Divine Mercy Sunday

We attended our local church divine mercy devotions, chaplet and small reflection was there. There was mod podge of people from different churches.One of our friends visited our house , Annu n Theresu tidied up cassette shelf and Munnu made a carrot cake for today.

Carrot cake with strawberries and blueberries representing the red and blue rays from the heart of Jesus and picture with a toothpick.

Coat Of Arms on Feast of JP2

Since it is the Feast of St John Paul 2, it was found to be a good idea to do his shield with children which was used for his pontificate.

The first thing I made a grid size of 9 and 7 1/2 inches for them, so that they could copy the coat of arms frame by frame. I copied the ideas from Catholic icing, Keepers of the keys and catholic missionary family with fantastic resources . When they finished  they rubbed some lines and colored it, it could have been better if they could make a border with black marker.

Kidoos have been gone through what it means to be coat of arms and the symbols inside which JP2 used. It was a great learning to me too.

Cross - It represents the mystery of redemption. The cross is shifted to the left.

Letter M - represents the presence of Mary at the foot of the cross and its participation in redemption. It is the first time a papal shield contains a letter.

Keys - They represent the keys of St. Peter.

     Golden Key - represents the spiritual power of the Church.

     Silver Key - represents its temporal power .

Lace - represents the link between the two power is.

Tiara - Composed by 3 crowns representing the authority of the pope as " Pastor "," Master "and" High Priest "of the Church .

Towards the end of the day, we baked a brownie and tried to decorate with a cross and a M, obviously it didn't come up very well, but the brownie was yummy.

St John Paul 2 Ora Pro Nobis

St Therese and St Michael's feast days

Children made some paper roses on the feast day of little flower and it is a very special day in our family as it is the name saint day of Theresu. Theresu had a card and sweet box from her godparents. Annu and Munnu made a nice blueberry sponge cake. Amazing resources here for children to do it on this feast day

It was St Michael's feast day yesterday along with other archangels, the end of harvesting came in September and coincided with tradition of Michaelmas, the feast of the Archangel Michael. People stopped eating blackberries from this day, so the days just before Michaelmas are your last chance for picking and bottling blackberries. There is a tradition of eating roasted goose stuffed with apple, we had chicken roast instead. A number of places in England still have 'goose fairs' at the end of September. It was Munnu's feast day as well, he received a packet of chocolates from another homeschooling friends.

St Maximilian Kolbe feast day

It was St Maximilian Kolbe's feast day on August 14th.Children listened to story of the  saint and colored his pictures I found in shower of roses. Prayer in rosary mom is beautiful.We could attend Holy Mass today.

St Joseph Day

It is St Joseph's feast day. We thought to make a St Joseph altar which is an olden tradition carried from cicily. Story behind is having a big feast because there was a huge famine, people prayed through St Joseph and famine gone away. So rich people welcomed poor and the others into their houses on the feast day , with lots of food. St Joseph three tier altar reminds trinity, Joseph, Mary and Jesus.

 St Joseph is the patron of fathers, children wrote beautiful letter to appa, was really great. Then we made some dad donuts, which is a tradition of making  donuts on St Joseph day. It was the first time I made donuts.

 Children making some St Joseph symbols using dough, made nails, hammer, crosses etc and children did some coloring sheets of whole story of St Joseph which we obtained from holy heroes.

St PATRICK DAY

March 17, It's  St Patrick day.  The story of St Patrick was read to them in the morning. Children were very keen to listen to the story and the celts, druids, togas  which were learned recently in Romans, patrick's little friend ben became their friend. Later on , we thought to learn little about Republic of Ireland, their farmings, capital, languages and type of dishes on the St Patrick's day. We went for H. Mass; could see many irish people in that church with sprouts of shamrock as the badge. Annu wore green dress when we went to the church. 

Kids did some word search and found out main places in Ireland.

 As a part of learning, Limerick was learned, which is a nonsense, silly poetry, which is believed to be originated since Patrick's time. Children made their own limerick, first,second and fifth lines always rhymes, third and fourth rhymes together and shorter than other lines, like Hickory dickory dock....

 We looked at how Irish people celebrate this feast day. They go to church and afternoon is for celebration.. Some of their favorites are Irish coffee, cheese caramel puddings. Children putting an attempt to make Irish coffee (but we made it without whiskey and cream; which were the main ingredients; so you can imagine our Irish coffee, but children did their best to make coffee by themselves and enjoyed drinking black coffee.). Even towards the end of the day, I saw them dressed up and  acting the story of Patrick and little Ben with harp, whom was their favorite.

St Therese Of Child Jesus

October 1st is the feast day of St Therese of Child Jesus, which is also the feast day of our little theresu.St Therese is the beloved saint of many people. Making sacrifice beads is great. Little flower used strings of  beads in her pocket to count her gifts/ sacrifice she did for the love of god.This was found in Litlle ways and  with instructions to make sacrifice beads. We decorated the altar with the statue of St Therese. Went for the Holy Mass with theresu. 




















Kids read about St Therese and  thought of  making  Paperdali of St Therese, which will be fun too. Picture of rose flower was found from Jessica's blog which made me to make a lap book on St Therese. Beautiful coloring sheets aredone by Matilda. Beautiful Coloring sheets of the whole life story is there in glory stories.“O my Jesus, I offer this for love of Thee, for the conversion of poor sinners, and in reparation for all the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary." Teach your children this prayer and say it yourself whenever some suffering comes your way! This prayer truly helps us to put our (often small) sufferings in perspective!

 There are lots of fantastic ideas to celebrate this beautiful day in mamatina's blog.Some small gifts were given to theresu and Munnu too remembering his feast day passed recently.

Feast of Sts Joachim and Anne

Since it was Annu's feast day too, we went for holy mass.  Before that Annu and Munn read about Jesus grandparents. We said some prayers to St Anne, as she is the patron saint of homemakers.








As it is a tradition for girls named Anne wears red and green, annu herself wore a red ribbon on her hair when she went for mass along with theresu.















Did attempt to do some coloring.






Read from catholic cuisine about watermelon slush , thought to be ideal for this feast day and on this summertime. We didn't make slush, though we ate some watermelon , reminded of st Anne.

Maundy Thursday

Children were learnt about Washing the feet from Gospel John 13.1-6. Read about the feast of passover from Exodus 12. We made a Last Supper craft and learnt a little about Da Vinci's last supper painting , adopted the ideas from catholic icing.eEnjoyed and they made an attempt to learn the various names of disciples and identified disciples based on reaction when Jesus said  " Amen I said to you, One of you will betray me ". It was wonderful though pictures not very clear. 

St Patrick Day