Now We Are Six!
I had just begun.
When I was two,
I was nearly new.
When I was three,
I was hardly me.
When I was four,
I was not much more.
When I was five,
I was just alive.
But now I am six,
I’m as clever as clever.
So I think I’ll be six
now and forever.
~A.A. Milne
to our little Twinkle Toes!
A Change of Plans, a Birthday, and a Prayer Request
Last night, between 5:30-6:00 p.m., I was preparing dinner in honor of St. Monica and St. Augustine and looking forward to our weekend. My husband had just finished his 40 hours for the week and would be home soon. The phone rang and it was Hubby saying that he had just been given a fire assignment (the first for this year) and would be leaving for California in the morning…
Well, Twinkle Toes turns six on Sunday. This year it was just going to be our family (she’ll have her big birthday party with friends next year, for her 7th birthday), so we were thinking of driving to the coast on Saturday and then having her requested “cowgirl” themed party on Sunday afternoon. … sigh… I was so sad that Hubby was going to miss yet another birthday!
We usually always celebrate birthdays ON our children’s birthdays, but we decided, this time, that I would throw a cake in the oven and we would have a little birthday celebration before he left! (That way he could also see her open the gift we were so excited to give her!) So as dinner was simmering on the stove, I quickly baked a cake. I was so excited to have a reason to make Madeline’s Gateau Chapeau after all! (Remember our recent Madeline Lap Book?)
Well, very early this morning hubby had to leave, and I haven’t spoken with him since. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to call during this assignment or not, due to the location. Rascal got up early to see him off with me, and had tears rolling down his cheeks as his daddy pulled out of the driveway. It is going to be a hard couple weeks…
Catholic Tote Bag Giveaway
I can’t tell you how excited I am to be able to host a couple giveaways sponsored by Catholic Embroidery!
CatholicEmbroidery.com, a special branch of Precision Embroidery LLC, was founded in 2007 as a family-owned and operated business in order to provide customers with high quality embroidery and monogramming. What started as a sewing hobby for the oldest daughters in our family has turned into an enterprise that, we hope, will continue to help provide for them as they work in a positive, Christ-centered fashion with a passion! Thank you for sharing in their endeavor.
One lucky visitor will win this beautiful Catholic Tote Bag:
To enter this give-away: Please leave a comment on this post before Midnight (PST) on Monday, September 7, 2009. I will randomly draw a name and announce the winner on September 8th, the Blessed Mother’s Birthday!!
Next: Head on over to Catholic Cuisine for a chance to win a lovely “Catholic Cuisine” apron!
Also, Be sure to visit Catholic Embroidery: Mary Serafino, the founder of CatholicEmbroidery.com, in addition to sponsoring this awesome giveaway, has generously extended the following offer as well.
I would also like to offer your readers a coupon code, so everyone can walk away a “winner”. If they use the coupon code: STTHERESE I will give them FREE SHIPPING on any order. This coupon is valid until the feast of St. Michael, September 29th.
I’ve already placed an order for a few ribboned aprons which I am planning on giving my girls for Christmas. (As well as another one for myself!) There is so much to choose from including: beautiful Bookmarks, Handkerchiefs, Totes, Mass bags, and so much more!
Small Successes :: August 27, 2009
Last week I received a call from the library letting us know that Rascal’s name had been picked from the Summer Reading Program drawing, and that he had won a Barnes & Noble gift card! You know, when the children all turned in their drawing slips it did go through my mind that we might have a slight advantage with five of their names getting entered. 😉 Yet another benefit to living in a small town and having a “big” family!
Math is going GREAT this year! Talking to Dr. Cotter, the author of Right Start, at the conference last May really helped me understand the program a little better and now I too (my children already did) LOVE the program.
My New Catholic Apron
Since you already got to see the girls new apron earlier this week, and since it doesn’t look like I’m going to have a chance to post a daybook this week, I thought I’d post a picture one of my new favorite things: my new apron! It was one of the items in the wonderful Catholic Mom’s Ultimate Git Set I recently won.
The interesting thing is that, even before I won the set from Catholic Mom, I had already been talking to Mary, the founder of Catholic Embroidery, about hosting a give-away here and at Catholic Cuisine, which I will be posting soon!! ☺
On Teaching Children
I received the following article from a friend who typed it up from an old 1992 copy of “The Catholic Hearth” to preserve and share. It is just beautiful!
“To Teach”by Monsignor Robert Hugh BensonThere is a tradition, probably untrustworthy, that in certain well‐known schools the new assistant master begins his career by teaching the older students advanced subjects, and ends it, if he is successful, by rising to the high levels of infants and alphabets. At any rate the tradition witnesses to a profound truth. It is comparatively easy to lecture to Plato on philosophy or to St. Thomas on theology; but it requires almost superhuman knowledge and effort and skill to discourse effectively to children on any subject whatever.
First, there is the imarity between the mind that receives and the truth that is to be received; next, there is the extremely coarse and unsubtle instrument known as human language by which the work must be done, and this is even further limited by the narrowed vocabulary to be employed in this instance; lastly, there is the handicap of the teacher’s own more mature experience. (It is as if a man were to set out to lecture to birds on Wagner, aided only by a tom‐tom for his musical illustration.)
