Sadie's Prayer Sticks

Pinterest. The absolutely fabulous idea-holder exists as a wonderful treasure trove of ideas for all crafty people out there. I have had several friends on FB post that the site can sometimes make them feel like they are not doing enough with their children. However, I come at it a different way. This is a wonderful place to come up with new and great ideas for Sadie - ideas I might never have thought of otherwise. I know I cannot do all crafts on the site, but neither can I read every book I see in the bookstore, but that never stops me from perusing the closest one. 

So, one of our first Pinterest crafts was Popsicle prayer sticks. I purchased an extra strength glue stick, and let Sadie apply the glue to the multi-colored jumbo Popsicle sticks. We then attached the heads of friends and family to the ends. To finish, I wrote each person's name down one side of the stick. Sadie wanted to write their names too, so I flipped over each stick and let her "write the name" as well. Her small squiggle was a perfect addition to these purposeful sticks. She was so proud of herself After we were all finished we lined them up and looked at all of the people in our lives (all that we at least had pictures of right then). We are so very blessed.

I then modeled for Sadie how to pray for our friends and family:

"Dear Jesus, 

thank you for _______. 

I pray she/he has a happy day."

Sadie was over the moon. She loved the simply prayer and after repeating it a couple of times, she got the hang of it. Within a few uses of these power sticks, we began to see a trend. It seems that Granddaddy, Rascal and Rusty (The latter two are Su Su and Poppy's furry children) quickly won the role of apparently needing the most prayers. Sadie also liked to pray for herself, partly because she liked to pretend her stick was a tiny person and wanted it to talk to all the other prayer sticks!

Her first prayer she used was eventually modified on occasion to sound like the sing-song prayer she would say at school for food time:

"Thank you, God

Thank you, God

for my ________ (Su Su, Collin, etc)

and my many blessings

and my many blessings.

Amen

Amen"

I love how a craft so simple could teach her about something so important in life - to pray for others. Pinterest, you rule. Thank you for the idea. :)