Saint Agnes::January 21

I am thankful to Family at the Foot of the Cross for the timely post on this special day, and Catholic Icing for the St. Agnes archives!

 I had planned to set some time aside to honor St. Agnes, but when I woke up this morning and saw (on other more prepared blogger's posts) that today was in fact THE feast day, I was completely unprepared.  We sort of did a scramble to put a few things together.

 Mark colored this stunning page from Waltzing Matilda...

 and made these yummy brownies.

James and Paul pulled together the holy card crafts. We listened about St. Agnes at saint of the day while we prepared dinner, and then later dad read more about her from our saint book.

Nico, my darling grandson, joined us for our celebration-- his contribution, besides being adorable, was pulling the entire table runner over after dinner!! Thank goodness the candle was not still lit! :)

This day is additionally special as my grandmother's middle name was Agnes- being from the big Irish Catholic family, I am sure she was named after this special saint. I am glad we were able to take at least a few minutes today to learn more about this saint and celebrate her short, faithful life.

The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

After mass this morning we settled in to do some crafts and reading.

For our reading, we used Advent, Christmas and Epiphany in the Domestic Church and "The Girl With a Mission: St. Catherine Laboure" (CHC Reading Comprehension Vol. 1) .

Our crafts came from some fantastic online resources.

This crafty candle idea came from My Little Flower.

We are making an Our Lady of Guadalupe candle just like hers. :)

We found this great print out from Family in Feast and Feria. I learned today that the official name for the "Miraculous Medal" is the "Medal of the Immaculate Conception". There were so many conversions, cures, healings and blessings obtained by those wore or carried this medal that the name "Miraculous" stuck.

 Mark tried his medal on for size, but we decided to hang them in the kitchen window.

Our feast day table:

That awesome coloring page in the center is from Catholic Icing.

I have to admit that my boys, even being the good sports that they usually are, sort of balked when they saw the coloring page. We talked about the meaning of the picture- which they thought was pretty cool- and  agreed to each color a part of it if I colored the face. Done. :)

*Please understand that my boys unwillingness to want to color the picture is in no way reflective of how adorable the picture is. Or, rather, maybe it is. ;)

Their idea of a really cool picture to color was St. Sabastian from Paper Dali- a saint with weapons! That is okay. I love this one and they were willing to color it for me.

We also watched Bernadette: The Princess of Lourdes.

Our Day with Christmas in Sweden

While making our preparations, I took some time to explain to the kids about St. Lucy (who was from Italy) and about how the people of Sweden celebrate her feast day (see previous post for online sources with this info.).

The nearest thing I could find to an explanation as to why the people of Sweden put so much emphasis on a saint from Italy was one line from an online article that said that the Swedish people believe her intercession saved them from famine. Possibly they asked St. Lucy to pray for them because she is believed to have brought food to persecuted Christians who were in hiding.

So, our day began with information and preparations:

My head chefs created our alternative to St. Lucy bread. (cinnamon rolls) Julia works on the crown for St. Lucy. Paul is busy cutting stars for the Star Boy hat. When the props were complete, we did our own reenactment of St. Lucia Day. Our oldest (and only) girl dressed as St. Lucia while the boys took turns being the Star Boy (and all 5 of them wanted a turn- should have just made more hats!). St. Lucia processed in to wake the rest of the "sleeping" family with a plate of hot rolls (we kept the hot drinks in the kitchen for safety purposes ;))The "sleeping family" got a little wild after the first few reenactments... Beautiful Julia with her crown.

After our procession, we took hot drinks and "St. Lucy Bread" out on the back porch. The kids ate while I read to them and we talked about Sweden and its Christmas customs. The kids all were interested in the fact that straw is an important decoration in Sweden- it reminds them that Jesus was born in a stable. Also, the goat is pretty important with the Swedish people. A straw goat (a large one) stands by the Christmas tree and is suppose to protect the people from bad things.

After a lunch break (we watched our movie on Sweden while we ate), the kids colored their St. Lucia paper dolls and started to work on their paper doll set from Paper Dali (see previous post).

