Blog – Page 7 – Little Ways Sacrifice Beads

Stocking Craft for a Christmas gift, ornament or St. Nicholas Day!

A simple stocking craft for your family to enjoy for Christmas
or the feast St. Nicholas!

My daughter loves to be creative and make things but she also loves to give. So having a craft for her to make that turns into a gift after is perfect for us! I came up with this simple stocking craft idea which resulted in us spending the whole day – tracing, cutting, hole punching, stringing, writing, decorating and stuffing.

Step 1: Make a stencil of a stocking that fit on half a piece of paper

Step 2: Take a new piece of construction or card stock paper and folded it in half

Step 3: Trace the stocking on to one side of the folded paper

Step 4: Cut the stocking up (you will end up with two identical stockings)

Step 5: Hold the two pieces of stocking together and hole punch from the one side around to the other

Step 6: Cut a piece of string or ribbon

Step 7: String the ribbon or string through both top holes of one side of the stocking and tie the ribbon or string.

Step 8: Sting the remainder of the ribbon or string through the stocking either top to bottom or to create a different look always from top to top

Step 9: Tie the ribbon or string off.

Step 10: Decorate

Step 11: Hang on the tree or fill with a little treat to make it a gift (we used little raisin boxes, stickers or small bite sized chocolates for ours)

We hope you enjoy making these as much as we did. My 2 year old son really loved helping string the stockings together (great fine motor skill builder).

They work as great ornaments once the recipient has opened and enjoyed their treat!

Prayer

The Importance of a Morning Offering Prayer

The Importance of a Morning Offering Prayer

Transform your ordinary into extraordinary love!

What if every moment of your day could be a form of prayer and offering of love if you will to our Lord – would you continue wasting all your precious moments, acts, works, thoughts if there was a way to offer them to Jesus? We all struggle to find time to pray yet there is a simple answer a simple way to start making every moment count! Start your day with a Morning Offering – this simple prayer – will transform your day from ordinary to a gift and offering.

Each morning before our breakfast grace my children and I say our morning offering – our days go instantly from just another day to a day of love.

Here is the simple Morning Offering Prayer we say each morning:

O Jesus,through the Immaculate Heart of Mary,I offer You all my prayers, works, joys and sufferings of this day for all the intentions of Your Sacred Heart,in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world,in reparation for my sins,for the intentions of all my relatives and friends,and in particular for the intentions of the Holy Father. Amen <><

St. Therese of Liseaux one of my favourite saints practiced the spirituality of the Little Ways – she believed she could win heaven by doing all the small things with great love. Most of us won’t be called to do extraordinary things in this life like the maytrs but we are all called to do things with great love. This is just one simple way to start striving to do that – offering your actions up throughout the day is the next wonderful step to take – a great tool for this is good deed/sacrifice beads.

Go ahead what are you waiting for? Don’t let another precious moment go by – start your day right with a morning offering!

Home-School Ideas

Over 101 Ways to Praise your Child

When my daughter was about about 10 months old I printed and posted a list of over 101 Ways to Praise Your Child on my fridge. I found the original list of 101 Ways to Praise at Kinderteacher but then I went on to add to the list so that it was over 101 Ways to Praise your Child! It has stayed on my fridge since:)

Here is the complete 101 Ways to Praise your Child list as a colouful pdf (I included the list from Kinderteacher and added a few of my own praise ideas at the bottom)

Over 101 Ways to Praise your Child
Taken from Kinderteacher and added to from ***

