Christopher Columbus

 

After having fun learning all about the Fall we got back into the swing of things with our Memoria Press Enrichment Guide to study Christopher Columbus this week!  We celebrated Columbus Day on October 10th this year to learn more about him we studied the book A Picture Book of Christopher Columbus by David Adler.  It was great to look at the globe and see where he traveled and how he thought that he reached the Indies and not America. 

 

We also learned the little poem:

 

"In 1492, Columbus Sailed the Ocean Blue"!

 

It is very simple, but great to help them remember basic facts in history!  We also studied the image The Storm on the Sea of Galilee by Rembrant, Minuet in G by Bach and read the poem "When You and I Grow Up" by Kate Greenaway.  For a fun science experiment we learned about what different things float or sink and thought about how hard it must have been to sail across the ocean!

Catholic All Year

Puppy Love - Meet Lucy

We have a new little lady in our house and we are all in LOVE!  Meet Lucy, our new miniature beagle puppy!

 

 

Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary

 

We celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary on October 7th, which is the anniversary of the victory of the Christian army at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.  The victory of the battle secured Europe against Turkish invasion.  Pope St. Pius V had asked for all people throughout Europe to pray the Rosary and attributed the victory to the intercession of the Blessed Mary. 

Teaching our children to pray is very important to our family and has been a learning process for us all.  Different phases of our lives (my husband's medical residency/fellowship, miscarriage, new babies, starting to homeschool, etc) has all added to an ebb and flow of our family prayer life.  Last Lent we made a goal to go to daily Mass and to pray the Rosary together as a family daily.  Having a 6 year, 4 year, 2 year, and 6 month old children made that goal VERY difficult.  We did get into a great schedule of attending daily mass and I was able to pray a rosary myself most days of the week, and included all of the children a handful of the days.  We would most commonly use the Holy Heroes Rosary CD's, watch the Children's Rosary on EWTN or simply pray the rosary as a family.  Summer time came and we came and although we made it to daily Mass most days we really fell off the bandwagon of praying the rosary.  As fall came and homeschooling and activities started back up it only seemed to get busier and taking the time for a daily rosary seemed harder and harder!

Well, as October approached I decided it would be a great time to start our family Rosary again (in 1883 Pope Leo XIII dedicated the month of October to the Holy Rosary) .Well, we got to October 7th and had not prayed it once, but we were able to get back into it today to celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary!  We went to daily Mass, ran a few errands, came home to do some school work and then had lots of family Rosary fun!

We got the idea to make and edible Rosary, which was great to help us get back into the swing of praying and also have lots of fun!  We took our time and really discussed each of the prayers of the Rosary.  One part of our oldest son's sacramental preparations with Preparing to Receive Jesus has included not only learning his basic prayers but truly understanding what each prayer means.  He has been studying the Hail Mary, Our Father, Glory Be, Angel of God and Act of Contrition. 

We also got a fantastic new book, The Illustrated Rosary, which is an amazing guide to praying the Rosary.  We used the Illustrated Rosary book and also our Sacred Art Rosary Flip Book to talk about the different mysteries of the Rosary.  We counted out chocolate chips and M&Ms for each Hail Mary and Our Father to construct our edible rosaries and then prayed the rosary together.  Our 3 year old used Rosary Roses from Annery's Handmade to help him count each prayer.  These really help to keep his little hands busy during prayer time!

 

 

I think the biggest thing that I need to keep reminding myself is that prayer time with all of our children is not going to be the same calming prayer as if I would pray individually or with my spouse.  Prayer time with little ones might be prayed "badly", but it is still better than no Rosary at all!  Thanks Kendra from Catholic All Year for this great image of this fantastic quote from Father Mark Kirby and wonderful reminder for us all!

 

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!