A couple weeks ago I hosted our 8th Little Flowers Girls’ Club meeting for Wreath III. I thought I published this post that weekend but, in the midst of wrapping up the baby shower and golf camp, followed by a camping trip for my boys and our local parade the next day, I never did and I just ran across it in my drafts folder… Oops!
Since we went a little out of order in May, skipping ahead so we could focus on Mary Mother of God during her month, we went back to the virtue of Patience for this meeting, learning about St. Bathildis and St. Elizabeth the mother of St. John the Baptist. (I loved that our meeting happened to fall on June 24th, the feast of the Birth of St. John the Baptist. So appropriate!)
Here is the overview of our meeting:
~ Coloring Pages ~
~ Notebook Pages ~
For this month’s Virtue Notebook/Scrapbook Page, I used the memory verse for Patience, a beautiful prayer for patience, an image of St. Bathildis, and a Lily of the Valley (the flower for this virtue). You can download my document here.
Here is a picture of the sample page I created:
Here are the girls’ completed pages for “Patience”:
~ Craft :: Painting Flower Pots ~
Since it takes patience to paint and to grow flowers, I chose to have the girls paint flower pots and then take the seeds home to plant and patiently wait for them to grow!
They always enjoy painting at Little Flowers, and they painted the cutest little pots!
~ Lesson on Patience ~
One of the other moms gave the lesson this month, while I set out all of the painting supplies. She ended the lesson with a short activity, taking turns to put together a puzzle, encouraging the girls to practice the virtue of patience as they wait their turn, even if they see where a certain piece of the puzzle went. I thought it was a great idea, and the girls had fun putting the puzzle together.
~ Wreath III Flower Cupcakes ~
Lily of the Valley Cupcakes
As I was trying to come up with a way to create Lily of the Valley cupcakes, using the supplies I could find in my pantry, I decided to try out some white chocolate chips along with a little green frosting. What do you think? Do those look like Lily of the Valley Cupcakes to you? I thought they turned out cute.
~ Group Photo ~
I will be hosting our last meeting tomorrow afternoon, and still need to start preparing… Perhaps you can say a little prayer that I am able to pull it all together and still get a little sleep! 😉
St. Bathildis help us practice our patience in all that we do to bring glory to our Lord !
St. Therese, the Little Flower, pray for us!
Prayer of Mothers
Father in heaven, grant me the grace to appreciate the dignity which you have conferred on me. Let me realize that not even the Angels have been blessed with such a privilege—to share in your creative miracle and bring new Saints to heaven. Make me a good mother to all my children after the example of Mary, the Mother of your Son. Through the intercession of Jesus and Mary I ask your continued blessings on my family. Let us all be dedicated to your service on earth and attain the eternal happiness of your kingdom in heaven. Amen.
Dear Jessica, you are in my prayers. I have pulled many all-nighters for the sake of Little Flowers.
Pax Christi – lena
You always do such a beautiful job with the Little Flowers. I have a question about the program. My local Catholic homeschool group has a Little Flowers group (my oldest girl is 2 so we are not involved yet) and I have heard some of the mom's complaining about it because often there is "homework" for them..and so the ladies who run it just want to switch to a girl's club meeting because no one seems to be interested in doing assignments and the moms say they have enough to do at home that they don't want Little Flowers homework.
So my question is…it looks like what you do is totally contained to your meeting time with no homework to do and nothing for moms to take care of at home. Is that the case? I was just so disappointed to hear Little Flowers might be ending here before we get to participate.
And prayers you get your planning done!! How you have so much stamina while pregnant is beyond me!! I am almost 13 weeks and completely useless most days!
Oh I'm so glad that you chose to do the flower pot paintings! Our girls loved doing them. So much fun and they turned out so cute 🙂
Lena ~ Thank you! I was able to quickly create the notebook page document last night and print up a coloring page. (It sure helps to now have so many old documents which can be easily modified now) I should be able to bake the cupcakes and finish everything else up before the girls arrive this afternoon. 🙂
Jamie ~ I am so sorry to hear that about your local Little Flowers group. . . Yes, the girls do go home with assignments each week. Since most of the girls in my group are younger, I don't require them to have to complete the list in order to earn their patch. However, I do have a prize box that they can choose a number of items out of, depending on how many things they completed.