WOW WAY TO GO * SUPER * YOU’RE SPECIAL *OUTSTANDING * EXCELLENT * GREAT *GOOD* NEAT *WELL DONE *REMARKABLE* I KNEW YOU COULD DO IT* I’M PROUD OF YOU* FANTASTIC *SUPER STAR *NICE WORK *LOOKING GOOD *YOU’RE ON TOP OF IT *BEAUTIFUL* NOW YOU’RE FLYING *YOU’RE CATCHING ON * NOW YOU’VE GOT IT * YOU’RE INCREDIBLE* BRAVO YOU’RE FANTASTIC HURRAY FOR YOU YOU’RE ON TARGET* YOU’RE ON YOUR WAY* HOW NICE* HOW SMART* GOOD JOB* THAT’S INCREDIBLE *HOT DOG * DYNAMITE *YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL *YOU’RE UNIQUE *NOTHING CAN STOP YOU NOW *GOOD FOR YOU* I LIKE YOU* YOU’RE A WINNER *REMARKABLE JOB *BEAUTIFUL WORK *SPECTACULAR *YOU’RE SPECTACULAR * YOU’RE DARLING * YOU’RE PRECIOUS *GREAT DISCOVERY* YOU’VE DISCOVERED THE SECRET *YOU FIGURED IT OUT *FANTASTIC JOB *HIP, HIP, HURRAY* BINGO *MAGNIFICENT* MARVELOUS * TERRIFIC* YOU’RE IMPORTANT *PHENOMENAL *YOU’RE SENSATIONAL * SUPER WORK *CREATIVE JOB * SUPER JOB *FANTASTIC JOB *EXCEPTIONAL PERFORMANCE *YOU’RE A REAL TROOPER * YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE *YOU ARE EXCITING *YOU LEARNED IT RIGHT * WHAT AN IMAGINATION* WHAT A GOOD LISTENER *YOU ARE FUN *YOU’RE GROWING UP *YOU TRIED HARD *YOU CARE* BEAUTIFUL SHARING* OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE *YOU’RE A GOOD FRIEND* I TRUST YOU* YOU’RE IMPORTANT* YOU MEAN A LOT TO ME *YOU MAKE ME HAPPY * YOU BELONG* YOU’VE GOT A FRIEND *YOU MAKE ME LAUGH * YOU BRIGHTEN MY DAY* I RESPECT YOU *YOU MEAN THE WORLD TO ME * THAT’S CORRECT *YOU’RE A JOY *YOU’RE A TREASURE *YOU’RE WONDERFUL * YOU’RE PERFECT *AWESOME* A+ JOB *YOU’RE A-OK-MY BUDDY * YOU MADE MY DAY* THAT’S THE BEST *A BIG HUG* A BIG KISS* I LOVE YOU!***
I’M SO PROUD OF YOU* YOU’RE A DOLL* HOW CREATIVE* YOUR SO MUCH FUN* I LOVE SPENDING TIME WITH YOU* NOW YOU’VE GOT IT !* YOU’RE A DELIGHT TO BE AROUND* YOUR SO FUNNY* AMAZING* BRILLIANT* CLEVER* INCREDIBLE* YOUR SO KIND* YOUR SO THOUGHTFUL* THANK YOU* YOU HAVE A BEAUTIFUL HEART* LOVELY* MARVELLOUS* NEAT* YOUR SO PRETTY INSIDE AND OUT* TERRIFIC* WONDERFUL* GORGEOUS* HOW HANDSOME* CHARMING* EXQUISITE* SUPERB* MAGNIFICENT * HOW ENCHANTING* YOUR SUCH A PLEASURE TO BE AROUND* NICE* HOW AMUSING * A BIG CHEER FOR YOUR * WHAT A SMARTY* YOUR TALENTED * YOUR GIFTED * YOUR BLESSED*GOD LOVES YOU* GOD MADE YOU SPECIAL * YOUR ONE OF A KIND* REMEMBER A SMILE IS WORTH A 1000 WORDS!*

Crafts, Saints

Pumpkin Carving for All Saints Day

This Halloween – in honour of All Saints Day take your pumpkin carving to a new level!

We carved these pumpkins for our All Saints Party – Godly Gords Contest and took 1st place with the baby in the womb pumpkin:)

Why not try something new this year!

Find some amazing ideas with templates and be inspired at Catholic Cuisine

Crafts

Incredible Beautiful Free Catholic Coloring Pages

Sometimes you come across something that you just want to share with everyone because it`s just wonderful. That is exactly how I feel about this wonderful website I discovered Waltzing Matilda – which offers many free beautiful and inspiring color pages.

You no longer have to spend hours each year looking for saint, feast or sacramental coloring pages for various feasts or catechism lessons- she has them all right here on her blog and she offers them for free for personal use! They are beautifully drawn! Enjoy!

Lent & Easter

Stations of the Cross for Kids

Stations of the Cross for Kids

I found two great resource links to use during Lent that I wanted to share:

The first is a great Stations of the cross for kids from CatholicArtWorks.com- I printed it out on 2 sheets of paper, folded it in half and stapled it to make a booklet and it is great for my preschooler. You can print it out in either color or black and white.

