Blog – Page 4 – Little Ways Sacrifice Beads

Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing!

I have very exciting news children’s award winning author Sally Lloyd-Jones has written a new book Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing – we are so excited to read this new book. She is one of our favourite authors for children. Her previous book also illustrated by JAGO The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name is my eldest daughter’s favourite book of all time! We have read it so many times the binding is starting to give – which says alot because the book is so well made. We even bought the deluxe edition so that we have the book on CD and listen to it in the car.

I frequently catch my daughter telling her brother stories and answering his faith questions with quotes from the Jesus Story Book Bible. We have given so many of these books away as gifts too! This book is well illustrated and so beautifully written you can’t wait to read the next story. It is a written starting with creation showing God’s plan of love for his people and weaving and revealing his plan of salvation through the old and new Testament. It is written for children but every adult who reads this book grows spiritually too! My husband and I would update each other on the stories we missed as we were rotating books at bedtime when we first started to read the book! We just didn’t want to miss out on the journey through this amazing book. You can see my previous post on this book here!

So when I heard an interview on the radio with Sally Lloyd-Jones yesterday answering questions about her new book I was so ecstatic that I per-ordered Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing today for a Christmas gift for the kids. She wrote this book as her niece was being bullied at school and she thought if only her niece knew how much she was loved by her heavenly father it would make all the difference. Then she decided I will write a book with stories to tell her just this and so her beautiful book was written!

Here is a description of the book from its official website: “Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing shares profound spiritual truths from the Bible told in a conversational tone—drawing insights from creation, history, science, and the writings of great thinkers, preachers, writers, and more—to turn the reader’s eyes toward the God who loves them with a Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always And Forever Love.” Source: http://thoughtstomakeyourheartsing.com/

So if your looking for the perfect gift for a child in your life look no further! I recommend The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name or Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing or for babies and preschoolers try her other amazing Lift-the-Flap Bible

Blog, Crafts, Feasts

St. Therese 3D Rose Craft

Happy Feast of St. Therese – may her life of little ways be an inspiration to us all and a reminder that it is doing everything in and out of love that will bring about the biggest change of all in our hearts, minds, lives and world. So lets change this world with love!

My husband and I made a simple 3D rose craft to use to celebrate the feast of St. Therese, bring some nice colour to you dining table and help inspire the kids to join in spread love in lots of little ways!

Step 1 – Print out the rose pedals pdf

Step 2 – Have your child write an act of love, a prayer or sacrifice that they would like to offer in love to our Lord, like St. Therese did. You can learn more about the Little ways here

Step 3 – Colour in the rose petals and centre piece.

Step 4 – Cut out rose petals along dotted line, so that the is a small slit in each petal, cut out the centre piece too.

Step 5 – Fold one slit over the other and glue or tape it together so that it makes the petal curve upwards.

Step 6 – Take your first petal, then take your second petal and either tape it on the back (if you are using crayons this is recommended) or glue the petals together. You will want the petals to overlap just before the half way point.Repeats for all petals.

Step 7 – Tape/glue the 3rd petal behind the middle of the 2nd petal, continue until your petals are forming a nice round bud (you may only need to use 5).

Step 8 – Glue/Tape Centre piece

Step 9 – Admire your child’s masterpiece!

3D St. Therese Rose with Little Acts of Love on each Petal!

Alternative option would be to use the template to cut out coloured construction paper petals to form a bouquet of colours!

3D St. Therese Rose!

Today only Holy Heroes is offering a beautiful free downloadable pdf colouring book! Great to print and use through out the year for your church bag, rain days or craft time! Click on the image below for the colouring book!

You can also purchase a wonderful CD by Glory Stories on their website about the life of St. Therese and Saint Miguel de la Mora of the Knights of Columbus.

Crafts, Feasts

Feast of the Holy Angels

Angel of God my guarding dear, to whom God’s love commits me here, ever this day/night be at my side, to light, to guard, to rule and to guide – Amen

On Tuesday October 2^nd, we celebrate the beautiful feast of the Holy Angels a wonderful opportunity to help give our children a deeper understanding and appreciation of angels.

What is an angel – an angel is a pure spirit created by God. An important thing to clarify for younger children is that we won’t become angels when we die; the media loves to depict this image of everyone having wings in heaven. But while an angel is a pure spirit created by God, man is created in the image of God. After the creation of angels God created man and gave him dominion over the earth (Gen. 1:16).

Here is a sweet little cut out angel craft that I made to do with my kids on Tuesday! It is simple and easy to do!

What is an Angel

An angel is a pure spirit created by God. The English word “angel” comes from the Greek angelos, which means ‘messenger’.

