The Files of Mrs. E

Stations of the Cross with Your Children

With it being both Lent for Christians and a difficult time for everyone in our country/world, it seems like it is an especially good time to focus on the suffering of Jesus through the Stations of the Cross. And with churches across the country closed and children home, it seems like now is the best time to be praying the Stations as a family. So I wanted to share some of my favorite Stations of the Cross resources for praying with the kiddos or at home that we’ve used through the years.

At the moment many churches are livestreaming the Stations of the Cross or you can find them online and on TV. However, sometimes with kids you might find it just easier to say them yourselves as a family. It’s easier for kids to focus when it’s Mom or Dad reading to them instead of listening to the TV and it gives them a chance to get actively involved in the process.

If you haven’t done it before, it can be a little intimidating praying the Stations of the Cross with your children on your own. We never did it as a family so I felt a little overwhelmed in the beginning. I find it helps to set expectations low–for little ones I just ask that they sit with us and work on whatever coloring project I have. While it might seem like they aren’t paying attention, I’ve found that coloring during our prayers helps keep children stay still and calm and focused. As they get older or we do it more, they tend to naturally participate more. And when they are reading we assign different stations to different kiddos to read and lead.

Stations of the Cross Books

Our favorite books are Stations of the Cross for Children and The Way of the Cross for Children. In Stations of the Cross for Children there is a prayer “Dear Jesus” for each station with no leader/response so you could even just read it aloud to the children or have them read it. The Way of the Cross for Children, on the other hand, has the traditional call and response for each station, including the hymn “At the Cross her station keeping”/Stabat Mater, so that you can lead the family praying together.

Coloring Booklet

St. Anne’s Helper has some great resources including this printable coloring book for the stations with high quality coloring images. Some years we’ve printed it out and the kids work on it each week while we pray. I let them decide how they want to move through the pages coloring them.

Click here for the printable Stations of the Cross coloring book

Coloring Pages & Devotional

I love the coloring pages from St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Church! We use many of theirs throughout the year. For the Stations of the Cross, they have a coloring page for each station and then if you scroll down to the bottom, they have their coloring pages available in a booklet with devotionals. We’ve used both in the past. Sometimes we print just one coloring page to really focus on, other times I’ve given them the entire booklet and let them decide how they want to color it. Usually the kiddos color on each page while we are praying that station and then just add to each page every time we pray the Stations of the Cross.

Click here to visit their awesome coloring pages and booklets

Grotto Stations

These grotto stations from Drawn 2B Creative are more than a craft; they also give you your own set of stations to continue to pray at. You can have the kids color and make them ahead of time or, like our family, make them while praying and then use them again the next week.

Click here for the grotto stations

Candle Stations

This year we are making these beautiful votive candle stations from Just Another Day in Paradise. Not only does she have a link to the votive holders she used but also the printable pages for each candle available for free.

Click here for candle Stations of the Cross

Framed Stations

Finally here are some cute stations from Young Catholic Mums that you can make with popsicle stick frames that can be hung on the wall low for the kids.

Click here for the framed Stations of the Cross

I understand feeling like how can we add yet another thing to our stressful lives right now. But coming together as a family, meditating on Christ’s suffering, and learning how to pray are all more important than any curriculum, virtual schooling, or learning packet.

Filed Under: Easter and Lent, Faith Building Tagged With: Catholic, praying, religion, stations of the cross, way of the cross

Focusing on What’s Important This Year

1 Jan by Mrs. E Leave a Comment

As I looked at the last year and made plans for the new one I came away with a super long list of things I wanted to improve for our family—because now that it’s January 1st we will magically change into this super family with perfect children always wearing matching clothes and smiling all the time. Everything on our To Do list will be instantly completed. We’ll be like those families I read blogs about who are building homes for the poor while their 8 year old earns a Bachelors Degree. Because, you know, it’s January and this all magically happens, right?

But seriously as I looked back at year I saw that there was a lot to be proud of. We were happy overall–that alone is a huge accomplishment to celebrate. And we went through some very big life changes–buying a house, my husband’s retirement from the military and start a new job, our family getting settled for somewhat permanent life. We helped others and had fun together and somewhere along the way my children became more educated. But I also felt like we were so busy last year but not necessarily getting done what we wanted. It seems like we were reacting to things instead of being proactive. Too often we were rushing around and were tired but didn’t always have a lot to show for it.

Too often we were doing things because I thought it was the “right thing.” Because if I didn’t do it, who would? Because I didn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. Because others expected us to. Because we hadn’t made a better plan. Because we had waited until the last minute.

I realize as I look back, we need to be more purposeful in choosing how to spend our time, and with that we will hopefully have more time for the things that are truly important.

