Seven Quick Takes

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Saw her perform this song in an accidental concert back in November (the concert wasn't accidental, but me being there happened sorta accidentally...).  I really was there to see Matt Maher, but walking away hearing this song was an added bonus :).

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Yesterday we had another "extreme cold weather" day.  No School! I celebrated by picking up one of the books that I got this week after using some of my Barnes & Noble Christmas gift cards.  Earlier this week, armed with my gift cards, I bought myself a mocha and wandered the Utopia that is A Bookstore.  I came home with several, including this one:

Austen fans, I highly recommend Dear Mr. Knightley, by Katherine Reay.  My enjoyment surely had nothing to do with the fact that I got out of bed this morning...and proceeded to read this book from start to finish with no interruptions.  Ahhhhh, snow days!

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This picture popped up in my facebook newsfeed yesterday.  My sister Steph is making a valiant start at her awesome photography business.  Since getting the ball rolling (officially) this fall, she has been super busy and is cranking out some beautiful pictures, like the one above of her nieces.  Check out her website here or like her on facebook.  And more importantly, if you live in Central Illinois, think about asking her to be your next photographer!

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I found this today on Pinterest, and I want it:

My landlord might have a problem with it, though.
Note to self:
1. Buy house.
2. Build book nook.
3. Live in book nook and bask in success.

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Maybe we should just run with the book theme for these Seven Quick Takes.  Another book purchased on my Barnes and Noble quest was Jesus Calling by Sarah Young.  I have heard about it, flipped through it, and had it recommended to me by several people.  I decided to use those gift cards to get a different kind of devotional than what I have been reading lately.  It didn't hurt that they had an edition with this pretty pink cover.

Anyone else read it and have any opinions?

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The current novel that we are working on at school is Daniel at the Siege of Boston by Laurie Calkhoven.  We are learning about the American Revolution right now, so this book is a perfect fit as we walk through the events before and during the war.  When we read a novel, I work it into as many subjects as I can- reading, obviously, writing, social studies, vocab, spelling, etc.  This one has me putting "siege" on our spelling/vocab list for the week.  We have talked about the word siege, had it on homework assignments, and have worked with it to get ready for the spelling test.  In the middle of reading the book this week, though, one of the students noticed that at the bottom of the page where the page numbers are, the printer had misspelled siege s-e-i-g-e.  We all of course stopped and checked our books.  Sure enough, every book, every page, has the title of the novel misspelled.  I am not sure if that made it more or less important to the kids to get that word right on the spelling test today.  Oh, man.

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I could talk about books all day, but there is only one quick take left, so I will leave you with this:

Happy Friday!

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

How Sheenazing!

I've been nominated for the Sheenazing Awards, hosted by A Knotted Life!

Head on over to A Knotted Life starting on Today to vote for for the best of the best in the Catholic blogging world.
If anything, it is a great way to add some new blogs to your reading list!

Seven Quick Takes, The First

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Here I am, on the bandwagon, finally joining Jen's Seven Quick Takes.  I have no problem posting craft ideas and lesson plans, but actually writing stories about my life to keep my friends and family happy with this blog...that I haven't been doing so well on.  But seven short and random stories, that I think I can do!  If this was Emma, Knightley, and Churchill's afternoon on Box Hill, I'd be Miss Bates.

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Current song on repeat on my itunes:

 

Thanks to the Zuus Americana hour (one of the five TV channels I can pick up), I am finding all kinds of new artists not usually on the radio.  Humming House also has some free music up on Noise Trade right now.

This song is so sweet, and the video reminds me a lot of my parents and their marriage.  They are flirtier after 30 years of marriage than most newlyweds.  My siblings and I act like we hate it, but really we just know what a treasure their love for each other is and how it has shaped our family. (However, mom and dad, next time you decide to get all gooey and lovey dovey in our presence, we will all still groan and moan and say "gross!" repeatedly.  It is our job as your grown children.)   

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I am working on wonderful things for the Behold Conference gift bags.  Behold, you ask?  Live in central Illinois?  Make sure you mark your calendar for our March 1st women's conference.  Don't live in central Illinois?  Grab your mom, sister, daughter, best friend, Bible study companion, coworker, or female acquaintance and road-trip-it-on-over.  It is going to be great.  Current task of mine is designing the gift bag everyone will receive.  I love the actual bag that we picked out, but I only have a 5"x5" space to work with and a single color imprint.  Thoughts on this design?