For example, some of the assignments that my girls have been working on for this meeting are:
1. Memorize the Memory Verse.
2. Read about the Saint(s) chosen for the virtue. Write a short description about her and why she was chosen for this virtue. You can draw a picture and/or ask your parents for help if you cannot write well.
3. St. Bathildis is just like Cinderella. Find a telling of the Cinderella story and read it with your parents or group. Do you ever feel like Cinderella when you have to do your chores? Ask St. Bathildis to help you keep smiling and be patient when you are doing something you don't want to.
(the list continues on from numbers 4-10…)
It is challenging for mother's of younger girls to find the time, or remember! ;), to do the assignments. When they are a little older (like my boys' who would take the initiative on their own to complete their Blue Knights assignments) it is much easier.
Still, I don't think that is a good reason to NOT do Little Flowers. The girls come away with so much from the meetings with or without completing the assignments in their Member's guides.
And thank you for the prayers! I am right there with you!! All I can say is that it's God's Grace whenever I am able to pull something together lately! 😉
Patty ~ Your comment had me curious to see what you did with painting flower pots, so I clicked over to your blog and did a little searching. Your Poppy Flower Pots are ADORABLE!! I remembered the thumbprint Poppies (which I loved!), but I think I must have missed that post!
Those Lily of the Valley cupcakes are adorable!
I think I've said this several times on your blog already, but I would so love to be a part of a Little Flowers group. Though, with that being said, I will probably have to be the one to start it. I need to get one of the manuals or pamphlets or something to look over and show my husband. I'm pretty sure I understand the gist of it from your posts, but I think I need to know more of the nitty gritty stuff. Anyway, I think it would be such a blessing for my girls and any others from our parish that would be interested.
Try to rest some after the party if you can. God bless you, Jessica.
I have wanted my daughter in a Little Flowers group and my son in a Blue Knights group, but none of the churches in our area do it. Many have never even heard of it; which is surprising since the founder is from MD, I believe. Anyway, did you start yours through your parish or did you do it on your own? Would it be hard to start a group on my own? Also, does the leaders guide spell out everything you do, or do you improvise? Sorry so many questions, I'd just really like to have my children participate in these groups. Thanks!
Since Thursday, I have been checking your site a couple of times a day to see what new wisdom and encouragement you've shared. Just this morning it dawned on me that maybe what I was to be learning was exactly what was already at your site. "Patience"
How funny. Thanks for a great site.
We have our first Little Flower's meeting at my house in a couple of weeks.
St. Catherine pray for us.
Oh, that is funny! It has been a busy weekend for me! Friday was our last Little Flowers Meeting from 2-5; we went to dinner with friends from 6-8; Saturday I spent the day wrapping books to ship and cleaning the house; yesterday after Mass we had more company for dinner from 2-8; and then today I loaded up all the kids and we headed to the Post Office, Park and Library. Hopefully things will slow down soon and I'll have a little time for blogging! In the meantime, this post on "Patience" is perfect! 😉
Heather ~ I didn't have the support of our Local Pastor, nor could I use the parish hall due to "insurance requirements", at the time that I started our group, but that didn't stop me from doing it on my own. 🙂
Personally, I DO improvise quite a bit for our meetings – – I usually come up with my own craft ideas (instead of using the ones in the craft companions) and the Notebook Pages is an addition to the program that I came up with for my group. I also try to come up with a snack that ties in either the Saint or Flower each meeting.
A couple years ago I published a post with information on how I got started. You can find it here:
Our Little Flowers Girls' Club
I hope that helps!
Thanks so much, Jessica! I think I'm going to try to put together a group, even if it's small to start.