I was wasting huge amounts of time and then we were rushing to get caught up. And in agreeing to things maybe I didn’t want to do, I was becoming bitter and overwhelmed. And my kids were paying the price.

And so, as I go into the new year, I am not making a list of resolutions or outcomes I want, but instead I have made a list of questions to ask myself. Before committing to something, before I make the family schedule, before choosing how to spend my time, I will ask myself these four questions…

And you notice “Is this good for others?” isn’t on the list. I of course would like to be a better friend and volunteer in my community even more. But in this season of my life, when I looked at where we’ve gotten off track, I realized I need to focus less on others and more on my immediate family. I can’t worry if I’ll hurt someone’s feelings if I can’t go to their event or give their child a ride. I can’t worry about what others think of me, either in real life or on social media. And I can’t do things simply because others expect me to do it, even if that means it doesn’t get done. But the biggest part of all is that I can’t feel guilty for saying this and drawing these boundaries.

I started this a bit at the end of this past year. Yes it was hard for me. I know I let some people down and I felt huge amounts of guilt for it. But in saying “no” to others and “yes” to myself more, I was happier and had more time with my kids. I’m not saying to become totally selfish or reclusive or walk around hurting people’s feeling, just that it’s okay to focus inward more and outward less, especially when committing time, energy, or finances.

And so as we move into a new year and a new decade and a new page for our family, my goal is to be more purposeful and in doing so hopefully help us to bring more peace AND productivity to our lives.

Filed Under: Family Time, Our Life, Parenting Tagged With: family, goals, New years resolutions, priorities

Moldable Beach Sand

12 Oct by Mrs. E Leave a Comment

Bring the beach inside! I love this moldable beach play sand I made for my little guy to play with. It turned out so well even his big sisters wanted in on the action!

I had looked up a few recipes but they just didn’t work for me. What I liked was that this was still sand for the most part, felt nice and smooth, and it smelled tropical.

Recipe:

6 cups play sand

1 cup corn starch

1/2 cup coconut oil

Of course the recipe isn’t set in stone, so just adjust to get the amount and texture you would like. I added the corn starch to make the sand a little softer and stickier. We keep our coconut oil in the garage and live in climates so hot that ours is always in liquid form. If yours is solid, then just melt it. And the best part about the coconut oil is the smell it’ll give you sand. My Zoe hates the smell of the store-bought living sand so this is a big deal in our house. 🙂

Since I was going for the beachy vibe, I added shells and some small plastic creatures to our bin. The sand was so easy to build with and soft to the touch it has immediately become one of our go-to sensory activities!

Filed Under: Preschool Tagged With: beach, moldable sand, moon sand, ocean, ocean theme, ocean unit, play sand, Preschool, sensory activity, tot school

Curriculum Choices

10 Sep by Mrs. E Leave a Comment

As we sit and wait for the hurricane I thought that now is as good a time as any to start blogging again. I’ve been meaning to get back up and going especially since we started our school year. And it seems the best place to start is with our curriculum choices for the year. For those who homeschool maybe it will give you some ideas and for those who don’t, it might give some insight into what we do all day (since that’s a question I get asked by my non-homeschooling friends). So far we like the materials we are using; most, though, are ones we’ve been using for years. Some are really popular while others are off the homeschool beaten path. So, without further ado, here is what we are using this year…

Religion–Seton’s Religion

I like that Seton’s religion program is concise while providing a solid Catholic foundation. It has also helped us memorize our catechism and improved the girls’ reading. We are also using the Virtues in Practice program from the Dominican Sisters of St. Celia. It’s a free program that focuses on a different virtue and saint each month. It helps us easily learn about saints and holy virtues.

Literature–Memoria Press

We are doing the third grade literature study from Memoria Press. The novels include Mr. Popper’s Penguins, A Bear Called Paddington, and Charlotte’s Web. I’m replacing Farmer’s Boy with The Courage of Sarah Noble since we haven’t started the Little House on the Prairie series yet and The Courage of Sarah Noble fits with our Social Studies curriculum. Our current schedule has us finishing the novels before our year is over so we will either enjoy books of the girls’ choosing, continue our Shakespeare studies from last year, or jump into the Little House on the Prairie series. We’ll figure that out when we get there.

Poetry–The Harp and the Laurel Wreath

A lot of our curriculum choices are inspired by the classical program put forth by Laura Berquist so it makes sense that for poetry we use her anthology. Each morning we read and practice our poem until eventually the girls have memorized it. After reciting their poem correctly for their grandparents, we move on to another one, usually completing a poem a month. During the course of their memorizing, we also have many discussions about the poem, read other books connected to it, and complete a coloring sheet. This is one part of our homeschooling that has surprised me by all the benefits and joys it has provided us.