But there is one subject, thank God! In which these difficulties are reduced to a minimum, and that is the knowledge of God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life. The difficulties, in fact, on this subject lie in quite another direction. It is comparatively easy for a child to become a “man of understanding”; it is the difficulty for the rest of us to be “converted and become as little children” in grace. The child, like the human race in its infancy, is not weighted and hampered by the obscurity which a little disproportioned knowledge cast; it has no temptation to think that since it understands about five things, it can therefore understand five thousand, or that “what it knows not is not knowledge.” This, surely, is one reason why our Blessed Lord sets a child in the midst as our model, and laments how hard it is for “those that have riches to enter into the kingdom of heaven.” If we have nothing we are not avaricious or complacent; if we are obedient we have gained the mastery of ourselves; if we are inexperienced we think nothing too good to be true. The child then begins in hope where the wise man leaves off in despair.
This “capacity for God,” then, this simplicity, this untarnished conscience, this instinctive knowledge of helplessness and ignorance, common to all true children – these things not to be improved upon by any teacher: he can only seek to safeguard them; and, meantime, he must rather study and learn from them himself. But God has, as a matter of fact, manifested Himself upon the field of history and linked together by both natural religion and revelation those things that are called phenomena. He has shown us, for instance, what we could never have guessed for ourselves, that Himself is really and truly as much the Father of our neighbor as of ourself, that He has made us of one blood with men of other nations than our own, and most marvelous of all, that our hunger for justice can only be satisfied by Himself, who is Justice. Certainly the Christian Religion meets our aspirations, but in every point it also transcends them; for the showing of this there was needed the Incarnate Life, the Cross, the Resurrection, the Catholic Church and the sacraments.
These things then are not within the natural knowledge even of children. These enormous events, prophets and kings still desire to see before they believe, can certainly be brought within the grasp of children’s faith, yet they must be brought before they can be grasped. The child who knows, as older folks do not know, the Light that enlightens every man, does not know, unless he is told that this Light was at last set in a lantern and shone among men, outwardly as well as inwardly, a light to their paths as well as a lamp to their feet.
And for this tremendous work – the teaching to children of the greatest things in this world and the next – there is needed in the teacher all that is meant by the words “an intelligent love of children.” He must understand them or he cannot teach; and he must love them or he cannot persuade.
Learning about Ancient Rome: “Gladiators”
And spear and net.
The watching crowd
Would cheer and bet.
They fought wild beasts;
They fought each other;
They’d fight a friend;
They’d fight a brother.
Their lives were hard,
And often short.
They spilled their blood, 
And called it sport.
They fought with skill
Till their last breath,
Because they fought 
Until the death.”
Madeline Lap Book
My girls love reading all about Madeline! So, this summer, we started working on a Madeline Lap Book. (Most of the resources I used were from Homeschool Share. I’ve removed all the links since they are no longer active. You can find my file of the documents we used over at Dropbox.)
We had so much fun and they are already asking me what Lap Book they can start next!!
THE COVER
The picture of Madeline is from the coloring pages found here. (Link no longer active)
INSIDE
- On the left flap is the Eiffel Tower and a flag of France.
- In the middle (on the top page) is Where in Europe is France (We located France and labeled the Atlantic Ocean), a pocket for the 12 girls, and a Madeline Coloring Book.
- On the right flap we have our Rhyme Time mini book (with this image printed at 60% to cover the provided image), and the Tour de France book which pulls out and has photos of the various places you can find in the book.
BACK OF LEFT FLAP AND FRONT OF RIGHT FLAP
- On the Left is the Definition of “Monochromatic” with a coloring page describing what Monochromatic means.
- On the Right is a Relative Size Miniture Book, a mini book on Symmetry, Symmetry Cards, and a Symmetrical Painting.
Here is a picture of the Tour de France booklet opened up:
BEHIND BOTH CENTER FLAPS
(opened to the left and right)
- In the middle is our worksheet on the parts of the body, a mini book on clean hands/health, and he definitions for “appendix” and “solemn,” a couple of the challenging words from the book.
- On the right are a couple pictures of the book which also demonstrate “symmetrical” and “asymmetrical.”
BACK COVER
- French Color by Number from Enchanted Learning
Did you know that Crayola Colored pencils have the colors listed in French as well as English?!
With Twinkle Toes birthday coming up next week, I thought about making a Madeline’s Gateau Chapeau Cake, but she had already asked for a “cowgirl” party… We just might have to make the cake anyway and celebrate finishing the lap books with a little Madeline Tea Party.
(Update: You can find our Madeline’s Gateau Chapeau Cake here!)
Au Revoir!
State-by-State Scrapbook :: Delaware
“F is for First State — first to confirm our Constitution.”
…Highlights from “A” Week
(while listening to this CD
!)
and St. Anne Coloring Page(I am also hoping to order Our Saints Alphabet on CD soon!!! )
Pascual and the Kitchen Angels
My Guardian Dear
Angels, Angels Everywhere
Angel in the Waters
Angels: God’s Messengers and Our Helpers
and 
DVD
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