Monday, October 5, 2015

Welcome Back to Wreath I: A New Look At Faith

Tonight was our first official meeting and we have now come full circle.  We are back to Wreath I.  There are two girls that are from the original group and have done this wreath already but it really doesn't matter.  We have all changed so much in four years.  In fact as I prepared for the meeting, I realized it felt like I was doing the meeting for the first time.

We have eight girls this year.  A few girls graduated and moved on to our Wild Flowers group.  The feel of the group is so different.  My daughter is struggling with most of her friends being gone but I know she will soon feel that all is well again.  Our group ranges from age four to age 10.  Most of the girls are really young to me.   It really has a different feel and it will take me a little bit to figure out the group as well.  I'm not used to the little ones as much anymore, But we will be having lots of fun.

So tonight I did Faith.  It felt good to have music again.  We really missed not having the songs for Wreath IV.  The girls enjoy learning the memory verses with the music.  I definitely recommended buying the CD to all the moms.  We talked a little about what faith is.  What luck that the gospel on Sunday contained one of the activities for this evening.  We were able to talk about having faith like a child and cross it off our list.  We also talk about Hebrews 11.  Then I read about St. Catherine of Sienna

We did a really fun activity which I found here.  I read the quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, “You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Only the next step.”  We talked about what it meant and then turned off all the lights.  I had all the girls stand in a beam of light and then read the lesson.  Talk about easy!!!  I had Hershey Kisses wrapped up as roses as the treasure at the end.  It wasn't quite dark enough, but luckily there was a little time at the end so the girls got to play it again.  They really enjoyed it.

For some reason, I felt at a loss finding a good craft for Faith.  Having a different flowers every month will come in handy.  So today we made our pretty sunflowers.  I think this will be the most difficult thing about having such a wide range of ages.  I didn't want to pick a craft that was too simple of the older girls.  This may have been just a little too difficult for the young ones, but that's the good thing about having the moms involved.  They were there to help their daughters as needed.  This was a pretty inexpensive craft.  I bought a package of yellow paper plates and then a thing of yarn.  I did wind up buying plastic needles but now we will have them for years to come.  After using coupons, it cost $10.00.

It looks like I'm signed up to do at least the next meeting as well.  I'm certainly hoping that more moms will start signing up, but I understand how it might feel a little intimidating at first.  I'm also homeschooling my kids this year so I'm not sure how much blogging I will be doing.  It's so great having a record of most of our meetings though so I am going to try to keep at it.  If I disappear for a while, you'll know I'm just going a little crazy with homeschool.