I am also working on soliciting donations to put in the bags. The last conference had my apartment looking like a storage locker with all of the cool donations sent to us.  Got any ideas for something small and free or able to be donated to put in a bag for a Catholic women's conference?  I am all ears.

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You would think that all of that free time and relaxing over Christmas break would have prepared me for being back at work.  I got plenty of rest and relaxation.  I should be ready to be back and excited to work and full of energy for all the things coming up.  However, I think that the quiet break made me shrink into even more of an introvert.  I just want to stay home.  In my pajamas.  All day.  And only communicate through gestures.  And make things.  And read a whole book.  And not have to talk...at all.  Unfortunately, I cannot telecommute to my classroom of 5th graders.  Too bad.  Maybe another Arctic Blast will come our way and we will be frozen in at home for a day or two...

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Any one else still have their Christmas cards up?  I hang all of my up on my vertical window blinds using clothes pins as they come and enjoy them during Advent and Christmas.  I would like to say that they are still up, nearly a week after Ordinary Time began, because of some great conviction I have.  Really though, I just haven't taken them down.  I kind if like them- all those happy smiling faces of people I love and the pretty Christmas artwork on the front of cards.  What do you do with your Christmas cards and pictures at the end of the season?

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Is it odd how much I enjoy watching School House Rock videos still?  Good thing teaching 5th grade gives me an excuse, right?  This one is my favorite.

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My students' favorite moment of the week?  When the bell rings at 12:30 today, signaling the start of a 3 1/2 day weekend.  Their second favorite moment?  When during a math lesson I was calling them to the smart board to model a math problem for the class by randomly pulling names out of a cup.  After choosing the next participant, I would hand them the pen and say, "May the odds be ever in your favor."  If the student failed to finish the problem, we mimicked canon fire.  If they were successful, they were safe from being called again.  But then, ever the instigator, I called a quarter quell and put them all back in the cup.  Gotta keep math interesting you know.

Happy Friday!

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Growing in Virtue

Virtue: A Habit to do the good, give the best of yourself, and be more like God in what you say and do.

To tie in with our study of sainthood and the universal call to holiness, I decided to do a little more intentional instruction about the virtues.  Cue this graphic organizer to add to our notebooks to start things off.  Forthcoming posts will have an individual info sheet for each of the seven Cardinal and Theological Virtues, as well as some ideas for making them real in the day of a kid.

Click here for the bank notes that can be filled in:

 Or click here for the copy that is already filled in:

The Cafeteria is Closed- Indulgences

Go here for the summary of how this all started and for the printables for the overall series.

The first chosen topic of our Youth Group series called The Cafeteria is Closed was indulgences and Eternal Life.  

indulgence- n. a remission of the temporal punishment due to sin, the guilt of which has been forgiven (according to The Catholic Encyclopedia)

"An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints." CCC 1471.

The basics?  When we are forgiven of sin, we are forgiven totally and completely, through the power of God's grace.  However, that forgiveness does not take away the consequences and hurt that our sin causes.  Think about about the Prodigal Son: his father completely forgave him, but that didn't change the fact that half of the family farm had been sold.  Indulgences are not conditions of forgiveness, they are a removal of the consequences of sin. 

For more on indulgences:
The Catholic Encyclopedia- Indulgences
Primer on Indulgences
Common Myths About Indulgences

We had a discussion on what indulgences are and are not. The cards that we used for reference and attached in our menu are below.  Usually an indulgence is something that we all should be doing anyways- daily prayer, Bible reading, etc.  This past year during the Year of Faith, one opportunity to receive an indulgence was to renew your baptismal promises.  Read more about that here: Plenary Indulgence During the Year of Faith . We went over to the church and renewed our baptismal promised during Youth Group that night.  A card with the renewal is below.  (Today is the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord, another cool day to renew our baptismal promises!)

Maybe use this as a reflection song:

Or maybe this one:

Click here for the menu card for Indulgence and Eternal Life:

Click here for the Renewal of Baptismal Promises Card:

Click here for the St. Augustine of Hippo Prayer Card:

The Secret of Happiness

It has been a little dreary in our neck of the woods, with clouds, and rain, and lots of slushy messy snow.  How about a little sun on this Friday afternoon?