Mark coloring his St. Lucia (free from the Paper Dali blog) .Julia, Christian and Kyle work on decorating a tree with Swedish Christmas ornaments (part of the paper doll set purchased from Paper Dali).

A note to add that I found an additional bit of information confirming the importance of the above mentioned "Christmas Goat". In Jane Yolen's "HARK! A Christmas Sampler" there is a short paragraph stating that in Scandinavian Christmas celebrations goats play a large roll. Naughty children need to be on the look out or they may be butted by the Yule ram. To remind children to be good, Swedish parents put a straw goat among the Christmas candles. In Norway, food is left out for the Julebukk (as he is called there) -- if the dish is empty the next day, it means good luck, and if the dish is filled with grain, it means a good crop. Denmark's Yule ram is more of a hobbyhorse that is covered with goatskin and has a ram's head made of paper or wood.

This post lists all the resources we used.

Christmas in Sweden::Plans

Saint Lucy, you did not hide your light under a basket, but let it shine for the whole world, for all the centuries to see. We may not suffer torture in our lives the way you did, but we are still called to let the light of our Christianity illumine our daily lives. Please help us to have the courage to bring our Christianity into our work, our recreation, our relationships, our conversation -- every corner of our day.

St. Lucy, Pray for us.

Today was the second installment of our "Christmas Traditions Around the World" unit study. The first was about this time last year when we learned about Christmas in Mexico. I hope to post pictures and explanations later, but, for now, this is our resource list:

We checked out this informative book from the library- our local library carries titles for several countries. It gives a nice overview of the customs and symbols of Christmas in Sweden.

Also from the library. A dvd about family life in Sweden. It is not my favorite from the series, but it was nice to be able to see families from that country- how they live, speak, learn. It was a nice filler to our day -- we watched it on lunch break.

While trying to find things on the Internet, I came across a site that said that I could find an article about St. Lucia Day in this book- as it turns out, we own it! So, I was off to find the book (it was in our advent box) and the article. :)



Swedish Family Paper dolls purchased from Paper Dali.



Kirsten's Suprise... is about a Swedish family's first Christmas in America.



Free paper dolls (colored by Julia and Kyle) from Paper Dali.



Articles from the Internet (see links below). I like the one from Domestic Church because it offers the information at 3 different levels of understanding (readiness might be a better word). I used the information labeled "Young Families".



Our table full of supplies.



The Paper Dali blog, a wonderful resource, was the jumping off point for our whole study. Before I came across it, I was not sure how we were going to go about putting together our day. This post on the Paper Dali blog includes a free printable paper doll of St. Lucia and an entire unit study. We also purchased the Swedish Family paper dolls and are planning on making the St. Lucia and Star Boy craft.


Most of the Internet information (other than from Paper Dali) that I was able to find originated from the Family in Feast and Feria blog.

These are the sites we used:

Kiddley: Paper St. Lucia Crowns and Hats
The Domestic Church: Saint Lucy

The Legends of St. Lucy: A Telling by Eldrbarry

How it all came together: Our Day With Christmas in Sweden

Advent Projects Complete

Ta-da! The completed Christmas countdown angel turned out adorable. :) He took a bit to get to stand up. The stand pattern included with the project didn't seem to work well, so we improvised with a piece of poster board. And our "gifts to baby Jesus" poster. It seemed like the pattern was meant to allow for the crib to be more 3D... honestly, sometimes we are just craft challenged. This is when I miss my older girls bring around! Anyway, the boys are happy with their poster and enjoyed gluing there first gifts on today.

Advent Preparations

On Sunday, the first day of advent, the boys helped out a bit by putting a few projects together. James and Mark are working on a Christmas countdown angel. (glue cotton balls- 1 for each day of advent- to a base under the angel to make a fluffy cloud)

Paul is working on a baby Jesus picture to be glued in the middle of a piece of construction paper. Each of the boys colored small presents for baby Jesus. These will be glued around the manger whenever the boys give baby Jesus a gift (an act of kindess, work of mercy, prayer...).

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Both of these ideas are from Art 1 by Seton Press, but could easily be replicated using materials on hand. I'll post pics of the completed projects next. :)

Parade of Saints Summary

We had so much fun this month learning more about our friends, the saints! We spent a lot of time coloring pictures of saints, reading about saints, having wonderful discussions about saints, and watching a few videos about them as well. I have put together this final blog post to share the wonderful resources that we use this month.

