The Flat on Cabaniss Crescent

The Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

December 12 is The Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. To celebrate in our home, I made a simple Mexican dinner.  After dinner, Andy read the book The Lady of Guadalupe by Tomie dePaola. 

Then, we went to our favorite Mexican restaurant for dessert.  We go to this restaurant all the time, almost weekly, but we never have ordered dessert, so it felt extra special.  This restaurant has an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe and we made a point to show it to the kids. 

Next year, I would like to do some kind of craft or hands on activity with the kids.  Also, I think it would be nice to have a dozen pink roses as the centerpiece for our special feast. 

What did you do on this day?

Epiphany

We are nearing the end of January, but my Christmas decorations are still not put away.  And I am still organizing ideas for next Christmas.  I finally accepted last week that we would not have an Epiphany party.  I had planned to have a big one and then on the weekend of the Epiphany, my husband had to leave town suddenly for a funeral.  I figured we'd postpone it to the next weekend.  But the next weekend he had a cross-country flight.  Then last weekend was full of football and other stuff.  And now it just seems too late. 

We did talk a lot and read a lot about the Epiphany this year.  I just took down this table display last weekend. 

Here is a list of all the Epiphany books we read:

The Last Straw, Story of the Three Wise Kings, How many miles to Bethlehem, The Legend of Old Befana

The Epiphany Art Print we studied was The Journey of the Magi by Benozzo Gozzoli (I found it at a used book store in Metro Detroit last spring and when I asked how much it was the clerk told me I could have it!)

Next year, I plan to read all the same books and study the same art print.  I also would love to start a fun tradition with Old Befana.  In Italy Befana delivers gifts to all the children the night before the Epiphany.  Next year I plan to fully celebrate the 12 days of Christmas with a small gift or treat each day.  Having Befana come visit on the final Christmas night would be a fun way to end our Christmas celebration. 

Hopefully next year I will be able to have the party I was not able to have this year.  I am full of ideas.  I was inspired by Alice over at Cottage Blessings.  Here is her plan for: A Very Simple Tea for the Twelve Days of Christmas and Epiphany.  Here are Scenes from Alice's Tea and Alice's Epiphany Potluck. 

I know I will make a 3 Kings Cake and organize a Treasure Hunt (with chocolate gold coins) and I would also like to help the kids perform the story of the three kings traveling.  (I bought costumes from Oriental this year...oh, I also bought lace-up crowns as a craft.)  So I will save all these materials and ideas for next year.

In the meantime, the ideas of Epiphany have been ingrained in my kids.  The other night we were driving and it was a dark night with lots of stars.  Tigger said, "Mom, this looks like the kind of night that the 3 Kings traveled."  And Piglet just loves to mention in casual conversation with anyone who will listen how King Harold was a bad bad man because he wanted to kill Baby Jesus.

Our Lady Of Altagracias Tea

Today we had an ORANGE TEA in honor of Our Lady of Altagracia, whose feast day was this past Monday (which was a holiday for us- MLK day).  We invited some friends over and together we read A Gift of Gracias by Julia Alvarez. 

I served Mandarin Orange Green Tea, Homemade Cranberry-Orange mini-muffins, a chocolate orange cake, and orange flavored chocolate candy.  I also had Sunny Delight for the kids to drink.

This is one of our Catholic Mosaic books, and so far I think it is my favorite. 

It was fun learning and celebrating with friends.

The Feast of the Lady of Guadalupe

We walked to Mass today.  Along the way we picked flowers and leaves and set them by Mary's statue outside the church to honor her on this Feast Day.

After Mass we walked to Starbucks and I got a coffee and kids both got a chocolate milk drink box.  We all split a Gingerbread stocking cookie and a piece of Gingerbread holiday cake with cream cheese frosting.  I read the kids The Lady Of Guadalupe (a present to Tigger on the 5th anniversary of his baptism this past June from Gamma and GranDad Hayes). 

Then we walked home, but along the way we met neighbors at the sand pile by our house and I ended up letting the kids dig for 2 hours while I chatted with the other moms.  We had a 230 park date scheduled so we ended up walking straight to that park across from our house.

Finally, at 4PM we came home (what a great day with 5 hours of outdoor time!)  I gave the kids an early dinner and showers and then we had a surprise at our door: Tigger's 6 1/2 year old buddy who lives in the building next door.  Every couple nights the boys take turns playing at each others homes.  It is giving Tigger a sense of independence because we let him walk to his friends home alone.

I am sure my kids will be in bed at 630 tonight from all the play.

I am alone this week so I will have the evening to myself!  I may end up going to bed early myself.

Seuss Studies

  OCTOBER WAS OUR SEUSS STUDY MONTH

We started October with a Catholic Mosaic Collection Book: Horton Hears a Who! since October is Respect Life Month.  I had bought a nice hardcover copy of this book over the summer at a Used Book Shop in Jacksonville.  But then we saw it at our local library on tape, so we listened to it on tape in the car for 2 solid weeks.