  Click on the image for a full size printable coloring page.

The Cafeteria is Closed- Youth Group Series

Back in 2005 when Pope Benedict XVI was a recently elected pontiff, I remember the phrase "the cafeteria is closed" being thrown around a lot in the Catholic world.  That catchy slogan summed up his true adherence to the teaching of the Catholic Church, as seen in quotes such as this one:

Click on the picture above for a link to printable prayer cards of this quote.

Looking for a way to do a topic study with my youth group kids on some of those hard "hot button" issues, I decided to use "The Cafeteria is Closed" as a theme.  I started by talking to the kids about relativism.  Is there a truth?  What is truth?  Can it be true for you and not for me?  This led into a discussion on the teachings of the Church- found in the Scriptures and Traditions.  Are they relative?  Are they true?  I told the kids that we were going to work through a series about the hardest topics (of their choice) and look at them through the lens of truth.  The cafeteria of picking and choosing what to believe and when to follow it would be closed.  

Cue this fun brainstorming poster.  The kids were the ones who named the topics that would be the most controversial or most likely to cause someone to say "I believe in this but not in that."  Within three minutes, the group of teens had listed Saints, being spirirual but not religious, Mary, social justice, all male priesthood, abortion, the Catholic hierarchy, euthanasia, indulgences, and marriage.  You can't pull anything over on kids.  They knew exactly what issues people, well, have issues with.

The next step in our series was to consolidate the topics.  Here was the final line up:
-Indulgences and Eternal Life
-Pro Life 
-Mary and the Saints
-Vocation and Marriage
-The Priesthood
-Religious and Spiritual

Then things got interesting.  The kids had to pick a topic to help plan.  That might mean that we met beforehand and they helped flesh out what questions teens really have, it might mean that they helped led a discussion, or maybe that they researched and sent me great youtube videos that helped make points on different sides.  I wanted them to buy in and take some ownership and leadership.

The first teen leader helped me come up with this idea.  We knew that we would take a while to work through this series, so we wanted to keep track of all of the info in one place.  Cafeteria=food=menu.  We came up with "menu" items for each of the six topics.  Corny, yes, but fun.

Everyone started the series with this menu printed on cardstock and kept it to add to throughout the study.  The link to this printable is at the end of the post.

The back of the menu had some great quotes and references about truth.

Then, at each individual study, the kids got a little menu card that fit right over the topic in the menu.  For example, at the session on being pro life, we added the purple card. 

Each card contained YouCat references for six big ideas within the main topic (all of our Confirmation kids and youth group kids have their own copy of the YouCat due to a generous donation).  The back had one specific quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church summing up the idea.  The point was not to cover the topic exhaustively (like that is possible) but to answer their big questions and give them the tools to get started studying more deeply.

We taped them on one side, so that they could flip up like this and all of the info could be seen.

Each session also included a healthy dose of Scripture references, discussion, youtube videos, and prayer time.  We also had a prayer card for each session that included Bible verses and quotes from the Saints.

Click here for the printable menu:

The overall goal of this series, which I repeated a hundred times, was for the kids to know that there is a truth, you can find that truth, and you can follow the truth.

This was not about bashing, arguing, brainwashing.  Anything was open for question, and the answers did not come from the world according to me .  We sought the truth and we found it.  The kids now have an open invitation to follow that truth.

Since this post is already way too long, check back in the next couple of weeks for six more individual posts for each topic, complete with all of the printables we used, prayer cards, links to good info, ideas for video and song use, etc.  I'll also tell you how we wrapped it all up and how my kids impressed me more than I though possible with their knowledge and insight.

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Also, as a brief P.S., I am aware that the YouCat has had circulating mixed opinions over the past couple of years.  You can read the most common questions/issues and some responses here.  Is the YouCat perfect? No. Should it be the only resource used in Catechesis?  Certainly not.  However, is it a tool that can probably be used with the average teen more readily than the standard CCC? I think yes.  It is a starting point, meant to lead them deeper in study and quest and prayer.  In my experience working with teens, something like the YouCat is needed.  I hope to see the publishers take it and revamp a few things in future editions to make it better, but I have been and will continue to use it as one resource among several in my work with teens.

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***Unfortunately, I never finished blogging about this awesome series, but I am happy to share all of the resources, printables, and prayer cards with you here.