Learning About the Saints::St. Frances of Rome

 

St. Frances of Rome video at Catholic.org

March 9 was the feast day for St. Frances of Rome.  I happened upon her story in Book of Saints on March 8, and since we hadn't celebrated a saint day in a while, I did a quick Google search for a few coloring pages and made plans to read her story the next day.  

My coloring page search didn't turn up anything for St. Frances, so I improvised quite a bit.  The St. Frances story in Book of Saints starts out having kids try to understand how they see things differently as they get older.  The older they get the more details they see.  As they see more details they begin to see more deeply what God has in mind for them.  That's how it was for St. Frances, anyway.  St. Frances also obeyed her parents and married a noble prince.

With that my Google search turned up a couple anatomy of the eye coloring pages as well as a girl wearing glasses and a married couple.  

Coloring is a great way to keep their attention during longer, pictureless saint stories.

Are my kids the only ones who think there's only one St. Francis and he's wearing a brown robe, calling in birds?  We had a little discussion about how one letter sometimes changes the gender of a name.  I pulled out Bread and Jam for Frances and let them figure out if Frances is a girl or boy.  They were stunned to learn that Frances is a girl.

I also ran across this lovely little saint book in the room where Sam takes Suzuki violin lessons.  Interestingly enough, it too, had the story of St. Frances of Rome - more detailed than the one in Book of Saints.  If you've never read her story and you're a mother and you have a hard time prioritizing (children, God, housekeeping, husband) you might enjoy it.

Sometimes she must leave God at the altar, and find him in her housekeeping  -St. Frances of Rome

Saints Budding Everywhere is the copy I'm referring to.

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In other news, I told my family (and myself), "NO new recipes for a while."  Whenever I try new recipes the grocery budget takes a hard hit from the extra spices and other ingredients needed.  And sometimes they're complete flops which is money wasted.  Argh!

As usual I didn't stand by my plan.  So far I've made:

-Hawaiian Chicken

-Southern BBQ Pork and Slaw sandwiches

-Double Crunch bars

-Crockpot Philly Cheesesteaks

-Southern Fried Fish with Cornmeal

I'll try and share those recipes along with my reviews soon.  The Southern BBQ Pork and Slaw sandwiches were a TOTAL HIT!!!  It came from this cookbook.

We're having a beautiful sunny day here in Central Wisconsin, which is a real treat even if it's below average cold.

Feast of St. Christopher - July 25

Early last week I happened to notice that St. Christopher's feast day was coming up - July 25.  A medal of St. Christopher hangs on Warren's key ring.  Often he mentions that it was a gift from his mother when he got his driver's license.  As the patron saint of travelers, and summer being the official travel season, St. Christopher is the perfect summer saint to learn about.

Celebrating saint feast days is kept super simple around here.  I pulled out Picture Book of Saints and read the one page St. Christopher story.

Then Joseph grabbed the microphone and book and did a little singing for us.

I printed copies of this coloring page from The Catholic Kid.

Joseph added bits of color to his, while Peter colored his St. Christopher like a rainbow.

I like to add a craft project to our saint celebrations, so of course I went straight to Pinterest, but found nothing.  I had to be creative all on my own this time.  After looking at the coloring page, I decided to paint walking sticks.  Sam cut and peeled the bark off a few green branches.

Peter got started painting his walking stick right away.  There were no rules, just paint till your heart's content.

Joseph waiting patiently for Sam to strip the bark from his walking stick.

Mom might call these walking sticks, but little boys, they might call them fighting swords.  Either way it was a nice way to spend a summer afternoon.

St. Christopher, patron of travelers,

Pray for us.

St. Patrick's Day -- It's a Shamrock -- It's the Trinity -- It's a Craft

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Jessica at Shower of Roses shared a fantastic craft for St. Patrick's Day.  The story of St. Patrick includes a story about him picking a shamrock and using it to explain the Holy Trinity to the people of Ireland.  On this day it's fun to celebrate with Lucky Charms cereal and green beer (not at the same time, of course), but it's also a great day to reinforce the Glory Be to the Father prayer.

Using Jessica's tutorial and printable, we made the Holy Trinity craft and talked about St. Patrick's life -- the snakes, shamrocks, pirates, pagans, conversions, Holy Trinity, red hair, leprechauns, pots of gold.  You see we often get carried away and end up on some Irish tangent that pertains nothing to St. Patrick's life.

I'll cut the rambling and show you our craft.

Here's a link to a short video about the life of St. Patrick.

A book we don't own, but have checked out from the library so many times, it seems like we own it.

Green Beer?  Nay? Yea?

Celebrating the Liturgical Year - September

This year we will once again be homeschooling and that includes religious education.  I like to make a few plans before the start of each month to highlight the liturgical year and upcoming Catholic feasts and Saints.

For planning purposes I print a monthly calendar from the forms icon on my printer and then begin filling in the squares with important events.

Here's what I'll be highlighting for these dates in September:

8 - Nativity of the Blessed Virgin (Mary's birthday)

We will make a blueberry/cream cheese/whipped cream dessert, top it with candles and let the little kids all have a chance to blow them out.  I'd like to find a nice Mary statue to add to our school room.  

9 - St. Peter Claver

We will read the page dedicated to St. Peter Claver in Picture Book of Saints.

15 - Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows

We'll use the coloring activity found in A Year With God:  Celebrating the Liturgical Year (page 200)

21 - St. Matthew the Evangelist

We'll read his page in Picture Book of Saints.

29 - St. Michael and the Archangels Gabriel and Raphael

We will make St. Michael's Bannock for a snack and decorate and recite the St. Michael's prayer.

30 - St. Jerome

We'll read the page in Picture Book of Saints and read St. Jerome and the Lion.  After reading we'll follow the lesson plan in Catholic Mosaic.

Throughout the school year we'll be using Teach Me About the Catholic Faith as our main text.  I'll be using these resources with my 5th and 1st graders and 2 and 3 year olds.  I don't think Teach Me About the Catholic Faith is advanced enough for a 5th grader, but when looking for something appropriate for the younger kids this seemed like the right choice and I'll include Sam, challenging him when necessary with added discussion, copywork or memorization.

I like to keep my plans quite simple, that way I can easily add them into our daily morning time.  For additional ideas of how to live out the Faith in September check out Shower of Roses blog for lots of inspiration.

*this post contains affiliate links, if you click through and make any purchase I receive a small commission - thank you.

"I Shot Every Deer I Saw", said Amber

Amber's first morning out hunting was a total success.  She sat with Warren and shot this spike buck all by herself at 8:30am.  They stopped up at the house just to hang the deer and then they were off again.  I loved hearing her tell the story; the huge smile, the excited voice and the way she looked at her dad when she explained how she didn't even hear the bang or feel the gun kick.  According to her story they weren't seeing anything so they prayed for St. Hubert (patron saint of hunters) to intercede on their behalf and send a deer and it wasn't five minutes and this buck showed up.

St. Hubert, pray for us!

Cookie Candles for St. Blaise

Father S. always has the traditional blessing of the throats on the Sunday closest to St. Blaise's feast day.  I thought it would be nice to prepare a bit for it by making cookie candles.

30 second audio clip about St. Blaise
Cookie Inspiration