ireland as a bishop in order to teach the youth of this country about his faith.

So that the little boys can have fun narrating each part of the story, we made puppets for them to use.

Saint Patrick's Puppet
Unfortunately there is not a template for this puppet, but the shapes you need are pretty simple so a template is not really needed.



from Catholic Icing

Once the shapes are cut out assembly is pretty simple

 and then they can reenact the stories of Saint Patrick's adventures.

 We also continued our study of Ireland, by looking at what came after St.Patrick's Ireland and Ireland in the Middle Ages. Although we have not yet touched on the Reformation, we discussed the Protestant-Catholic strife in Ireland during the Renaissance. English Protestant rule in Ireland was forcibly imposed during the 1600's. Mary I starts Protestant plantations in Ireland in 1556. By 1598 the Catholic Irish begin uprising against English control. In 1649 Cromwell brutally crushes the Irish revolt. Irish hopes were raised when Catholic James II became king of England, but William of Orange marries his daughter and becomes king in 1688, continuing the English Protestant rule. We will touch on this more when we focus on the Reformation.



Shamocks

One of the most famous symbols of Saint Patrick is the shamock. I found this tutorial for these cute shamrocks which are made just from pipe cleaners and beads.

To make these I first twisted two pipe cleaners together to make a large one. Then string 10 beads onto the pipe cleaner.



Bring the top end of the pipe cleaner around to make a loop and attach it to the bottom a few inches up from the end. Use a bead to secure that fasten. I snipped a small bit of the pipe cleaner off the end and secured this on the stem to make a cross.
Shape the circle now into shamrock leaves.

And if you have the chance, you might want to make the cute shamrock cookies at Almost Unschoolers.