The Ant and The Grasshopper and Prayer Bracelet for Lent

On Sunday, one of the crafts at the Lenten Simple Soup Supper was to make The Pearls of Life bracelets to use in our prayers. Each bead means something. Starting with the gold one which is to represent God. The clear oblong ones are for silence. The white pearl is the I bed. The white bead is the baptism bead. The brown bead is the desert bead. The blue bead is the serenity or calm bead. The red beads are for love given and received. The three small white beads are the secret beads. The black bead is the night bead. The translucent circular bead is the Resurrection bead.  For more details about the meaning of each bead check out here. For a bit about the history of them read here. Personally I like to wear it especially during Lent to remind me to prayer and to bring me closer to God.

Sharing Saturday is still open through tomorrow. Please go check out the amazing projects people have shared. There are many for celebrating Dr. Suess' birthday on Friday as well as St. Patrick's Day and more! And I hope you will follow me at Facebook!! And voting at Circles of Moms is still open. I'm at number 34 and could use some more votes. You can vote every 24 hours.

One of our favorite books to take out of the library lately is Ant and Grasshopper by Luli Gray. So today, we began to work on some ants and grasshoppers. We also plan to make Ant's house out of tissue boxes. Hazel has already included Ant and Grasshopper in her daily activities of shopping, etc. when she plays. She also repeats some of the things Ant says in the book. I for the most part made both of these, however Hazel is working on some as well. We will share those when they are finished.

The story is a take off of the Aesop Fable. Ant is rich and has a big house. He likes to count the food he has collected each day. Grasshopper sings and plays the fiddle in Ant's yard and bothers Ant while he is trying to count. As fall comes Grasshopper tries to come into Ant's house and get fed and Ant laughs at him and turns him away. One night Ant wakes up and finds Grasshopper on his stoop nearly frozen to death and covered in snow. He brings him in and saves his life. There are so many lessons that can be taught from this story. The Grasshopper is homeless. Ant admits in the story he wishes he could sing. And the last line is my favorite: "'Everybody counts.'"

I used pom poms, pipe cleaners, googly eyes and felt for the grasshopper's wings. Hazel is painting some egg cartons for them and I have a great grasshopper out of TP roll pattern I found in several places when I searched grasshopper crafts. Here is one location. Another with a template is here.

We will share more of our ants and grasshoppers and our Ant's house soon. Hope you are having a lovely day!