Look to Him and be Radiant: August 2022

Last week I posted a quick tour of my classroom in this video on Instagram. The most common question I got was about the details on this Eucharist bulletin board. Lucky for you I took some process videos and made a shareable version!

This bulletin board is the first thing you see when you come in my classroom door, so I like to take the time to make it something eye catching and meaningful. With the Eucharistic Revival beginning this year, it seemed like a great theme to run with for the beginning of the school year. This bulletin board is good sized at around 45"x45". First I'll give you the steps for this version, and then I have an easy to print one further down in the post.

-Cover bulletin board with black paper. I didn't want a border to distract from the quote/rays, so just trimmed the edges carefully.
-To make the Monstrance, I found a photo of a Monstrance that I liked online and projected it on my smartboard. With the touch sensitivity turned off, I taped a piece of kraft paper to the smartboard and "traced" the Monstrance with a black marker. It really was a rough trace- it doesn't have to be perfect. It will still look quite detailed from a distance, so don't go crazy trying to get every little line!
-I then used some gold acrylic craft paint to add some highlights to the Monstrance. Again, not going for perfection, just some shiny details. Up close it is far from perfect, but on the bulletin board it looks great.
-Cut a host out of white paper and attached to the Monstrance. Hung in the center of the bulletin board.
-Lettered "Holy God, We Praise Thy Name" on white paper and hung at the bottom, kind of like an altar cloth beneath the Monstrance.
-Wrote out a series of Eucharistic quotes from Scripture and the Saints. (List included below). I wrote them with black marker on old adding machine tape, which was way easier than cutting paper. I did a little rough measuring to know how long the lengths of paper needed to be, and then chose the length of quote to fit.
-Tucked the end of the rays of white paper under the edge of the Monstrance and had the radiate off the sides of the bulletin board. I now wish that I would have made them all about 2" longer so they all hung off the edge, symbolized the effects of the Eucharist in the world... but wasn't crazy enough to redo them. ;)

You might be thinking, "That's nice Katie, but that is a whole lot of work for a bulletin board."

So I also have a printable version for you! :)

I made this one with bright paper just for something different, but you could do the exact same thing in black, white, and gold if you like.

I don't have anything that can print on paper larger than 8.5"x11", so I printed this Monstrance image using the poster feature in Adobe Acrobat Reader. In the print dialogue, click on "Poster" and then change the tile size to something larger like 150% or 200%. It will print on several sheets of paper which you can trim and tape together to make it as large as you like! Here is mine on 4 sheets of regular paper:

I then taped it together and roughly cut out. (No way am I cutting on all of those tiny lines! Just the general shape is enough!) I cut out a small white circle and glued on for the host.

I have the "Holy God, We Praise Thy Name" still at the bottom for balance, but it certainly could go on the top. The Eucharist quotes are printed on 8.5"x11" paper, so those rays are all 11" long. You could also print those on a larger scale if you were decorating a larger bulletin board.

All together, this printable bulletin board sized in right at 3'x3.' It would look great on a door as well!

Click here for the Monstrance Printable:

8.5"x11" size

11"x17" size

Click here for the Eucharist Quotes

4 per page size (used for the rays in the bulletin board design) (this one also has the "Holy God, We Praise Thy Name" title)

1 quote per page (great to rotate on a bulletin board)

Along with the resources for the Eucharist that are already here on the blog (check under the "Sacraments" tab above) I plan to pull together and organize some new tools during this time of Eucharistic revival. I've saved 100s of videos to YouTube playlists over the years, and those playlists are getting quite long. So I started a few new sets that you might be interested in below.

I teach 6th-8th grade, so most of these videos are things that I would consider using with them or my high school youth group. There are definitely some things for younger kids mixed in. As always with any video, please watch it first and make sure it is a good fit for your kids. I'll be adding more to these playlists as I continue to curate!

Eucharist Video Playlist