The second is a great 15 page booklet on the stations of the cross from Catholicmom.com- I think this one is nicer for older children as it is a bit more graphic.

These are both great ways to introduce this beautiful devotion to our children, with lots of opportunity for dialogue and the ability to use them according to age level.

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Welcome to the Little Ways

Who we are:
We are a home run mission. Our mission is to spread sacrifice beads, rosaries and prayer cards to as many people as possible.

What are Sacrifice Beads / Good Deed Beads?
As a child, St. Therese, the Little Flower used a string of beads to count her sacrifices and acts of love done for God, in that way she was able to advance in perfection daily. You too, can grow in holiness by following the example of the Little Flower. Sacrifice Beads or Good Deed Beads are a string of ten beads, which can be pulled and remain in place. They are used to count the acts of love or sacrifices a person makes in a day for God. The string of sacrifice beads helps a person to grow in perfection by increasing their acts of love they do each day. The sacrifice beads we make also have a fixed Our Father bead on the end of them. Thus they double up as a rosary.

More Information on St. Therese:

St. ThÃ©rÃ¨se is known for her “Little Way.” In her quest for sanctity, she realized that it was not necessary to accomplish heroic acts, or “great deeds”, in order to attain holiness and to express her love of God. She wrote,

“Love proves itself by deeds, so how am I to show my love? Great deeds are forbidden me. The only way I can prove my love is by scattering flowers and these flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love.”
Source:Wikipedia

Saint ThÃ©rÃ¨se of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face (The Little Flower), as a child along with her sisters, used a little string of beads to count their gifts of little sacrifices they did for love of God. Their mother, Zelie Martin, commended them at the end of each day for being so loving to the good Lord for sinners. They carried the beads in their pocket or kept them in a small drawer in the house. ( Reference: “The Story of a Family” by Fr. Stephane Piat, OFM (1944))

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St. Thérése Sacrifice Beads are an excellent activity for groups, feasts, homeschooling or any day!

A great activity to do with your youth group, camp, class, CWL,
First Communion class, Confirmation class or on a retreat.
An excellent All Saints Day activity to do at a party, with your class, youth group or for home-schoolers!
Amazing tool to use during Lent and throughout the year.
Sacrifice Beads are especially good to use to help encourage good behaviour in children. They can challenge themselves to see just how many “presents” they can offer each day to God for souls.
Beads can be made in your groups special colours. One CWL had 350 made in yellow and blue for their annual convention. Another school had 500 made in their colours too!

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Feedback

“These are such fun to make. The children will be so happy when I give them away next week.” ~ Farmersville, USA

“Thank you very much for the beads. I wanted to tell you that they arrived today, on St. Theresa’s feast day! How appropriate! We love them. The girls are already trying to find presents for God.” ~ Parent from Rochester, USA

“I use the beads every morning to help me get out of bed and get to my ealry morning classes. One day I couldn’t find them and I was late, lol” ~ University student from Toronto, ON

“We received the beads today. I can’t begin to thank you enough for all that you have done! The beads are absolutely beautiful and the children will love them.” ~ Jacksonville, USA

“I just love my beads, I use them everyday!” ~ Youth from Toronto, Canada

“St. Theresa’s story and these beads are so beautiful. I want to spread St. Theresa’s story to everyone I can.” ~ Boksburg, South Africa

“Thank you for the sacrifice beads today is the 12th day of Lent. I did a lot of sacrifices. I’m 7 years old.” ~ Student from Omaha, USA

“God is great! …the kindergarten teacher loved the beads and the moms I know of loved them just as much! The teacher said she wished she had had these for the kids in her class since the beginning of the year….she would have encouraged their use all throughout the year! She asked if we could get some for her class next year!!!” ~ Parent from Miami, USA

“Wonderful!” ~ Newcastle , United Kindgom

“The Children love them. In fact one little girl came to me today and asked if she could have a sacrifice bead because she’s been making lots of sacrifices but wanted to keep track of them!!” ~ Kindergarden and Gr. 1 Teacher from Persia, USA

“The campers and their parents just love the beads, thank you again!” ~ Catholic Camp Coordinator from Orangeville, Canada