Learning about Fall

We decided to take a break from our Memoria Press Enrichment Guide books and activities because we realized that we were a few weeks ahead of the "typical schedule".  We dove into the topic of Fall and had so much fun reading some great books and exploring together over the past few weeks!

 

 

We learned about how trees grow, how they change in the different season, about different kind of trees and what kind of leaves that they have.  We then went on a fun nature hike and collected lots of different kinds of leaves.  Once we got home we tried to identify what different kinds of trees each of the leaves were from.  Finally, we made a fun craft decorating with all of the different leaves!

 

  

 

 

 

 

We also had a lot of apples from our yearly trip to the apple orchard so we decided to make some yummy treats including home made apple sauce and apple crisp.  We also read some great books about apples!  Our children are learning more and more independence with cooking and loving their new skills of peeling, cutting and stirring.  We had a lot of fun learning more about Fall!

 

 

Celebrating St. Francis's Feast Day

 

 

We celebrate the feast of St. Francis of Assisi on October 4th.  St. Francis is a Saint who gave everything that he had to live a life for God.  His simple, and generous nature is an example for us all of how to live our own lives and give to others.  St. Francis loved the Earth and all creatures that God created, and because of this St. Francis is named the patron Saint of animals.  To celebrate St. Francis of Assisi many Catholic Churches, including our parish has a Blessing of Animals around the time of St. Francis' feast day!

 

Our family has two wonderful dogs who are both 10 years old.  They are both wonderful pets for our family and bring us a lot of joy!  Our dog Parker has had a tough few years as he has gone blind in one eye and then was diagnosed with cancer this year.  He had surgery to remove his tumor and we are monitoring him to make sure that he will hopefully remain cancer free.  We were excited that we were able to bring our dog Parker to the Blessing of Animals this year to receive a special blessing.  We pray that he has many more years with our family.

 

 

We also read some of our favorite books about St. Francis including St. Francis: The Good Man of Assisi, Saint Francis of Assisi by Demi, and Brother Sun, Sister Moon during our daily story times.  Our kids were very excited to give our dogs special St. Francis medals to wear on their collars that say "St. Francis Protect My Pet"!  We also just spent some special time with our dogs, taking them on a walk, giving them some new treats and giving them some extra special love!

 

 

 

 

Prayer of St. Francis

 

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is error, the truth;
Where there is doubt, the faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled, as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

Jackie's Special Halloween - A Book Review

When I was a little girl I always loved to celebrate Halloween. I loved going trick or treating with my friends and choosing something to dress up as, although I often had to choose my costume around a snowsuit, living in Minnesota!  As we started to have our own children and needing to choose how we would celebrate holidays as a family, Halloween was definitely one that came up in discussions.  We want to make sure that we are always instilling the depth of our Catholic faith into our children and that they grow up not only having fun but also appreciating the meaning behind their celebrations. 

Halloween became a tradition after the celebration of All Saints Day which we celebrate on November 1st.  I am so excited that there is finally a fantastic book to help our children understand the correlation of these two celebrations!  The children's book by Brenda Castro Jackie's Special Halloween is a must have in all Catholic homes.  This book discusses the history of Halloween and then dives in deeper to teach us all about some very special Saints and virtues that we learn from them!

Our kids loved seeing the children in the story dressing up as different people and guessing which Saint that they were dressing up as.  They also loved the stories of some of their favorite Saints being in the book including: St. Francis of Assisi, St. Pope John Paul II, St. Teresa of Calcutta, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Juan Diego and more.  As Halloween and All Saints day are approaching, Jackie's Special Halloween is definitely a book to add to your home, church or school library!

Creating a Special Prayer Space for Children

 

 

As our oldest son is preparing for his sacraments of First Reconciliation and First Communion, one thing that we wanted to teach him is how to build and increase his own personal prayer life.  We wanted to help him create a special prayer place just for himself.  We have a Little Oratory in our home where we will join to pray as a family or where individual people in our family will often go for some quiet time, but we wanted a place that would be his own! 

 

He shares his bedroom with one of his brothers and they have a set of bunk beds where our oldest son sleeps on the top bed.  We put up shelves where he can keep books that he is reading and then near the head of his bed we have hung a cross for St. Matthew (his patron saint) and a small Crucifix that he was allowed to pick out all on his own!  Also, on his baptism anniversary we gave him the gift of a pillow with the St. Michael prayer, which he loves.  He also has his prayer book that he made with Preparing to Receive Jesus from CHC hanging on a little hook so that he made use it to help aid in his personal prayer time. 

This prayer book is such a beautiful and simple way for children to learn about and personalize their prayer time.  First he learned about praying with "ACTS" standing for "Adoration, Contrition, Thanksgiving and Supplication".  The Preparing to Receive Jesus curriculum gave a great template of what to pray and then our son was able to pick Holy Cards to glue to each page to personalize his prayer book even more.  Once he was done arranging his Holy Cards and pages I helped to laminate his book and put on a ring holder to keep it together!  He especially loves the pages in which he was able to include photographs of our family and of his favorite saints (he picked St. Michael and St. Jerome!)  I hope that his prayer life continues to grow over the course of this next year as he is preparing to receive two very important sacraments.

 

Also be sure to check out our Tour of the Church which we also completed with our Sacramental Preparations!

Feast of Our Guardian Angels

 

 

On October 2nd, we celebrate the Feast of Our Guardian Angels.  I think that it is so important for us to understand this special gift that we all have a Guardian Angel.  A tradition that we have done for the past 3 years is on this day we have a tea party with our Guardian Angels!  We set out tea cups not only for ourselves but also for our guardian angels.  I think this really helps our children understand that we can and should talk to our guardian angels just like our other family members and friends.  Although we can not see our Guardian Angels we should know and trust that they are always here for us to protect and guide us. 

 

At our tea party we also read the book My Guardian Dear which is a wonderful story all about our Guardian Angels.  The story is wonderful and the images are breath taking.  Our children really loved the image of all of the angels sitting by every person at Mass.  Thank you God for giving each of us the gift of a Guardian Angel to be with us.

Also, our monthly art piece to study with Art Masterpieces with CHC is about Angels for the Month of October!

 

 

As a blast from the past, here is our Guardian Angel tea party from 2 years ago in 2014.  Our kids love this tradition and it is also so much fun to see how they have all grown and changed over the years.  We also made a simple angel craft that year during our celebration of the feast day!