Resources:

The original idea for a "parade of saints" came from the Under Her Starry Mantle blog.

Some of the fantastic, free, and really beautiful coloring pages that we used came from the Waltzing Matilda blog.

The Paper Dali blog also has some amazing paper doll saints to color.

We listened to the Saint of the Day at americancatholic.org .

Apostleship of Prayer has nice videos to go with many saints- they are more like slide shows with an audio. They are very well done, interesting and just a few minutes long. The only disclaimer that I offer is that they were not made specifically for children. When I searched a video of a certain saint who had suffer a rather horrific incident, I found the video a bit too blunt in its information to share with my children. Fortunately, these videos are short enough to quickly preview before watching.

Some information on specific saints that we found very helpful and enjoyable.

Blessed Miguel Pro (my boys' favorite saint!)
Kateri Tekakwitha from the Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha Church Website
Kateri Tekakwitha - video found at CatholicMom.com
Mother Josephine Bakhita - from Vatican: the Holy See
Blessed Father Damien- from EWTN
Joan of Arc - from Garden of Praise


The Stories of the Saints reading comprehension books by Catholic Heritage Curricula have well written saint's stories that really hold my boys' interest. These are by far their favorite of all the saints books that we own. We don't use the reading comprehension portion-- just the stories.


Other saints books that we own and use frequently are:

Saints for Young Readers Volume 1 and Volume 2. These have a saint (or more) for each day of the year.

The Saint Joseph Picture Books Gift set- Book of Saints Vol. 1-12. These books feature a full page picture of each saint and one page of information. Just right for a nice introduction to a saint.

Similar to the above St. Joseph saints books, but are individual titles that feature just one saint per book. Kateri Tekakwitha is one (we own several) that we used. There are many in the series and they are very affordable at about $1.50 each.

Encounter the Saints series- we have a just a few of these short chapter books, but have found the ones we own to be very interesting and informative.

This post explains how this all started:
Our Original Parade of Saints Post

This is picture of our completed (for now) saint pictures:
Our Final Parade of Saints

The links to products I have featured here are chosen in this order--
1. a company that I highly value
2. if that company does not feature the item or has it listed in a way that I find complicated, I try and find another company I have used or recognize.
3. if all else fails, I just try to find the product and link it.

Our Final Line Up

After a month of coloring (not as often as we had hoped) we have a nice collection of saints to use to decorate for All Saint's Day next year, and we have all learned quite a bit!!

Today the boys regaled their brother-in-law with stories of Blessed Miguel Pro, Blessed Mother Theresa and St. Damien of Molokai.

Hopefully, we'll add to our line up throughout the year on various feast days. It has been a great month of learning and having fun with the saints. :)

 

Thank you to Erin (16yo) for taking the pictures. :)

Two More...

We are still working on our Month of Saints!

As I anticipated, life got crazy (school, colds, grandbaby being born...) and we skipped a few days. We were back at it today with St. Joseph the Worker (colored by James) and St. Martin of Tours (by Paul), whose feast day is tomorrow. Mark is also working a Saint Michael picture, but it is a bit more detailed- it will have to be a two day-er!

I had several pictures for the boys to choose from to color. Usually, they pick at least one of the saints that I have something prepared for-- either to watch or read about. This time, those were not the pages that motivated them. None the less, we watched the two videos that I had ready to go and we will color the saints from those stories another day! I was able to find information about St. Patrick and Blessed Kateri that the boys found very interesting! We did read just a page about St. Martin of Tours from the Book of Saints Part 6 by Father Lovasik, S.V.D. Tomorrow, on St. Martin's feast day, we'll listen Franciscan Radio's Saint of the Day audio (just over a minute long) to learn more about him.

New Additions

Our line up for today (left to right) Mother Teresa of Calcutta (colored by Paul), Saint John Capistrano (by Mark), St. John Vianney (me :)), and Blessed Juan Diego (James- and I think he did an amazing job!).

