Happy Martinmas!

Tonight, we celebrated St. Martin, the patron saint of beggars and the poor. The light in the lantern symbolizes the light inside of all of us, the Divine spark, which we carry through the dark world to help those in need as we say goodbye to autumn and welcome the dark, cold winter.

All this week, we have been learning about St. Martin and his legends.


For the Verse this week, I wrote a poem that we are copying in our special Verse Books.

Martin of Tours, Roman soldier by trade,

called forth by our Lord, to whom He did bade.

Upon his white horse, cloaked in a deep red,

The harsh winds did blow about his own head.

When upon this dark eve lit by a night star,

Martin spotted a beggar on his journey afar.

His cloak cut in two, he covered the man.

Then returned to his home; how fast his horse ran!

That night in a dream, our Jesus did come.

Inspiring St. Martin to aid everyone.

Our poor, our beggars, are wanting no more

Because of the love of St. Martin of Tours.

We usually do our watercolor paintings on Fridays, but painted on Tuesday instead and assembled our lanterns - all in one day. Here's a little tutorial...

Once the paper is dry, mark 3" up from the bottom. Draw a line across with the help of a ruler.

Fold at the line.

Then mark 3" over on the folded line and cut up to the fold to make a fringe.

Using a puncher or a knife, cut out shapes.

Then glue kite paper (or tissue paper) to the back, covering the cut outs.

Form the lantern into a cylinder and staple once at the top and once at the bottom. Then fold the fringed edges in, overlapping them and glue them together.

Punch two holes at the top to attach your string, wire, or paper handle. And then glue the tea light to the bottom of the lantern.

Supplies list with a finished lantern...

And voila!

This morning, we drew our pictures of St. Martin.

We also made yummy St. Martin's Horseshoe Cookies using a lovely recipe provided by Lynn through her blog, Raising Little Shoots, which can be seen here.

And when Daddy came home, we lit our lanterns and took our lantern walk, while singing the traditional "I Go with My Little Lantern." Please click on the short video below to hear one of the girls singing it with a few pictures from our night. It was quite a magical night! And we enjoyed the horseshoe cookies when we returned home.

"I go with my little lantern, my lantern is going with me.

In heaven the stars are shining, on earth shines my lantern with me.

The stars shine bright all through the night, a bimala bimala bim"

Happy Martinmas to all! May your Divine spark burn brightly!