It has been awhile since I’ve posted for Little Flowers… That is because it has been awhile since we’ve been able to have a meeting!! Our February meeting had to be canceled since I was sick, then I had to cancel the meeting that was scheduled for last Thursday since we were heading out of town that day for my Grandpa’s funeral… Finally my schedule is starting to calm down a little bit, and we were able to meet last night!
The themes for this meeting were: St. Cecilia, the virtue of Piety, and the Forget-Me-Not. Here is an overview from our meeting:
As the girls arrived, they colored a beautiful picture of St. Cecilia (pdf) from Catholic Heritage Curricula.
Once all the girls arrived we began our meeting with the prayer to St. Therese and the Acts of Faith, Hope, and Love. We then continued with a review of the virtue and saint we learned about at our last meeting. Our bead jar is taking awhile to fill up, since I’ve had to cancel so many meetings lately… So, to make up for that, the girls all got to choose a couple Coloring and/or Father Lovasik books as rewards for working so hard! =)
Then I introduced the next virtue we will be working on, Piety, and we read a short biography of the saint for this month, St. Cecilia.
After telling the girls the definition of Piety, I used Father Lasance’s “Colors of Piety” (from the Wreath One Leader’s Guide) to further explain this virtue to girls:
Rosy Red: Zeal in hearing Mass
Scarlet Orange: Works of Charity
Bright Gold: Practice of Frequently Raising the Heart to God
Verdant Green: Sanctification of Sunday
Celestial Blue: Fervor in Prayer (daily prayers)
Violet: Self-Denial (make sacrifices and learn to be obedient)White: Pious actions (the Rosary, the Scapular, and Eucharistic Adoration)
To make it a little easier, I printed out a rainbow image (including the seven “Colors of Piety” made with Photoshop) for each girl to color as they listened to the explanations. Then they could then add the Rainbow and list to their notebooks!
Following the lesson the girls began making their notebook pages. Last month one of the moms lent me her Cricut
Here is my sample page for the girls. I included the memory verse and for Piety, a quote from the book of Job, and the prayer to St. Cecilia. It was pretty simple, but turned out cute!
Snack time was next. The poor mom that had snacks this month had a little accident on her way out the door and all the Forget-me-Not cupcakes which sounded so adorable (and were made in Ice-Cream Cones) did not make it to the meeting… Nevertheless, she still found away to quickly decorate some from Safeway! (Which is much more than I would have done at that point!!) The girls all loved them!
There are so many directions you could go with the snacks for this meeting. You could tie in music notes for St. Cecilia, Forget-me-Not flowers, and then there are all the different things you can make with “rainbows.” Wouldn’t Fruit Kabobs in the “Colors of Piety” be fun?! (The ice-cream cone cupcakes that were intended for this meeting reminded me of the Flower Pot Cupcakes we made awhile back… They would be fun for the girls to make sometime!!)
Anyhow, after we finish our meetings, the girls *always* love playing Memory with the Little Flower Memory Cards. This month, since we tied in the Rainbow with the Colors of Piety, I also brought along Noah’s Rainbow Race, which is a fun game for younger children too.
I had wanted to play the St. Cecilia Glory Story CD for the girls, but we just didn’t have time. In fact, I even forgot to take a group picture!!! Can you believe it?? As it was, we didn’t all leave until almost 9:30pm, but the girls were having such a great time we hated to end the night! So many of them were shy at first, but they are starting to warm up to one another. I can’t wait till our next meeting… Actually, we won’t have to wait long since I scheduled for next week. Gotta catch up! 😉
Saint Therese, the Little Flower, pray for us!
Thank you for posting. I’ve been checking back each week hoping to see this post since I’ve found your ideas quite helpful for our own group. I’m glad to hear that your having your next meeting next week. Please post your plans when you have a chance!
Also, thank you for the link to the St. Cecilia coloring page, and I love how you tied in the “Colors of Piety” with the rainbow coloring page. Great ideas!
Your Little Flowers meetings are sooo beautiful! I miss our Little Flowers group…perhaps I should resurrect it? Our former group leader quit in the midst of her fifth pregnancy…
Thanks for sharing!
Cindy ~ I’m glad you are able to use some of my plans.
Kimberly ~ You SHOULD!!! My girls love Little Flowers SO much!! =)
I have been reading your blog for awhile now (though I only comment occasionally) and have been inspired to start a Little Flowers group for my girls from your posts. Sometime when you have a chance do you think you could post how you went about starting and the supplies you purchased? I don’t know where to start. Thank you.
Nice job Jessica! Your meetings always look so fun. The pages that you have the girls put together are such a neat idea.
~Angela
Angela ~ Thanks! We *do* have fun!! =)
Marie ~ I have a post I’ve been working on for awhile, since I am asked ofter about Little Flowers… I am *by no means* an expert on leading a group since I am a brand new leader myself, but I will try to post soon some of the resources that I have found helpful in planning. Leading the group really isn’t hard, and it is so rewarding! God Bless!
great post as usual.
fyi for those wanting LF help (hope you dont mind if i let them know of other resources jessica) there is a yahoo group that has craft ideas.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LittleFlowersGirlsClubLeaders/?v=1&t=search&ch=web&pub=groups&sec=group&slk=2
as well as a LF blog
http://www.littleflowersgirlsclub.blogspot.com
and, of course, the leadership manual has ideas in it.
r