We read about Blessed Mother Teresa from this little book by Rev. Jude Winkler OFM Conv. and listened to some online audios found on Youtube by apostleshipofprayer (click "uploads" to view the many choices available or search by name). The boys were very impressed that she cared for those with leprosy as well (we just read about Fr. Damien). She is also very real to the boys as she died just the year before Paul was born. It really brings the idea of sainthood in to the context of today!

More Saints!

Today I came across this beautiful lady (Saint Maria Goretti) in an old coloring book that was colored about 10 years ago by Michelle (now a college student). We are adding it to our "saints parade" and the boys are excited to see if Michelle notices her art work hanging with their pictures. :)

Our featured saint's feast day today in our Saints for Young Readers book that we read each morning (well, most mornings ;)) was Saint Martin de Porres. We also listened about him on Franciscan Radio (about a 90 second blurb). I found this cool slideshow later in the day at the apostleshipofprayer site. We'll watch that tomorrow.

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In the meantime, while the boys colored, I read some excerpts from Saint Maximillian Kolbe: Mary's Knight. I read just a page from the book about his childhood and then the very end when Fr. Kolbe offers his life in exchange for another. Very compelling, inspiring reading!!

And then, finally, St. Francis and Blessed Miguel Pro. The boys have always been inspired by Miguel Pro. It is a story of true adventure and heroism that any boy can appreciate! Paul (11yo) has decided to choose him for his confirmation saint when the time comes. :)

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Our bedtime conversation tonight was about the heroism of saints- one of the boys mentioned that a particular saint was heroic. Paul gave a rather snippy "well, most saints are heroic" (kind of in a no-duh tone of voice). Rather than getting snippy back (yes, I was tempted), we had a fun discussion about the ways that different saints are heroic. Some are less obvious, so it was an interesting!

**if anyone is tempted to point out that not all clothing is accurate in color, I deferred to each artist's opinion when coloring his saint picture. I did try and point it out and was told (with great conviction) that it looks nice this way. :)

Month of Saints

Parade of Saints

November beginning with All Saint's Day inspired us to begin a serious saint overview this month. Stealing (well, borrowing might be a nicer way to put it) a few ideas from other blogs and people we know, we began today.

We are using this idea from Under Her Starry Mantle to make a "parade of saints". We are using these coloring pages from the Waltzing Matilda blog- scroll down and you will see the complete list of available pages on the right.

My friend, Tamara, is also doing a saint project. She is letting each of her children choose a saint trading card each day, reading the information on the back of each card and then delving in to one of the saints a bit deeper. The children can then report (share :)) to dad that evening what they have learned.

 
As a take of on that, I read about one of the saints while my boys colored saints pictures today (they have a longer attention span for coloring if I read to them). I read about Father Damien of Molokai from one of the Stories of the Saints books offered at Catholic Heritage Curricula. The boys actually had a great time sharing with dad this evening- even James (6yo) remembered much of the story and was excited to share. He was also my most enthusiastic artist-- coloring both Fr. Damien and St. Bruno!

These are our saints for today. I know that realistically we won't be able to do this every day this month, but I am hoping for 2 or 3 times a week.

If you don't have a saints book on hand or information about the saint you are looking for, you can look for a saint by name and listen to a nice story at Franciscan Radio . My boys enjoy listening to these short stories.

***Paperdali blog is also a great resource that I just discovered for coloring pages and more!!

ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI- OCT. 4

Here is a nice simple packet of St. Francis of Assisi printables. (updated info as the coloring page previous linked is broken)


Don't forget the short story and activity page that you can print out mentioned in our previous St. Francis post. (http://www.pflaum.com/preview3/godsheroes.pdf)

I set a few things out on the table before I went to bed the night before. I knew the boys would be up before me and this would remind them that it is St. Francis' feast day.

Paul was very excited to wake up in the morning to the table all set. It is his St. Francis statue on the table. He has a fondness for St. Francis. They have a love of animals in common. Dad read the story of St. Francis and the Wolf to the boys. They loved it. It had plenty of adventure. With the ferocious wolf and all, they were hooked.

And, finally, Mark colored this nice St. Francis picture for us. I thought he did a great job!