Preparation for Dormition

Dormition will always hold a special place in my heart.  It was on the Feast of Dormition two years ago that our family joined the Orthodox church.  Especially fitting for new converts still a bit uncomfortable with the Theotokos!  I've grown a lot since then!  

Fasting seasons are a bit harder to teach to my little ones since they don't observe the same fasting guidelines that Josh and I do.  They would rather not eat meat in the first place!  So when I saw this cute countdown board on Pinterest, I knew it would be a great way to show my kids that we are preparing for something really special.  Besides, who doesn't love a good countdown!?  

My original idea came from here, but of course, when I got to Michael's there were no felt pieces the size that I needed.  Since I had my 3 babies with me, I used my quick creative juices (complements of the two cups of coffee this morning) and came up with this idea.  The concept is to add a new flower to the board each day until Dormition.  The board is made of foam, which I taped to the wrong colored felt board I was going to use to make it stronger.  I took pipe cleaners cut to about an inch long and poked them through the foam (before I attached it to the felt board).  I curled them around so they would stay in place with the hopes that they would look like the center of a flower.  Each day we will stick a new flower on the board.  The foam flowers I found just happened to have a hole right in the middle, and they were also on sale, Win-Win!  As you can see, I also mounted a color print of the Icon of the Dormition as well as the Troparion.

On the back of the board I taped the Bible verses found on the above link.  There is a scripture to read for each day of the fast and the actual feast day as well.  This way, everyday when we put on our new flower, I can quickly reference the reading for the day.

We will also be doing some celebrating on the Feast.  I will blog about that as well (Lord willing), but just in case you want to prepare ahead of time....  We will be coloring icons of the feast, listening to our Theotokos songs from Gigi, making blue flowers from tissue paper for our icon corner, hopefully playing with some hand made manipulatives, and we will most definitely be feasting that evening to celebrate not only Dormition, but also our 2 year Orthoversary!