Who are the Angels: ( from the Catechism)

329 St. Augustine says: “‘Angel’ is the name of their office, not of their nature. If you seek the name of their nature, it is ‘spirit’; if you seek the name of their office, it is ‘angel’: from what they are, ‘spirit’, from what they do, ‘angel.'”188 With their whole beings the angels are servants and messengers of God. Because they “always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven” they are the “mighty ones who do his word, hearkening to the voice of his word”.189

330 As purely spiritual creatures angels have intelligence and will: they are personal and immortal creatures, surpassing in perfection all visible creatures, as the splendor of their glory bears witness.190

The Angels we know by Name:

We only know a few of the angel’s real names from the bible:

From Familia catolica

Angel Gabriel who is best known for the Annunciation to Mary, that she would be the Mother of Jesus, the Son of God (Luke 1:26-38) – Nice St. Gabriel Colouring Page by Matilda

St. Michael the Archangel (Jude 1:9) whom is referred to as the ‘prince’ of the heavenly hosts and whom can be seen in the book of Revelations. Free St. Michael the Archangel Colouring Page by Matilda

Angel Raphael – whom we see in the book of Tobas Free St. Raphael Colouring Page by Matilda

Guardian Angels

According to the church’s tradition we believe in angels and guardian angels. St. Jerome stated that: “how great the dignity of the soul, since each one has from his birth an angel commissioned to guard it.” The church teaches that the role of our guardian angel is to help guide us to good words, works, and thoughts and to help protect us from evil.

Lovely free Guardian Angel colouring Page by Matilda

No evil shall befall you, nor shall affliction come near your tent, for to His Angels God has given command about you, that they guard you in all your ways. Upon their hands they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. Psalm 91: 10-12

St. Bernard said “Always remember that you are in the presence of your Guardian Angel”

St Therese the Little Flower told her sister Céline this regarding her Guardian Angel: “Jesus has placed near you an Angel from heaven who is always looking after you; he carries you in his hands lest your foot strike against a stone. You do not see him, and yet he is the one who for twenty-five years has preserved your soul, who has kept its virginal whiteness; he is the one who removes from you the occasions of sin. …Your Guardian Angel is covering you with his wings, and Jesus, the purity of virgins, reposes in your heart. You do not see your treasures; Jesus is sleeping and the Angel remains in his mysterious silence. However, they are there with Mary who is hiding you also under her veil!…” (LT 161 4/26/1894) – Source

IN BRIEF (from the CCC)

350 Angels are spiritual creatures who glorify God without ceasing and who serve his saving plans for other creatures: “The angels work together for the benefit of us all” (St. Thomas Aquinas, STh I, 114, 3, ad 3).

351 The angels surround Christ their Lord. They serve him especially in the accomplishment of his saving mission to men.

352 The Church venerates the angels who help her on her earthly pilgrimage and protect every human being.

What a comfort it is to teach our children that they are always in the presence of an angel and that at Holy mass the church is brimming full of angels joining in praise and worship of our Lord and King!

A wonderful book to read more about the angels is by Fr. Paul O`Sullivan called All About the Angels

From pinterest

Crafts for the Feast of the Holy Angels!

List of sites with free printable or great easy ideas for crafts to do with kids on the feast of the angels:

Free Printable Angel for Preschools in Colour or Black & White

Cute Hand Print Angel Craft

Easy Stand-up Angel

Nice Peppermint Angel Craft – Makes a nice Christmas gift too!

A is for Angel – make a craft and reinforce phonics too – with this adorable Angel Craft

Nice Full Colour Old Fashion Stand-Up Angels

Blog, Crafts, Feasts, Prayer

Cute and Easy Angel Craft for kids!

Here is a simple craft for to use for the feast of the Holy Angels or to simply help teach your child or Sunday school class the Guardian Angel Prayer.

This can serve as a beautiful reminder that your child is always in the presence of their guardian angel!

Here is the full colour pdf cut out Angel Craft

Step 1 – Print PDF

Step 2 – Cut out pieces

Step 3 – Glue wings so that the thumbs are touching and over lapping.

Step 4 – Glue Angels hair onto wings

Step 5 – Glue White gown on to wings, tucked slightly under the hair

Step 6- Glue face on hair and gown

Step 7 – Draw a face and decorate the angel

Step 8 – Practice Prayer and enjoy!

*To personalize the craft only print the first page and then have your child trace their own hands on a coloured piece of paper to use for the wings.

To learn more about angels see Feast of the Holy Angels

Blog, Great Books!

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!