Self-Control - Wreath III

I guess I'm a little behind in my posts.  There have just been so many snow days!!! Our meeting for Self-Control was back in February.  I'm finally getting around to posting this.  

Jessica led the meeting.  I was lucky that she typed up all of her notes for me so I'm going to go ahead and just post them as is.  It was a great meeting and the girls really enjoyed the activities.

SELF CONTROL

Set out a cup of M&Ms in front of each girl – do not let them eat it until the end. This will demonstrate self control.

Explanation of Self-Control 

Does anyone know what self control is? 

Once girls raise their hands, I asked them to all raise their hands (that demonstrates right there a sign of self control)

control or restraint of oneself or one's actions, feelings, etc. (from dictionary.com)

·         Remind children that they will never be tempted beyond what God will help them handle *Self control is taking us out of the center of our hearts, minds and universes and putting Christ in it. (from leaders book)

·         It’s even a daily struggle your parents face, but with Jesus as our guide we can do all things well, even control ourselves! (from leaders book)

·         What is a good way you could help yourself maintain self control?

1.    Example, do not sit beside a friend who you enjoy talking to when you are supposed to be quiet, or choose to leave a play area

2.    when tempers are getting heated and you feel angry with a friend.

3.    When doing homework

                       

Kick-off craft

The craft suggested here will help remind your children to practice self-control and is based on

1 Peter 5:8: “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around looking for someone

to devour.”

A self-control poster

Directions 

•  Help your children draw or trace a picture of a lion on the poster.
•  Next have your children place their hands over the lion and trace around their hands.
• Write the memory verse of your choice on the poster.
• Use the poster as a reminder that the best way to defeat Satan when he tries to devour us is to pray.
•  Review the questions for discussion below to enhance your children’s understanding of the concepts.

Throughout the day, encourage your children to clasp their hands together tightly when they feel like they are going to lose self-control. Have them come to you so you can help them pray. Explain that Satan is strong like a lion, but we can be stronger than Satan when we go to God for help. Just as the tracing of their hands covers the lion, they can be stronger than the temptation Satan sends when they are full of the Holy Spirit. Tell your children that putting their hands together will help remind them to talk to God and ask for His help in maintaining self-control.

WWJD sign (read #6 and do it in a group)

fulfill #6 on your list for this month

Self-control scenarios

– give scenarios and ask the 3 questions after each one.

• Someone has just taken your favorite toy from you.

• You have had one piece of cake and your stomach feels full. Someone offers you

another piece.

• Someone has just called you a mean name that hurt your feelings – now they are laughing at you.

• You just received some discipline from one of your parents, now your brother or sister is smiling.

Questions for discussion

• Would you need to use self-control in this situation?

• Would it be easy or hard to be self-controlled in this situation?

• If you would have a hard time using self-control, how could you make it easier?

Key concepts

·         When we are full of the Holy Spirit, it is easier to use self-control. It is one of the fruits of the Spirit.

·         Remind them - you will never be tempted beyond what God will help you handle.

           (1 Corinthians 10:13).

·         Close by praying and thanking God that He understands what it is like to be tempted and that He will never let us be tempted beyond that which we can handle.

Talk about St. Felicity  fulfill #2 on your list for this month (http://www.holyspiritinteractive.net/kids/saints/0710.asp)

Felicity was a noble Christian woman of Rome. After her husband's death, she served God by prayer and works of charity. Her good example led others to become Christians, too. 

This angered the pagan priests (they worshipped false gods), who complained to Antoninus Pius, the emperor. They said Felicity was an enemy of the state because she was making the gods angry. 

So the emperor had Felicity arrested. Her seven young sons were arrested with her. Like the mother of the Maccabees in the Old Testament, Felicity remained calm. The governor tried to make her sacrifice to the false gods but she absolutely refused. 

They finally threatened to kill her sons one by one if she did not do as she was told. The governor said to her, "Unhappy woman, if you wish to die, die! But do not destroy your sons." And Felicity answered "My sons will live forever if, like me, they scorn the idols and die for their God."

This brave woman was forced to watch her sons being put to death. Four months later, Felicity, too, was beheaded. Her strength came from her great hope that she would be with God and her sons in heaven. 

St. Felicity, it could be said, was martyred eight different times as she had to watch each of her sons die. Then she too gave up her life for Jesus.  

Look how praiseworthy it is to die for the King (Christ). This woman (St. Felicity) feared not the sword, but perished with her sons. She was given eternal life.

Bible Story and questions

Picking fights

Read Genesis 26:17-22.

