Easter Watercolors and Meditation

March 21, 2012 By maryalice

I have loved browsing the website, Art Projects for Kids, and this week I plan to have my children make these Easter cards.  I think that some will draw the bunny, but others may do eggs or other Easter shapes and scenes.  Watercolor is a favorite activity in our homeschool, but ours is often aimless, so this will be a nice way to do something with a purpose.  If this is a popular activity, we may give some of the cards to a homeschooling group which collects cards for distribution at nursing homes.

My favorite book for Easter is The Easter Story by Brian Wildsmith, which is illustrated with watercolors, so we will read this book before we do our cards.  The beautiful book tells the Easter story from the perspective of the donkey whom Jesus rides into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.  In the story, the donkey continues to be close to Jesus throughout the week, so we see the entire Passion.  For older children, this is a great conversation starter for mental prayer — a wonderful way to do mental prayer is to contemplate a moment in the life of Christ by placing ourselves there.  What would I feel at the foot of the cross, or in the crowd as Jesus was condemned?  Would I be a silent onlooker?  Can I feel his loneliness in those crucial last moments of his life?  We can meditate on different perspectives, but that of the donkey, the most humble of biblical “characters,” was a frequent choice of St. Josemaria Escriva, so this book has extra depth for those of us who have learned to pray through his writings.

At the risk of sounding new-agey, watercolor is a very centering activity for children (and adults), so I will encourage my children to pray and meditate on the Passion while they are painting.  For that part of the project, we will probably just fill sheets with a single color, purple might be a good choice.  After that, I will introduce the card making project.  For the youngest children, I will take their purple sheets, fold them in half, and cut out egg shaped cards for their greetings.

 

Filed Under: Education & Homeschool, Liturgical Seasons

Friendship ramblings

February 13, 2012 By Kellie "Red"

On Friday I was extremely frustrated with my daughter for what seemed to be a complete lack of focus and attention to detail in her schoolwork.  For months now, Gianna regularly “finishes” assignments in a rushed manner, turning in error-ridden copy work and math worksheets.  The errors are all “simple” mistakes–adding instead of subtracting, misreading a graph, or forgetting to copy certain letters in words.  On Friday she made six careless errors on a 20 problem math test.  I circled them and asked her to correct them.  She rushed through the corrections and “forgot” to fix three of the six problems.  I had had it.  I furiously typed a frustrated e-mail to Mary Alice, asking for advice.  Moments later, the phone rang.  In an exasperated tone, I described our trouble, and Mary Alice listened.

She then explained how she has handled similar problems with her children, and together we came up with plan.  Gianna would earn  a “math pass” for perfect tests.  She could use the math pass to get out of doing math on any day she liked (don’t worry, we will still finish the book, and these tests are not that frequent).  Imperfect math worksheets with careless errors would require her to complete a second “B” worksheet for extra practice.  In addition, every assignment would be timed, and Gianna would be required to sit for the full duration of time, regardless of whether she finished early.  This would reduce the incentive to rush. As for copy work, a simple error would require the entire assignment to be recopied.  No exceptions.

I got off the phone with a plan, and I felt refreshed.  I talked to Gianna about the new rules.  She loved the math pass concept, but was pretty irritated about the other new rules.  We went over the rules again this morning.  She asked questions in a manner that seemed to test my seriousness.  Would I really make her recopy the entire assignment for one small mistake?  Yes.

She began her schoolwork.  At the end of her math worksheet she asked me how much time was left, “5 minutes,” I responded.  I reminded her of the rules that she could not start anything else and had to remain seated until the timer finished.  I suggested she use the remaining time to check her work.  She did so and I saw her fix several things.  As time expired she handed me a perfect math worksheet.  Every decimal point and money sign was written.  Later in the morning, she handed me a perfect copy work assignment.  I can’t remember the last time she turned in perfect work.

