We started the Summer Faith Adventure from Holy Heroes today and we love it! I have heard some complaints about this program, pertaining to the fact that they want you to do a lot of printing and having too many "items needed" for the crafts and snacks, but I have to disagree with these complaints.
The program does have some printing required, but you certainly don't have to print all the pages to get complete use of this free program.
Each day there is an overview. From this I wrote down the main points, printing only what certain aged children would get use from. I printed two coloring sheets for the youngest kids and the crossword puzzle for Mark-9 and the word search for Grace. Both of the older gets also used a printed copy of the dot-to-dot.
Each day there is an overview. From this I wrote down the main points, printing only what certain aged children would get use from. I printed two coloring sheets for the youngest kids and the crossword puzzle for Mark-9 and the word search for Grace. Both of the older gets also used a printed copy of the dot-to-dot.
The program itself has very cute clips of the Holy Hero kids explaining the days theme. This summer's theme is about "The Kingdom of David". It starts with a decade of the rosary, recorded and played along as you say it, using Bible verses to explain the mystery. My kids brought out our statue of the Blessed Mother as we prayed the decade. There is a song to learn and a recording of the Angelus to say together as you finish up the day. The printables contain the words to the song of the day, but it worked better for me to write the words on our chalk board for all to easily see.
I brought our laptop to the table, this also eliminates the need for a lot of printing because I could easily hop between the printable file and the main page of the day.
On Sunday night I received an e-mail telling me of the materials needed. 90 percent of the items I already had, and the other 10 percent were not needed on the first day.
On this day we watched videos as the Holy Hero kids told the story of David, using a felt board. These videos were short enough (only three or four minuted long) to keep the 3 and 4 year olds attention, but were also enjoyed by the 7 and 9 year old---plus assorted teenagers who stopped to watch and discuss.
The snack was to make keys and crown sugar cookies---I used store bought sugar cookie dough for these, but we did color sugar yellow (golden) to decorate the keys.
Amy designed our lovely key pattern. (We didn't make crowns)
These keys represent the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven that the the Pope has, as the head of the Catholic church on Earth.
These keys represent the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven that the the Pope has, as the head of the Catholic church on Earth.
We rolled out the dough and then cut around the pattern.
Our keys were heavily decorated with "golden" sugar. (Make sure to notice Gracie's hard working face)
Mark working hard.
This was not a very neat portion of our day!
We may have gone a little overboard with the size of our keys.
They were BIG!
Really, really BIG--but not too big to eat--yummy, yummy!
The craft was making a pope's miter. Mark enjoyed this. This is another example of not needing to print the pattern--after just looking at it online, it was easy to duplicate by hand.
The back of a finished miter.
Mark was all serious in his miter.
Luke, on the other hand, didn't really know what it represented. I believe he thought it was a helmet, and he spent the rest of the day sneaking up on people and karating them. (You can never tell what 4 year olds are thinking.)The kids are really looking foreward to tomorrow's Summer Faith Adventure, and so am I.
It is still not too late to join this summer's fun--I believe there are two more weeks the program is being offered.
Our day-2 fun can now be found here!
Day-3
We loved it too! Thanks for your write up!!!
ReplyDeleteI too also only printed what we needed. This program is incredible!!
Thanks for sharing!!
I was one of those people that complained and it really had to do with the fact that I was ill prepared and didn't have the means to get the extra things I would need.
ReplyDeleteI had no ink and couldn't go to the store and get ink, because the ink I needed can be only be gotten via mail order.
I also didn't have a car last week it was in the shop, so I couldn't run to the store to get crackers, pretzels, marshmallows, candy, because I don't keep those things in the house.
I don't know about you but I didn't get my supply email until 10 pm Sunday Night (The Sunday before the program was suppose to start, and there was no way I was going to go to the store then to get the food, etc)
If I had more prep time then I would have been okay! My girlfriend in PA had the same issue as me....She didn't get her supply email until 11 pm (her time) Sunday night and didn't have the time or money to get the extra items.
We just don't eat chips, crackers, candy, marshmallows, rice crispy cereal, etc. The only things I had on hand was flour, sugar, milk, eggs, vanilla, and butter. LOL
So it wasn't so much that it was a lot or hard to come up with, it was just that we weren't given what we felt adequate prep time seeing we didn't get our supply email until 10/11 pm Sunday July 19th and our first day was Monday July 20th.
I got my email yesterday afternoon. I didn't even look at the supply list. I know that if I don't have exactly what is called for, I can figure out an alternative. However, I had all the supplies for today. We loved the program! You should have made their cookie recipe - divine!
ReplyDeleteThis looks like so much fun ! your little ones are so beautiful and certainly the program seems to be agreeing with them from all the smiles and yummy cookies too ;-)
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you had a great first day. We do the same as you- only print what is needed and we make do with whatever we don't have. Georgia and Josie really enjoyed it.
ReplyDeleteHave fun!
xoxoJenny
It sounds like a wonderful program to me and I just love those big ol cookies!
ReplyDelete