Questions for discussion

1. What do other kids do when they want to pick a fight?

2. How about your brother/sister?

3. How do you feel when someone says that something you own is his/hers?

4. What happened to Isaac’s servants?

5. What did they do?

6. How many wells did they have to dig before the herdsman of Gerar didn’t bother them?

7. What is the best thing to do if someone picks a fight with you?

Key concepts

Isaac’s servants had moved into a new territory. Part of moving into new territory involved finding water for the flocks they were caring for. As Isaac’s men dug wells, the herdsman living in the new territory argued with them and kept claiming the wells as their own. Instead of fighting back and fighting for the wells that were rightfully theirs, Isaac and his people just kept moving on and digging another well, until the herdsmen of Gerar left them alone. These men exercised self-control and didn’t fight for their rights. Isaac and his servants set a good example for all of us of what to do if someone picks a fight with you. The best thing to do is to walk away and keep the peace.

Giggle game

Then I selected one LF to go before the entire group to attempt to make the group laugh.  She had full reign to be silly and the audience had strict instructions not to laugh.  A good time was had by all.  Upon completion of this round, the girls discussed their strategy to exercise self-control so they did not laugh despite the silly antics. 

We held one more round.  This time the silly girl could not get her audience to laugh.  We discussed the reason for this outcome, was it because it was not funny or was it because it becomes easier to exercise self control after time of practice?

http://joyfilledfamily.blogspot.com/2011/11/saint-felicitas-was-widow.html

After the game, talk about self-control. Explain that it is usually okay to laugh in life, but there are times when we shouldn’t laugh. We should not laugh when someone is hurt or sad, during quiet time at school or church, or if they are somewhere where they have been asked to be quiet. The following questions will help to clarify this for young children.

Questions for discussion

• Can you think of some times in life when we shouldn’t laugh?

• Eating is fun, like laughing is fun, but there is a time to eat and a time to stop eating. When is it

time to stop eating?

• Playing is fun. But when Mom or Dad say it is time to stop, it can be tempting to continue. When is it time to stop playing?

• Chasing around and being silly is fun, but there is a time and a place for silliness.

• When is okay to be silly?

• When is it not okay to be silly?

• How can you have self-control in these situations?

Key concepts

There are times when we need to obey the instructions of parents and stop doing what seems

to be fun. Even though it is tempting to do what feels good instead of stopping, we can ask God to help us be self-controlled and to choose to stop what we are doing.

Relevant Scripture

Ecclesiastes 3:1,4 “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heaven. . . . a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.”

Clap Hands Game(or use a drum)  (http://mattbgomez.com/fun-activities-for-practicing-self-control/)

Children crouch down with eyes shut on the floor and can only jump up like a Jack-in-the-box when you clap your hands, or hit a triangle etc, The length of time before clapping is varied so children have to really listen and not jump up impulsively.

Games (http://kelleyward.hubpages.com/hub/Focus-and-Self-Control-Life-Skills-For-Children)

·  Mirror what I do. For this game the parent and child sit in a chair directly facing one another. The parent plays the role of the leader and the child plays the role of the follower. The parent sits still in the chair using few words, so the child focuses on controlling his or her body movements. The object of the game is to have the child mirror the movements of the parent. This game increases self-control skills in children and helps them learn to become more aware of body placement and positioning.
·  Story sharing. Story sharing is a great activity that can be played anywhere— even in the car. One person begins a story with a short sentence and then the other members of the family take turns adding one sentence at a time. Story sharing helps children laugh their way to becoming more cognitively flexible, attentive, and self-controlled.

Finally they can eat their candy- this demonstrates the virtue self control. J

Most of above came from - http://www.kidsofintegrity.com/lessons/self-control/hands-options

Orderliness/Organization - Wreath III

Feels like I haven't been to a Little Flowers meeting forever!!  My girls and I missed our December meeting due to travel and then we had our Christmas party.  Our main January meeting had to be postponed due to a pipe bursting in our social hall.

This seemed like the perfect virtue for January.  How many of us make a resolution in the new year to get organized?  Well perhaps our meeting, along with some of the activities will help to get some of the girls and moms motivated to keep those resolutions.

I'm not sure why I struggled with this virtue.  Perhaps my mind was still spinning from Christmas.  What's so wonderful is that I was able to fall back to the workbook.  We focused on working on some of the activities.  I've never heard a mom complain about getting some of the activities completed during the meeting.  It's always nice to get a jump start on getting them completed.

We started by having the girls all tell me about their Christmas vacation - ALL AT ONE TIME!!!  No order whatsoever.  It was loud and of course, no order.  We learned fast that it is important to have some orderliness at our meetings.

To work on our first activity, we talked about how God presented us with the first opportunity to see order, Creation.  I talked about how God had a plan and He had a purposed for putting each day in a certain order.  Then we talked about what would happen if God had decided to just mix things up.  It just wouldn't work that way!

