St. Anthony is one of our (many) favorite saints. Because it was the temporary last name the social worker gave our son while his adoption was being processed. You see, he was left by his birth mom at the Church of St Anthony of Padua. This is why St. Anthony is very special to us; and we celebrate his feast every year!
I would like to share with you the activities we have done through out these past 6 years. I have another post here and I shared one activity we did when our son was still 2 years old. Of course more activities may be added as our son grows or our family for that matter. I will definitely share them in this blog with you.
Read About St. Anthony
There are many books about St. Anthony for children of all ages. Here are some of the ones we found online.
From Internet Archive:
32 pages
Beahn, John Edward, 1910-1990
264 pages
by O'Brien, Isidore
52 pages
by Farnum, Mabel
182 pages
by Regnier, Celestine
36 pages
There are some books here that we have not read yet, so we're very excited to
read some this year.
And here are some of the books we have read through the years.
Make sure you are reading age appropriate books for your children. If you have older and younger children, I suggest that you read a loud the ones for younger children and then encourage your older children who are already readers to do some quiet time reading on their own.
After the read a loud, you can ask your older children to narrate back or share their favorite part of the story. If the little ones want to narrate back, let them.
Arts and Crafts
Drawing or making a painting of St. Anthony would also be a good extension activity after a read a loud. My son would prefer drawing comic strips or a favorite scene in the story. I guess boys' drawings are more action based.
I have made a coloring page for children who prefer to color or paint. You can find it in the My Friends, The Saints page.
Games at Home
For the very young, you can try the Feast of St. Anthony of Padua Activity on my previous blog post about St. Anthony.
Hide and seek with the whole family (inside the house- yep we did it during the lockdown) is always a good idea. Let the littlest ones hide where they want, you will surely laugh and giggle when you ‘find’ them.
Do you have something you need to find for the longest time? Pray this short prayer to St, Anthony and get the whole family finding that item.
Dear St. Anthony, please come around: something is lost, and it cannot be found.
You can even offer a prize for the one who can find it. Why not do a little tidying up and cleaning as you play? I’m sure the older kids will be game about it, especially when there is a prize.
Try this scavenger hunt games I found on Pinterest.
Outdoor Games
Of course outdoor hide and seek! Just make sure the little ones don’t get left out.
Nature scavenger hunt
Here are our favorites:
Food
If its the feast day of a Franciscan/ Capuchin saint, I make myself a hot mug of sugar free cappuccino. One - not sugar free for the husband and a warm mug of hot chocolate for our son. We usually drink these in the morning.
This year we will try making St Anthony's Bread. Because St. Anthony loved the poor and shared bread with them. We will use the recipe from Rosella's Cooking With Nonna. We will make more than the usual and share with friends, family and the people who work in the car wash in our building.
There are more bread recipes on the internet, and you may chose the best one you can make with your family.
More bread recipes for the feast of St. Anthony here and here
If you wish to prepare a main course, there are more recipes here.
Further Readings
I hope this post gave you some ideas on how to celebrate this feast with the family. If you have more activities or ideas on how to celebrate this beloved saint's feast day, please share them in the comments. Also, do share how you celebrated.
God bless you!
