April 2012 – Little Ways Sacrifice Beads

Ben-Hur Great Story for Boys!

My son recently read the CCC book Ben-Hur – A Race to Glory at grandma’s house. He fell in love with it right away. So much in fact that we have to borrow it to read it again once we got home. I coincidently had the DVD of Ben-Hur packed away to give the kids for Easter, so the timing couldn’t have been better.

This is a wonderful story for kids but especially for young boys aged 3-8. It is a story of friendship, perseverance, courage and forgiveness. Encounters with Jesus are seamlessly woven into the story too. Whether your looking for a a great story book or a nice movie -I highly recommend Ben-Hur – A Race to Glory to be added to anyone’s library!

Crafts, Divine Mercy

Easy Divine Mercy Chaplet for Kids

Easy Divine Mercy Chaplet Craft for Kids

A couple years ago I was approached and asked to help me a Divine Mercy Good Deed Bead Instructions for the Girls Scouts for their highest and newest Badge- styled after the St. Therese Sacrifice/Good Deed Beads. Good Deed beads are great as the beads stay in place once you pull them to help you count your acts of love or your prayers in the chaplet!

I thought it would be nice to share these instructions in case anyone else wanted to make these with their children to celebrate or teach them more about Divine Mercy this Sunday. You can get the pdf to print the How to Make Divine Mercy Good Deed/Sacrifice Beads Here

To make these I put a Divine Mercy medal on the end and a four way cross on the other end. I made them with different bead variations – one with 10 red and 1 white, one with 2 red, 2 white rotated for 10 beads and a white bead on the end and one with 5 red and then 5 white with one white on the end. I would have liked a blue bead for the end but didn’t have any.

This is a great and simple devotion to do with your little ones. My son who is three prays this every night with me and really enjoys it.

Here is an easy to follow and nice printable explaining how to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Just copy the image and paste it into word then you can enlarge it and print as needed.

Crafts, Divine Mercy

Divine Mercy Coloring Page

I just found a great 6 pages free booklet for kids at Holy Heros – look on the left of their website for this coloured Divine Mercy Picture for their free six page Divine Mercy colouring book. They also have the Glory Stories Cd on St. Faustina – it is a great CD.

Crafts, Home-School Ideas

Amazing Craft Ideas

Just came across this wonderful website Craft Project Ideas and I had to share it. It is full of great craft ideas.

You can search and find an idea:by age, season, theme, or even materials you have on hand.

They also have themed monthly ideas – this month is is water colours:

They have some many great ideas., even cute drawing lessons your kids are sure to enjoy! Best of all it’s free!

Crafts, Lent & Easter

Cute Easter Story Craft

I was reflecting on the word Easter earlier this week – many people see Happy Easter and think of cute little bunnies and fluffy tails. But just like the word Christ-mas it too has so much symbolism. It is a word I want my children to associate with the most important day of the year – the most important day in the history of the world. The day our Lord gave himself for you, for me, for all. So while thinking about this I came up with a cute little poem/story for the kids to help them remember Easter in a new light.

Click here for a pdf of theEaster Poem Craft– Happy Resurrection!

Crafts, Lent & Easter

Two wonderful Crafts for Lent and Easter!

A really great blog for wonderful Christian crafts is catholic icing – I am always excited to see what Lacy will come up with next!

Kids 40 Day Lenten Count Down Craft:

This year my kids did her 40 day Lenten countdown and really enjoyed colouring in the path as we counted down to Easter! It was a great tool to use to sit down with the kids on Ash Wednesday to talk about what we would each like to do or give up for Jesus this Lent. It also was great as we got close to holy week to talk about how we were doing with those commitments and if we would like to maybe add anything new! You can get a free copy of this great craft at Catholic icing.

Resurrection Set Craft:

The second craft my kids are loving from Catholic Icing is their free Printable Resurrection Craft. I saved this craft for Good Friday as I thought it was a great way to use it. The kids coloured in a few of the sheets as the day went on. In the afternoon we read from The Jesus Story Book Bible and then we taped Jesus on to the cross (with painters tape so it is easy to remove).

This evening before bed we prayed a decade of the Divine Mercy Chaplet (to start the beginning of the novena) then each of the children placed Jesus on the bed in the tomb. Next we rolled the stones (taped with painters tape) and placed the guards outside the tomb. This is sitting on out table as our center piece till we can continue the story on Easter morning!

The kids will complete the remaining pieces of the resurrection story on Holy Saturday! Lacy is so talented to come up with the great craft! To be honest it was a lot of work for the kids to do all these pieces in one day – it was a good lesson in perseverance for my daughter. Next year I think we will work on the throughout Lent!

For younger kids they even offer this in a colour version so you just need to print and go!

Crafts, Lent & Easter

Pastel Jesus Easter Egg Craft

Fast, fun and Easy Craft for Easter!

My daughter and I had a lot of fun painting these pastel easter eggs together. We painted ceramic eggs so we can use them next year. We mixed silver paint into each of the colours we used so that they would be a little metallic looking. This could easily be done with hard boiled or blown eggs instead and would display nicely in a basket as a center piece.