Using the Leader's Manual, I encouraged the moms to make sure that they didn't just expect their daughters to know what goes on in their heads.  Explain why we always hang up our keys.  How it keeps things running smooth and we don't run around like crazy women in the morning looking for them.  Of course, if we do happen to lose our keys, we can always ask St. Zita to help us find them as she is the patron saint of lost keys.  We can use this handy little prayer, "Zita, Zita, help me please.  Help me to find my missing keys" (Sorry, I can't remember where I found like).

Then we talked about two women who really knew something about being organized.  The first being St. Zita.  The second is the Proverbs 31 woman.  I gave the girls a little background info on how it was a mom telling her son about the kind of woman he should find.  I can take absolutely no credit for this part of the lesson.  I found a wonderful guide which I borrowed.  I cut out the bible verse and used the one from my Catholic Bible but otherwise it was very helpful in breaking down the different virtues that the woman should have. You can find the guide here.  We talked about how Little Flowers is helping them to develop all those wonderful virtues.

Lastly for our activity, I had the girls make hot cocoa cones.  This was so perfect!!!  The girls had to layer the ingredients in order.  We also passed out the ingredients in an orderly fashion.  Just a warning if you decide to do this activity.  I totally lucked out finding the plastic cones to layer them in.  There were some clearanced right after Christmas at Michael's.  At first I couldn't find them and I was a little panicked thinking of a craft that I could do.  Then at the last moment, they appeared!!  I got this idea from the Catholic Missionary Family.  The post was a few years old so maybe Hobby Lobby no longer carries the cones she used.  Ours definitely didn't look as nice, but it got the job done.

Here are the instructions.

- Each girl received 4 packets of hot cocoa mix, a small cup with 1/4 cup of mini chocolate chips and a cup of mini marshmallows. 

- Empty the hot cocoa mix into a snack size baggie and then stick down in the cone bag.

- Dump the mini chocolate chips in and then layer it with the marshmallows.  Add a twisty to close it and you are done!!

I typed out a little card with the instructions that Catholic Missionary Family had posted.  It reads, "Heat 5 cups of milk and chocolate chips over medium heat until the chocolate chips have melted. Reduce heat to low and stir in the cocoa mix until the drink is smooth. Serve with marshmallows. Makes 4-6 servings."

With the cold weather that is headed our way, I know the girls are going to be enjoying their creations right away!!

Friendliness....Continued

We continued our discussion on friendliness this evening.  It is nice to have a second meeting each month to sometimes continue discussions.   I know there are several girls in our group that really struggle with being shy.  My daughter is one of them.  I really wanted to give the girls some good tips that they could use to help them be friendly.

- First I let them know that it might not be comfortable but to try it anyways!!  Like any virtue, it takes practice to become friendly.  I shared that I struggled when I was growing up with being shy and that I still struggle.  It's not always easy for me to talk start conversations with people, but I know that I have to work on it.

- Next, start with a simple hello.  It doesn't have to be a long, drawn out conversation.  They can simply say hello, but make sure to say it with a smile and eye contact.  I had a couple of girls try this out and it was really tough.  Making eye contact when you are shy takes a lot of practice.

- Be focused on the person.  Don't be on a phone or playing a video game.  Show the person that you are interested in what they have to say.

- Never forget to pray about it.  Ask Jesus for help.  I shared that when we first moved to this town, I asked God to help me make some Catholic friends.  The next thing I knew, I was being led to start a moms' group at church which also led to starting Little Flowers.  God answered my prayer.  Of course I pointed out that He didn't just drop the friends in my lap.  I had to leave my comfort zone, but He truly blessed me.   I have some very wonderful friends now.

They were all given a homework assignment to work on this week.  Go up to at least one person that they don't usually talk to and say hello. Perfect way to get started on being friendly

I gave the girls time at the end of the meeting to practice .  They were encouraged to pick a friend that they might not know very well, and visit with them.  They spread out around the room and sat face to face.  It was great to see.  Even my very shy daughter came home all excited.  She shared that she had made a new friend!!  We are off to a good start.

 

Friendliness - Wreath III

If there is one thing that I really learned from this last meeting is that the girls love to play games.  They LOVED the games this month.

There is a lot of helpful information in the leader’s manual to help with planning.   Jessica started the lesson by explaining the virtue of friendliness.  She made sure to point out that there is a difference between friendship and friendliness.  Friendliness is about being warm and kind to all, not just our friends.

The saints of the month are Ruth and Naomi.  Jessica read us their story.   Since we have talked about Ruth and Naomi before, the older girls knew the story.  It's wonderful that these stories and saints are being reinforced time and time again.

After talking about the saints, the girls gathered to hear the story, "The Selfish Giant", by Oscar Wilde.  I think this was a new book for all of us which was surprising since this isn't a new book.    This was one of the activities the girls could do to help earn their badge for the month.  YAY!!  

