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Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Coffee & Crayons: FREE St. John Bosco Quote Coloring Page

**This post contains affiliate links – meaning if you purchase through the link provided, I may earn a commission from Amazon, at no additional cost to you.**
Grab your coffee, tea, or Rockstar...really whatever gets you going in the morning and hear me out on this one! Print out this coloring page and doodle on it while you sip away pondering this:

Love. Love yourself and your kids and all of those around you. 



So I was trying to pick a saint quote for January to illustrate for a free coloring page and I kept coming across St. John Bosco. This quote really stood out to me "Without confidence and love, there can be no true education. If you want to be loved…you must love yourselves, and make your children feel that you love them." -St. John Bosco I love it because as a momma I need to remember to love myself and above all let that love spill over to my children. How many of us really focus on loving ourselves and by this I mean set time aside to pray & rest

There are a few other quotes I absolutely love because I think that as a parent I have a special duty to educate my children. And this isn't primarily focusing on a home education although that is something I am appreciative that we can provide. We have the duty to teach our children about God and help them develop a well informed concience.


"If we want to have a good society, we must concentrate all our forces on the Christian education of the young. Experience has taught me that if we wish to sustain civil society then we should take good care of the young."-St. John Bosco  


Whether you send your children to school or home educate, one hour a week at Religious education is not going to make the cut for a decent Christian education. This is something we need to work on daily and not just squeeze in around the time of Sacraments. Take time to talk to your children about their faith.

To share the faith with our kids, here are some things we love to do and maybe you can try them too:

1) Read the Bible & Catechism together and then have discussions about it.
2) Read about the lives of the saints and celebrate their feast days.
 3) Reinforce and act out lessons learned from the 10 Commandments and Beatitudes.
4) Make regular confessions
5) Pray together as a family other than at meal time!

"If young people are educated properly, we have moral order; if not, vice and disorder prevail. Religion alone can initiate and achieve a true education."-St. John Bosco


I think we can just look around and see the affects of the lack of properly educated children in this world. This is quite self evident.

Friday, January 12, 2018

Video Enrichment with Amazon Prime



**This post contains affiliate links – meaning if you purchase through the link provided, I may earn a commission from Amazon, at no additional cost to you.**

Do you have a child who really soaks things up visually? Well I do, and here in this post I'll share with you some of the videos on Amazon Prime that help enrich our studies. We take full advantage of our Prime account and it is quite amazing all that comes included at no additional cost with a Prime membership! Besides the free shipping we have access to a plethora of videos and music. You can make a play list from Prime Music of classical composers to accompany your day or add videos to your watch list to enrich the subjects you are covering.

Here is a short list of some prime videos we have enjoyed, take a look at them and then explore from there on your own. All you need to do is search for a subject in Prime video. I usually do this on my computer ahead of time so that the videos I want the kids to watch are all cued up and ready to go.  


Math:


mathXplosion
Basic Math Tutor: Adding 1 and 2 Digit Numbers ( This guys is easy to listen to and explains the concepts as he talks and writes on a white board. He covers more than just elementary math)

Geography:

Continents of the World Series For Kids
The World Atlas - World: Physical Geography


Science:

Xploration DIY SCI
Popular Mechanics for Kids
Xploration Animal Science
Xploration Outer Space

Art:

Masterworks
Art Time! Learn Drawing and Coloring with Video Tutorial Lessons
Art Made Easy: Let's Discover Art History!
Art Made Easy Let's Draw People's Faces!
Art Made Easy: Let's Explore Watercolors!


History:

Once Upon a Time... The Explorers
Kid's Animated History with Pipo
American History for Kids


A Bit of Everything: 

New Dimention Media covers a lot of material...there are 38 pages of Prime videos covering many subjects so check it out!



If you don't have amazon Prime you can check it out with a 30 day free trial! There is also a special discount for Prime for those who have an EBT card. 



Thursday, January 4, 2018

5 Tips to Celebrate Valentine's Day when it Falls on Ash Wednesday

**This post contains affiliate links – meaning if you purchase through the link provided, I may earn a commission from Amazon, at no additional cost to you.**

Well would you look at that! This year Valentine's Day falls on Ash Wednesday. How are you supposed to celebrate when you need to be fasting? My kids are in shock that we won't be indulging in candy.  I am going to share with you my thoughts with five hopfully helpful tips to navigate this situation.


1. Celebrate the night before with a St. Valentine Family Party. This could be blended nicely with a Mardi Gras / Shrove Tuesday celebration. You could make heart shaped pancakes, decorate and exchange cards. I was thinking about putting a little twist on a King cake by using a heart shaped cake pan like this one Nordic Ware Elegant Heart Bundt Pan
3. Host a St. Valentine Dance the night before. (Great for older kids and the grown ups too)

2. Just becuase you won't be feasting on Ash Wednesday doesn't meant you can't show a little love in other ways. Showing how you care for others is a great way to prepare for Lent. Doing small acts of kindness for family and friends is  perfectly appropriate even making and exchanging cards. This would be a fantastic time to talk about Jesus and how much he loved us by giving His life for us. I have an old post with a free crucifix Valentine printable here.
4. While some of the littlest ones may not be fasting, you can put out something simple with lunch or for snack. Cut strawberries in half to look like hearts. Use a heart shaped cookie cutter to cut out hearts from silices of cheese and other veggies or bread. You can cut baby carrots and cherry tomatoes diagonnally and place them together in the shape of a heart.
5. Make a simple veggie love soup for dinner and possibly serve it up with some simple home baked bread like ones you can find in this e-book Kneadlessly Simple: Fabulous, Fuss-Free, No-Knead Breads

Looking for some Valentine or Lenten printables? Check out these available in my Etsy Shop.

What are some of the ways you observe Ash Wednesday? 


We had a priest once who prefered complete silence after reception of the ashes, this included no gathering afterwards like soup etc. I really like the opportunity to collect in silence, a kind of centering as we enter the Lenten Season. I liked this little tradition and hope to continue with the Ash Wednesday silence as I try to tune out the world and be with God. There of course is only so much tuning out you can do with a bunch of kids, but I plan on making Ash Wednesday a no device kind of day and keep activities down to minimum.