We also rented this DVD from the Library:

Then the second week of October we checked out these collection of Cd's to listen to during bedtime although Seuss did not have the soothing effect that Peter Rabbit and Winnie the Pooh had so we had to stop the bedtime listening of Seuss and just listen during playtime.

The following books were all in this collection:

So we checked all these books out from the library, minus the two we own (Hop on Pop and One Fish, two fish...).

And we read them all.  Several times.

And both kids memorized them all.

We also rented this DVD from the library.

Then we watched this tape (we own it... I found it awhile back at a garage sale)

I found this website and Tigger really enjoyed it:

FUN INTERACTIVE SEUSS GAMES

Then in Week 3, I picked this book up from the library:

We learned Dr. Seuss was born in Massachusetts.  We found Massachusetts on our Map.  We remembered how Make Way for Ducklings also took place in Massachusetts and we talked about the family we have there and how we went there last year.

In the third week of October, after we returned the first Seuss Cd's we rented this one:

The stories on this CD were a little longer.  I actually enjoyed them more than the first CD.  Each story story seemed to have a moral, often over the kids heads, but enjoyable for adults to read.

These are the stories on it:

Again, we checked out all these books and read one new story each day for 10 days (Yertle the Turtle actually has 3 stories in it- also Gertrude McFuzz and The Big Brag).

We will end the month of October celebrating Halloween where our whole family dresses up as Seuss characters!

And now that we have read practically every Seuss book, I would like to start planning a trip to Universal Studios to go to Seuss Land

Religion

CATHOLIC MOSAIC

For religious study (and also a little history and geography) we are reading the books in Catholic Mosaic.  The Catholic Mosaic was created by Cay Gibson, a homeschooling mother of 5, and I was just lucky enough to stumble upon it one day while playing on the Internet.  Reading the books in the Mosaic allows us to celebrate the liturgical year and introduce saints to the children through literature.  I am slowing collecting all the books.  I am trying to find them at used book stores or on line.  I am also checking some out from the library, but eventually I would like to own them all.  This week Thursday  was the Feast of St. Francis so I read Francis: The Poor Man of Assisi by Tomie dePaola  

The book was long and a bit advanced and truthfully the kids did not understand much of it.  But it was fun for me to read and I learned about St. Francis, who I knew little about.  Over the years, the kids will come to know and understand the story if I always read it on Oct. 4.  For this year we talked about St. Francis being from Italy and we found Italy on the map, we looked at the pictures in the book and talked about how Francis loved God and loved animals.  That is enough for them for this year.  Maybe next year we can get into the story more.  Cay Gibson has created a study guide for all of the books in the Mosaic and eventually I would like to get that.  It is called Catholic Mosaic: Living the Liturgical Year with Literature an Illustrated Book Study for Catholic Children.  Again, this is something I can do with my kids even if we are not homeschooling.

CATECHESIS OF THE GOOD SHEPARD

For religion we are also using Catechesis of the Good Shepard an approach to the religious formation of children. It is rooted in the Bible, the liturgy of the church, and the educational principles of Maria Montessori. 

We use the Miniature Mass Kit for Children available from the on line store 'Our Fathers House'.

I have been studying the Montessori method of Catholic education for about 3 years now.   Again, at this point I am learning a lot more than them, but I do look forward to presenting all the lessons to them to give them a better understanding and appreciation for our Catholic faith. 

With the Mass Kit, I am doing one small (10 min.) presentation a week.  We are slowly learning the names of everything used in the Mass, how to set up an altar, and  how to fold an altar cloth. As with all Montessori lessons, presentations are short, and we do not move on to a new lesson until the previous one has been mastered.

My sister-in-law, Sr. Ave Maria, is a Dominican Sister of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist (a Catholic religious community in Ann Arbor, MI whose apostolate is teaching).  She has used the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd in both her prekindergarten and kindergarten classrooms. 

The books that really helped me understand and implement the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd in my home were:

The Good Shepard and The Child by Sofia Cavalletti, Patricia Coulter and Silvana Q. Montanaro.

This book has lesson plans and describes how to  implement the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd with children ages 3-6. It includes presentations for the Parables of the Kingdom, the Eucharist, Baptism, and the Parable of the Good Shepherd. It also has a section for Advent and Lent studies with children.

The Religious Potential of the Child: Experiencing Scripture and Liturgy With Young Children

This book describes a Montessori approach to religious education for children from 3-6 known as Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. This is not a "how-to", but rather a glimpse inside a specially prepared environment that allows children to develop rich spiritual lives.

There are more books, for ages 6-9, and then for ages 9-12, I think.  There are also workshops available.  If you are interested in finding out more check out http://www.cgsusa.org/

There are good pictures and also supplies available from Catholic Montessori. 

"If we want to help the child draw nearer to God, we should with patience and courage seek to go always closer to the vital nucleus of things. This requires study and prayer. The child will be our teacher if we know how to observe." --
Sofia Cavalletti