Weeks 9 and 10: Catechism for Kids!

My kids and I recently did a project that would be a great tie-in to the past few weeks readings on the Blessed Mother and the mysteries of Jesus. You can see pictures of our Rosary box here. And here are the directions. Also check out the First Heralds blog, there are some great ideas for introducing the faith to little ones there.
Another fun idea would be to have your kids make Rosary books with a page for each mystery, or a book or timeline of Christ's life.

I was excited to read passages 531-534 on the mysteries of Jesus' hidden life because I just heard a talk at a Homeschool Conference on the same topic!
Fr. Pablo Straub discussed Pope Paul VI homily on the life of the Holy Family as characterized by three things:

• work
• silence
• prayer

I'm sure there are lots of things one could take away from his talk, but my personal resolution was to attempt to bring these three elements into my family by getting my kids on a schedule (including prayer times), getting them involved in more chores, and increase the silence in our home by turning off the tv more (since the toddler does not come with a volume dial).

I knew from experience that implementing all these changes all at once would be a recipe for crash and burn, so I resolved to introduce things gradually. I started with a schedule for meals, and added a prayer (in addition to Grace) to each meal. So at breakfast we pray a decade of the Rosary and a Morning Offering and at lunch the Angelus. We also have a snack at 10am and 3pm and I'd like to add the Chaplet of Divine Mercy along with 3pm snack. Its been a few weeks and I have to say this simple schedule is the best thing ever, our days have been much smoother since I implemented it.

Next I'd like to add chore times, currently I have the children take turns clearing the dishes after meals, and clean-up there toys before bed. Occasionally they clean their rooms or do other chores, mostly as consequences for bad behavior. I'd like to try to implement some FlyLady routines and zone with them. These chore flip charts look interesting too.

And as far as the tv, my husband helped out with that one- he decided we would go tv free and he unplugged it and carried it to the basement! I was so relieved, it took a lot of pressure off me to enforce limits. We have a lot more time now for reading and just spending time together as a family not glued to the tube!