Latin–English From the Roots Up

Also based on Laura Berquist’s curriculum, we are using English From the Roots Up flashcards this year to introduce the Latin and Greek root words so that when they officially begin studying Latin next year it will be easier. Each week we add three new cards that we then review daily and regularly I’m giving them a quick, cumulative quiz. So far the girls are loving this–learning a different language and getting to play with words. I was surprised that they consider Latin to be one of their favorite subjects.

Grammar–Easy Grammar

Easy Grammar really is just that, easy. We do about a page a day. The lessons include good explanations and enough practice without overdoing it or giving busy work. I especially like that it starts with prepositions and prepositional phrases before identifying the subject and verbs. Makes it so much easier and will make diagramming sentences easier in the future.

Writing

This year we aren’t really using a formal writing curriculum but working on simply writing regularly. While we have some materials from the teaching supply store, I’ve also purchased a few things from Teachers Pay Teachers and will be occasionally supplementing with Memoria Press’s Introduction to Composition book which parallels our reading program. I’m trying for as many authentic writing experiences as possible, trying to connect our writing to what we are studying or experiencing in life in order to make it more meaningful. We aren’t just doing formal writing assignments, but writing letters, journaling, and creating stories. At this age, I want the girls to like writing and to develop into strong writers. So our goals for the year is for them to enjoy writing and to be able to write clear, well written paragraphs.

Math

Math is another subject where we don’t have a clear cut curriculum this year. We are taking a strong mastery approach. While the girls haven’t struggled with math concepts, they have struggled to memorize their math facts. I know this is going to continue to hold them back. They were also getting frustrated and hating math. So we have taken a step back from an organized curriculum to focus on learning all of our math facts. We are using Xtra Math daily which does a great job quizzing the kids on their math facts. We are also using our Math Wrap-Ups (but if you get these be sure you get the set with the CDs; if you don’t have the music they don’t really work), worksheets from education.com, and fun resources such as Fun-Schooling Math Mysteries and Practice Problems with Minecraft. We started all the way back with our addition facts and will move through subtraction, multiplication, and division with fractions and balancing equations along the way. By the end the girls will have mastered their math facts and will be truly ready to move on to higher level concepts. We’ve already seen improvements but the best one so far has been that they are enjoying math again and regaining their confidence. This was a hard decision for us to make (math was the one subject I said I would always need a formal curriculum for) but this is one of the many reasons why we homeschool–to meet our children’s own needs.

Science–Elemental Science, Chemistry

In addition to Laura Berquist’s book and approach, our homeschool is strongly influence by The Well-Trained Mind. One thing I like about the classical approach is focusing on a different branch of science each year. Instead of spiraling and covering the same topics every year, we rotate through Biology, Earth Science/Astronomy, Chemistry, and Physics on a four year track. While I like what Susan Wise Bauer describes in The Well-Trained Mind, I didn’t quite like how she approached it and wanted more structure as well as more diversity in activities. Elemental Science uses the yearly structured I wanted. It also uses real books as opposed to a text and includes lapbooking and has easy hands on experiments for every week. Basically, Elemental Science program has everything I want in a science program.

Social Studies–Truthquest

Truthquest is basically my Social Studies equivalent to Elemental Science. While it offers suggestions for a spine the program is also based on real books. For the most part it is a list of topics with book suggestions. It also includes lapbooks, writing assignments, timelines, maps, and coloring sheets. And most importantly it makes history fun. What I also really like is that it starts with American history and it is so hard to find a classical, hands on program for American History for the lower grades. So often the classical programs start with Ancient History which I think can be very confusing for young children–here is a totally different culture from a long time that includes a bunch of gods that we don’t believe in. The reason the Greeks used to study Greek history first is because it was their history and they started with what they knew so to me it’s silly for us following the classical model to start with the Greeks when what we really should start with is our own history and culture, like the Greeks did, building on the framework that children already have.

Spelling–Spellwell

This year we are trying a new spelling curriculum and so far so good. Spellwell is phonics based with each word list grouped according to a different rule or phonogram. What we like is that each list is only 10 words long but there with spaces for me to add words to each week’s list. I also like that the week starts with a pre-test so we can focus on the words they need to.

Handwriting–Abeka Writing with Phonics Cursive

The girls asked to learn cursive awhile back and it’s been great for them. While they are still working on perfecting their penmanship, learning cursive early helped them get their b’s and d’s straight. And while the curved lines and loops are easier for them than manuscript writing, it has helped their manuscript printing as well. Currently we are using our handwriting book from last year. In addition to the workbook, I have them write their final drafts in cursive but for everything else the girls can choose what style they want to use.

