The feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes was on February 11th. It happened to fall on a Wednesday this year which means it was a night we had religious ed. It also happens to be the last Wednesday before Lent this year. All of that led me to declare last Wednesday night a “Mary Party” for the fourth grade classroom.
We started out with a skit reenacting some of the story of St Bernadette and Our Lady of Lourdes. It wasn’t anything formal and there were no scripts or costumes. I had a notecard with the important names, dates, locations, quotes, ect that I wanted to be sure to include. I just told the story using my own knowledge of Lourdes with the notecard for backup.
The students absolutely loved it. They all wanted to be in it so I had to make sure we had thirteen characters. It was a lot of fun. When we got to the part where Bernadette digs and the spring starts to flow, we had a short snack break to enjoy blue jello “healing springs” before we could finish the story.
After our little play was over, we had a lot of fun with a craft. I found this Marian grotto craft online at Shower of Roses and Waltzing Matilda. I cut the cardboard backings and glued on the popsicle sticks as I could see that turning out in too many different ways. I wanted to make sure we all at least had walls, a roof, and crosses. I had picked up some aquarium gravel last time I was at WalMart and we went to it. My students had a lot of fun making their own “Mary church” as one of my students called them.
After the students finished their grottos, they received a blue cupcake with white frosting. These all got consumed before I could take a picture. It probably would have been smart to get one before but I did not think of that.
They all had so much fun and the grottos look great. I also know that now they will remember the story of St Bernadette and Our Lady of Lourdes.
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