We made it through Holy Week, and Pascha was a joy! As we continue to enjoy this festal season, we begin to look forward to the Ascension of our Lord towards the end of the month. Ascension is a pretty big word for little kids, and may leave them wondering just what this feast day is all about. Here is a craft project to bring the Ascension to life and make it easier to explain what it's all about.

During Holy Week, there is an abundance of opportunities for adults to pray and participate in the procession of days leading to Pascha. Children are often dragged along through the litany of services as well, but for them the significance of each day can easily be lost as their attention spans grow shorter through the week. With that in mind, I've put together some crafts that can be done throughout the week. Many of the crafts below can be adjusted to use whatever craft supplies you have on hand, and you can even repurpose old magnets for these projects. So if you are missing some supplies, don't be afraid to improvise. You can do the crafts before a given service to prepare your child for what's to come or as a review afterward. Read on to make your own collection of Holy Week Magnets.

When I asked the usual, "What did you do in Church School today?" my daughter answered with a frustrated sigh, "We just filled in our workbooks with one-word answers. I wish we could just read the Bible and talk about the stories without having all the right answers."

Standing in my adviser’s office listening to him list off the ways in which my thesis was in error, I reflected: "I’m not trying to fool anyone; I know I’m not an academic. I just have an interest in the theology of icons." To be fair, the problems he was pointing out were not insurmountable. But the conversation led me to the following dialogue with myself.

What will you be when you grow up? The question of identity hits us early on. Children may try out several hats through play. Teens try a few extra-curricular activities and hope the question can be postponed until college. And college students often find themselves paralyzed by indecision, facing too many options or realizing their dream might need drastic revision in light of last week's chemistry final.

As the mother of two young daughters who love to do craft projects and art, I'm always looking for new project ideas, especially those that allow me to teach them a little more about our faith while they're having fun. Over the years, I've found many small projects to help celebrate and teach about individual feast days. Such projects have been great for telling the story of each feast, but they lack the ability to present the larger context of Orthodoxy. They don't tell the whole story. That is why a few years ago, my older daughter Hummingbird and I made a "life cycle" chart of the 12 major feasts and Pascha.