Holy Spirit Craft

I'm in the throes of one busy week.  Religious education classes begin this week at our parish and while I've had ideas for what I'm going to do in my classes rolling around in my head for several months now, I haven't actually finalized those plans until yesterday.

While writing up my lesson plan for my first class with the third graders I decided that I needed a dove to represent the Holy Spirit in a story I'll be having students act out.  Acting out bible stories was a hit with the kids in VBS this past summer and I've decided I should try it out in my classes.  My only problem?  I didn't have the Holy Spirit!  Talk about a dilemma!

A couple years ago Ellie made a super cute dove tree topper at her preschool that was made out of a plain old white paper plate.  It would have been the perfect prop for my lesson, but it's packed away with our Christmas decorations.  Certain that I could find this adorable dove craft online I did a quick search and came up with nothing.  Ugh!  Thanks to the wonders of iPhoto on my laptop, I managed to locate a picture of the craft and have done my best to replicate it.

It's a surprisingly simple craft that could be done with children in a religious education class to tie in with a lesson on the Holy Spirit, or it could even be used to make a Christmas decoration.  To attach it to a tree you would need to hot glue a clothes pin on the back.

The craft is simply three shapes cut out of one paper plate.  I colored the triangle orange to make a beak. I cut the edges off the scalloped part of the paper plate to make the wing and tail feather look more realistic.

Once it was assembled, I used glitter glue to jazz it up and make the dove's eye.

Overall, I'm pleased with the result and I'm pretty sure my dove will make a nice Holy Spirit prop.  Something tells me this very inexpensive craft will find it's way into my lesson plans.