While I am obviously thrilled with these results, I have been thinking all day about how I couldn’t have achieved them so painlessly without the great advice of Mary Alice.  I then started thinking about how she is just one example of the many women who bless my life on a daily basis.  I’m not sure why, but I’ve been feeling especially grateful lately for all the great women in my life.  And so I’ve been making a big effort to really pray for my friends.  It seems so many of the mothers I know are facing deep challenges and intense suffering in their lives.  Sick children, depression, crazy in-laws, husbands without work, and difficult pregnancies are just some of the trials in their day.  And while I can’t often solve their troubles with a simple phone call and a bit of quick advice, like Mary Alice did for me on Friday, I can remember to include my friends in my daily prayers and I can offer up my own struggles for their intentions.

We all need so much grace to fulfill our vocation as wives and mothers.  With Lent just around the corner, and my friends weighing heavily on my mind, I will be making a special commitment this Lent to pray for all my mom friends.  In college I remember fasting for one another, but now, as a gluten intolerant, breastfeeding mother, fasting isn’t really an option.  I’m looking for a different, but just as practical, way to pray for my friends.  Any thoughts?

~  “Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.”~ C.S. Lewis

 

Filed Under: Education & Homeschool, Motherhood and Parenting

Getting Crafty

December 19, 2011 By Kellie "Red"

Some of us are missing a craft gene, others are very pregnant and in need of a simple nativity craft.  I picked up this box at the local Catholic store for only $7.99.

The box is filled with plain ceramic nativity figurines in need of painting.  My children LOVED painting them and they then insisted that we make a manger scene (I should have anticipated this).

I wanted something requiring little work on my end.  I settled on a simple shoebox nativity.  We then made this–

I want to emphasize that it was VERY simple.  I cut the top of the box to flatten it, then folded it in half and taped it with scotch tap to the bottom part of the box to make a triangle shaped roof.  I had the children glue brown paper squares to the top and sides.  We gathered some grass and pine needles for the floor.  We then cut out and glittered a star that I secured with a paper clip.  They have been playing with it daily and the figurines have held up well in the hands of our energetic two year old, otherwise known around here as  “Claire the destroyer.”

 

 

Filed Under: Education & Homeschool, Liturgical Seasons

The giving heart of a child

December 10, 2011 By Kellie "Red"

Please forgive my long absence.  I took a temporary blog break in November, but thought I’d emerge from that break to share briefly about Advent, and the virtue of generosity.

At Christmas we celebrate God’s greatest gift to the world–Himself– and there is just something about preparing our hearts to receive the Christ Child at Christmas that inspires all of us to be more generous and mindful of others in need.  I want my children to be inspired as well.  I want them to thank God for all they have, and to think about the very real poverty of other children in this world.

Thankfully, opportunities to teach this lesson abound.  They hear the bells of the salvation army outside of the food store, and they see the tags on the giving tree in our church.  They ask questions and in response I hear my sometimes selfish children ask how they can help .  They drop coins into the St. Vincent DePaul poor box, they rummage through our pantry for canned goods, and as they smell their own dinners I again remind them to pray for those without.

While these are all wonderful ways to teach the virtue of generousity and giving to my children, last year we made the choice to forgo additional errands (like purchasing a toy for a needy child), in lieu of ordering a giving catalog and making a donation.  I’m sure there are many such organizations out there, but both Food for the Poor and Samaritan’s Purse are two wonderful organizations with beautiful picture giving catalogs.  They both serve families and children in very poverty stricken areas overseas.

The catalogs come in the mail in November (or you can go online) and the children LOVE to flip through the pages and pick out what they are buying to help other children in need.  One moment they are fighting over legos in our playroom, and the next they are looking with wide eyes at pictures of families in need of homes and children in need of food.  After turning only a few pages, it seems they give without even thinking, emptying their piggy banks and bringing tears to my eyes as they explain why they picked “feeding a hungry baby for a week” or a “fruit tree.”  I began this tradition to teach them about generousity, but instead, they they are teaching me.

And so today I am thanking Jesus for this beautiful season of giving.  I am thanking Him for my vocation, for the privilege of raising beautiful children who can teach their mama so many things.  And I am praying that their hearts don’t become hardened by this world.  I pray they remain generous, and that my own heart always remains open to those in need.

“Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Filed Under: Children, Education & Homeschool, Liturgical Seasons
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