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To do this project you will need a poster board, construction paper, or other large paper. You will also need icons for each feast day; icon cards are great, but you can also print out thumbnail images in a pinch. And finally, you'll need a pencil, and markers or colored pencils, and optional stickers for embellishing. If you're doing this with a young child, you'll need to do most of the work, leaving the gluing and embellishing for little hands, but older children can take a more active role in the process.
Step 1: Draw a large circle on your paper. It need not be perfect, but there are plenty of great options for tracing -- plates, bowls, round pans -- if you'd like it to be.
Step 2: Glue on the icons. Pascha should be in the center of the circle. Place the Nativity of the Theotokos at the top and follow the circle around, adding each icon in calendar order.
Step 3: Label each icon. At the very least this should include the name and date of the feast, but it could also include the troparion or kontakion, or a list of important figures (ie. Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Father, and John the Baptist at Theophany). You could even start with just the name and add more details to the label each year as your children grow. We wrote in our labels, but you could also print out labels to glue on, thereby giving the little ones more work.*
Step 4: Embellish. Let your children add their own personal touch by adding a title (The 12 Great Feasts or The Life of the Church in Feasts, perhaps) or border with markers or stickers.
*Steps 2 and 3 can, of course, be done together for one icon at a time if you're doing this bit by bit throughout the year.
When you're done, your project may look something like this. Whatever its final form, you will have a festal memento to which you can return feast after feast, year after year, as your children continue to grow in the faith.
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