We did one more activity before the games.  Jessica had the girls do a heart activity.  The girls were given construction paper and then draw a large heart.   After that, they wrote down all the friends that came to mind.   Each name was given a certain amount of points depending on the relationship.  The point of the exercise was to have the girls look at all the different people in their lives who are their friends (other Little Flowers, classmates, siblings, parents, grandparents, ourselves, cousins, our Guardian Angel, Jesus).   Let me tell you, it was sort of funny because they were getting a little confused and focused too much on adding up the points which of course was not the point of the exercise.  I did see quite a few light bulbs going off as a new group of people were called out.

Then it was game time!!  These games were found at ehow.com.

The Human Knot

Best played in groups of six to 10, this game involves the cooperation of the entire group. All the members of the game stand in a circle and grab the hand of someone in the circle, but it cannot be the person to their right or left. Once everyone has grabbed hands, they must untangle themselves without letting go of their companion's hands. The participants must communicate and plan how they are going to break the knot. Some of the players may end facing outward, which is okay, as long as no one lets go.

I'm Your Friend

This game encourages children to learn to recognize their friend's voices. One child is chosen to be "it." The child who is "it" sits in front of the rest of the children, her eyes closed. One of the children in the group quietly walks up behind the chosen child and says, "I'm your friend," and then returns to his original seat. The child who is "it" must then guess who it was. It's important that the children who are not "it" do not trade places and that they speak in their normal voices, to assure a fair game.

The girls were so disappointed when the meeting came to a close.  I had to promise that we would have time in the coming meetings to keep playing.  

Eutrapelia

I have to admit, I was a little nervous about doing this virtue.  I mean, it took me forever to even learn how to pronounce it!!!  So, I did what I always do.  I worked on it, set it aside for awhile and prayed on it.  Yesterday, it all came together.  It amazes me every time.  God just puts it in my heart, and then I get excited!!!

Tonight was the first meeting that I wasn't nervous at all.  Not sure if it's because I'm finally getting comfortable or what, but it was great.  It always makes it interesting having two daughters in the group.  My youngest was just a little too energetic and talkative this evening, but I know she is just excited to be at Little Flowers.

We started the meeting by taking care of business.  Since I handed out the registration forms at the pizza party, we were able to collect activity fees and money to place an order for badges and books.  Last year, I made the mistake of letting moms place a few different orders.  I decided not to drive my husband crazy with lots of charges on my credit card.  This year one order would be placed after the first meeting.  Worked great.

So onto Eutrapelia.  So what is it?  Well it's a virtue of pleasantness, playfulness, and moderate relaxation.  It can be a type of playfulness, joking and amusement.  St. Thomas Aquinas said that just as the body needs rest when it is tired, so does the soul.

God is so good to us.  He gives us the perfect opportunity to practice this virtue when he gave us Sunday!!!  While we should always begin the day by going to church, we also have the day that we can spend with our family relaxing, and enjoying each others company.

The flower for the month is just perfect for Eutrapelia, the dandelion.  For kids, it's a beautiful little flower that they make into pretty crowns, beautiful necklaces, and make wishes on when they turn fluffy and white.  Now for grown ups, dandelions are weeds and most of us would like nothing more than to get rid of them.  Somewhere along the line, we lose the simple joy of blowing on a dandelion.

So you see, this is a good virtue for us moms to work on as well.  There are probably quite a few of us who have a hard time relaxing or finding that playfulness.  Now on the other hand, the girls may want to have too much playing around or amusement.  Eutrapelia is about finding that balance.

St. Thomas Aquinas wrote about having too much of a good thing (of course my words, not his).  He points out that there can be too much playing or relaxing, that humor can be rude or hurtful, or that having fun can be at inappropriate times.  I had the girls help come up with examples for these things.  Seemed like an easy concept to understand.


We then moved on to our saints of the month, Martha and Mary.  I read about them from the Catholic Children's Bible and we talked about which saint was practicing Eutrapelia.  This was perfect as it led us into one of the activities of the month which was to read Luke 10:38-42 and then rewrite the story or draw a picture.

We also went around the room and told our favorite joke or riddle.  This helped complete #4 of the activities.  The girls really enjoyed this.  Lots of laughs.  One little flower even had a joke book with her and shared some of them with us.

For our craft, I tied it into another activity.  They had to write out five ways in which they like to relax.  I had them work with their moms to write them out and then they made fluffy white dandelions out of yarn and attached them to their lists. Here is the link with the directions for making them.  They turned out great and were easy enough for each of the girls to do on their own.

While we might not be able to work on the badge activities at each meeting, I know how much it is appreciated by the moms (including me).  Tonight we were able to get four of the activities completed!!  More time to practice that Eutrapelia during the rest of the month.