We are also using our Draw Write Now books every so often as further practice for handwriting, drawing, and our fine motor skills.

Art–Discovering Great Artists: Hands-On Art for Children in the Styles of the Great Masters

In the past we’ve just done art projects throughout the year. While this was great when the kids were younger, it’s been really hit or miss so this year I wanted a more structured approach. But not too structured that it took out the fun of art at this age. We are doing an artist/project a week and just moving chronologically through the book. It is exposing our entire family to a wide variety of artists and different techniques. We tend to already have the materials on hand and the projects are fun.

So that’s what we are using with the girls. We are also doing sewing and nature study but those don’t really have a curriculum. And of course we also have our little man doing tot school but I’ll be sharing that along the way.

For my homeschoolers, what curriculum are you using this year or what do you love?

Save

Filed Under: Homeschool Tagged With: art, classical, classical homeschool program, curriculum, elemental science, elementary, handwriting, history, homeschool, latin, math, poetry, reading, schooling at home, social studies, spelling, truthquest, writing

Who needs stuff? Me! Our move so far…

7 Jun by Mrs. E Leave a Comment

Right now I am sitting here in a house with no furniture watching the sunrise and thinking about my family. Yep, we’re in the middle of PCS-ing (military jargon for moving). While it hasn’t been as rough as the last move, it hasn’t been easy. But, then again, moving to another state rarely is.

We’ve been living out of suitcases for 3 weeks now and still have over a week before our household goods arrive so now we are “urban camping”—a catchy name for sleeping on air mattresses in your own home. We’ve done it on both sides of the move now so I’m a little over it to be honest. I’ve got one pot to cook in and we sit on the floor in the entryway because I don’t want the kids to sit on the carpet to eat and the kitchen isn’t big enough for all of us. I’m tired of no comfy chairs to sit in and everything being in piles on the floor. I’m tired of not having my own washer and dryer, especially when a child has an accident in the middle of the night. You would think living without most of our belongings would make me a minimalist and my take-away would be that we don’t really need all that stuff. But no. I miss my stuff. And you can call me materialistic but you are probably doing that from the comfort of your home filled with your stuff.

But most of all I am wishing I had my stuff because it gives us something to do. It creates a flurry of activity as we unpack and get settled and I am anxious to do that. Right now it is like the waiting place in Dr. Seuss’ Oh! The Places You’ll Go!

…a most useless place.
The Waiting Place……for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go,
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go,
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or the waiting around for a Yes or No,
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.Waiting for the fish to bite,
or waiting for the wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night,
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break,
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.

We are stuck in this limbo where we can’t quite start our new life but we’ve left our old life and we just wait for them to hopefully bring our home to us. Personally I find it hard to be motivated when living out of suitcase. And all that waiting and unsettledness gives time for all the different emotions that come with moving to bubble up to the surface. Especially for the kiddos. They swing wildly from being madly excited and enthusiastic to crying their eyes out at missing “the best people I’ve ever known.” Yes, that is a direct quote from my seven year old daughter. Adorable. And heartbreaking.

Yes, we moved with an inflated balloon. Because a friend gave it to her and how do you tell this face no?

It is so hard to tear your kids away from the life they know and love. And even harder to do it more than once and know that it will happen again in the future.

People not in the military are fascinated by this turn of events. They can’t believe that the date for delivery was changed by over a week, that our stuff isn’t coming when it was supposed to, that we are left with no belongings and trying to make do. They are outraged on our behalf—especially my parents which makes me feel warm and happy inside. (The best was when my mom insisted that obviously a man came up with this system because a mom would never have it work this way.) My military friends commiserate but know that this is par for the course. This is just kind of how it works. And so we are left waiting.

But at least we are here in the waiting place together, right?

Ed is on leave (silly us thought he would be helping me unpack right about now) so we are left with an overabundance of family time. You would think that we would be off having great adventures–we’re trying, but, well, remember when I said it was hard to be motivated when living out of a suitcase? And so we just spend time together: reading, playing games, exploring locally, and laughing (yes, we laugh a lot, even when things aren’t going well, perhaps especially when things aren’t going right). And while it would help my kids to settle in if they had their own beds filled with their stuffed animals and treasures, I think that at the end of the day they will settle in just fine just having us—seeing that we can do this as a family, that we enjoy our time together, that we make the best of a bad situation.

Eventually we will have a home filled with our belongings, ringing with noise, busy with our schedule; but for now, I will strive to enjoy the quiet and the waiting and the time we have together. Even if it’s not what I planned.