Reviewing the Sacraments- Baptism

In continuing the series of how my class reviewed the Sacraments while we studied the life of Fulton Sheen, this was our notebooking activity for the Sacrament of Baptism.

We had studied Baptism at the very beginning of the school year, so this review was pretty easy, and I wanted to bump their understanding of the Sacrament up a little.

We talked about how even though we are only baptized once and might not even remember it, we should renew our Baptismal promises all the time.  We can remind ourselves that we have been washed clean of sin and united to God's family every time we dip our hand in holy water as we enter the church.  We also can say our Baptismal Promises for ourselves.  I got the text from Catholic Online, and put each question into a drop of water. 

We read them as a class, and I asked each child to decide if they believed in what they were reading.  If so, they wrote "I do!" under the question in the water drop.  We then colored them blue (before cutting out-much easier!).

Here they are cut into two strips, with the drops that touch still attached to each other.

We then used scotch tape to attach the two strips together...

...and then accordion folded them to created a pop out for our notebooks.

Click here for the printable of the Baptismal Promises:

Next we added something that we had created earlier in the year.  We had filled out and colored this Baptism Certificate as part of our textbook study.  We use Sadlier's We Believe series.  After taking these home to get help recording the date and location of their baptism and the names of their godparents, we hung up all 30 of them around our classroom door on the inside.  We called it our Door of Faith (which went with the Catholic Schools' Week Theme and the Year of Faith called by Pope Benedict) and used it as a reminder that as Baptized Christians, it was our job to evangelize every time  we walked out the door.  Fast forward to May, and when I took down the Baptism certificates so they could keep them in their notebooks, the kids got all sentimental... :)  These really had an impact on some of them it seemed.

Click here to see another display with our Baptism certificates.

Lucky for us, Sadlier has made some of their reproducibles available on the web.  If you would like to use this Baptism Certificate, go here download the pdf.

So here is the notebook up to this point, with the Baptism certificate and renewal of Baptismal Promises.

Next, I wanted them to make connections to the importance of water in the Bible and how God is always pointing towards the Sacraments, especially in the Old Testament.  We made Scripture Stained Glass Windows that had to illustrate a story about water.

We started with a basic stained glass window shape.  Some kids made the top more angled, some made it an arch, but this was the basic idea.

Next, they drew a simple version of the Bible story in pencil.  The story I have here is Noah's Ark.  You can see that there is still a lot of white space and not a lot of detail.

Next, we outlined our pencil drawing with thick black marker.  It is starting to look a little more like stained glass...

...and then the next step is to take a thinner black marker and "fragment" up the larger white spaces.  You can see that I filled the back of the sky with triangles and split the waves up a little. You don't have to go crazy, but just split up the spaces a little.

Next we colored in the spaces with similar shades of crayons in different areas.  For example, I made the sky look cohesive by using all shades of gray and black, and the ocean is all blues and purples.  You get the idea.

Remember that the kids could pick any Bible story that had to do with water...29 kids, and we had a lot of different stained glass windows-

Jesus was a popular choice: (water from his side, walking on water...)

 As was Moses: (Nile to blood, parting the Red Sea, Baby Moses in basket...)

 And Noah's Ark was the most depicted scene:

Isn't it neat how unique their artwork is?  They really liked this project.

After they attached the stained glass into their notebook, there was a little quarter of a page left open, and there they had to write a couple of sentences about how their Scripture story connected to the Sacrament of Baptism.  For example, "The story of Noah's Ark connects to the Sacrament of Baptism because both wash away using water.  The world had a new start after the Great Flood, and we have a new start after our Baptism when our souls are washed free of sin."

Here's the notebook with the pop out folded up...

...and with it pulled out:

 I hope this activity helps the kids in your life deepen their understanding of Baptism!

***Update: Here are some more examples of the Baptism + Bible Art!