Fight the good fight- It's time for school to start...

It's that time of year...back to school. Anyone else feeling overwhelmed?  Oh wait, that is a rhetorical question to ask most of the crowd that makes up my blog readers at this time of year.
So to all of my fellow educators, teachers, DREs, catechists...don't forget that we are in this together.  As St. Paul says, "Fight the good fight!"

Running with my Armor of God theme for the year, here is the main bulletin board in our hallway:

 I LOVE it!  With a little brainstorming from a friend, I went from just putting up some more shields and swords like the rest of our decorations to this awesome creation.

I started with some cheapo army men from the Dollar Tree:

 And with Toy Story in mind, made some of them parachute in like relief troops from heaven...

...and land among the quote, "Be Soldiers!" spoken many time by my beloved Blessed John Paul II.  (I will have to change this to Saint (!) sometime soon!- I can't say that I mind!)

 I also made these little tags to tie a soldier on to send home with the kids:

and scattered in some Scripture and the words faith, peace, etc. to represent the armor of God...

...and a prayer for our Patron Saint this year, St. Michael.

Click here for a printable of the bulletin board set: large "Be Soldiers!" letters, Scripture verses, and St. Michael prayer. (***Updated file to ST. JP2)

Click here for the "Be Soldiers!" tags.  A trip to Dollar Tree, and you will be good to go.

I really couldn't help but have a little fun with these army men, sitting all alone in my basement office...what advice would they offer us in this back to school season?

Here is what I picture them saying:

"Requisition school supplies NOW!  Prices will be ten times as much next month."

"Be on the lookout for great ideas to borrow/steal from other people.  

Teaching is not about reinventing the wheel. Teamwork and collaboration are your friends!"

"Learn, know, and rely on your textbook and curriculum guidelines/standards.  

Then find a way to supplement them that is a little more out of the box and will make a greater impact."

"When the going gets rough, you can always call in reinforcements in the form of Larry and Bob from Veggie Tales."

"Never be intimidated by the stacks of paperwork.  You will overcome."

"And always always always remember the coffee.  Coffee and prayer will get you through!"

Here's to a new year!  God's blessings on all of you!

Borrowing Ideas- Prayer Tree

One of the best parts of being a DRE is working with volunteer catechists.  All of my catechists are awesome, and they all bring something different and powerful to their classrooms and encounters with their students.  Some of them are incredibly hands on, some give their kids great real life experience, some are super crafty, but they are all talented and all use their gifts to serve God and his children in the Church.

Allow me to brag on one of my catechists for a bit. With her permission (:)) here are a few photos of her room.  I am glad that I snapped these last year, because this year her room is completely different and even better.

Here are the prayers that she works on with her students throughout the year, right there so that they can practice them together.

Her curriculum focused on God's Law in the Old and New Testaments, so she made giant posters to keep the Beatitudes and Ten Commandments easy to reference.

She worked in last year's theme of My Soul Magnifies the Lord.

But really, my favorite thing that she did last year was her prayer tree.

She started with a (lovely) old metallic Christmas tree which is probably about three feet tall.  She has it sitting up on a table in the corner of the classroom.

Then she took copies of the prayers that students at her grade level need to know from the curriculum guidelines that our Diocese provides, cut them out, and made these cute ornaments with bright colorful paper.

She topped it all off with a cute tree topper.

Not only does this cheer up the room, but I am sure that it provides a more creative way to choose prayers to use at the opening and closing of each class, as well as helps the catechist ensure that she is introducing the kids to a variety of prayers.  I love it, and I think that I might just need to go thrift store shopping for a metallic Christmas tree!

Armor of God Folder Cover

When I have a theme, I run with it, so it is no surprise that all of our CCD paperwork is getting an Armor-of-God-makeover.  Here is the cover on all of the student folders:

 It turned out pretty cute, and while there might be a few hundred Immaculate Conception Churches who could use this, I imagine that you would rather have this blank one with all of the cuteness and none of the place and date labels.

Click below for the printable of the blank folder cover.  You could use it as is, or do some cutting and pasting to add your own title to it.  The font I have been using is called Ghosttown BC, if you were curious.

Armor of God Bookmarks

We made these Armor of God bookmarks for our Boys' retreat.  There are six bookmarks, one for each of the "weapons" in the Armor of God, and each has a matching verse from somewhere else in the Bible.

Print them on cardstock, add some color, and wha-la!, Armor of God bookmarks, perfect for holding a spot in a Bible, novel, or ... even a textbook.  School is just around the corner, you know.

Click here for the printable with all six bookmarks:

Good Deed Beads

Have you ever used good deed beads?  They are just a cute little string of beads to keep in your pocket, on which you can quietly count prayers, deeds, kind words, etc.

We made these to go along with a Vocations retreat we had for kids.  Good deed beads are often tied in with the story of St. Terese of Lisieux,who is remembered for doing small things with great love, and offering up little sacrifices throughout the day tied in with prayer.  Her story can remind kids that every little thing that they do can be an act of love for God and neighbor.  The good deed beads can be kept in their pocket or attached to a backpack.  They can set their own goal or "challenge" to do ten kind deeds each day or say kind words tens times, etc.  The beads slide and stay in place to act as a counter.  It is tiny in the picture, but the pink and purple good deed beads have a St. Terese medal on the end.  She was the girls' patron for the retreat, and is also the patron of Vocations in our diocese.

 

The boys' patron was St. John Vianney, patron Saint of priests.  Although he suffered much in life, his calm patience and love was (and still is) an inspiration to conversion. Although good deed beads are not usually attributed to him, I didn't think that he would mind some good deeds being done in his memory, so the boys made blue good deed beads with a St. John Vianney medal on them.

I certainly did not come up with the idea for how to make these with kids, and I am not going to reinvent the wheel when others have done a much better job than I ever could creating directions.  Go to The Little Ways: How to Make Sacrifice Beads for detailed directions and pictures for making good deed beads.  It it easy, I promise!  They could be made as short or as big as you want, but a string of ten like this can also double as a decade rosary, which is nice for little hands.  They can slide the bead they are praying on and are less likely to lose their place.  Sizes, colors, Saints, uses...there are so many possibilities!

Spiritual Adoption Prayer

It is funny that I now realize that I knew Fulton Sheen's Spiritual adoption prayer before I really knew who he was.  The same thing occurred with my students, who had the Spiritual Adoption prayer memorized long before they met me.  I loved getting to "tell" them that the guy they were getting to know was the author of that prayer. :)

I was doing some organizing for the beginning of the school year and ran across some of our Spiritual Adoption Resources, and I just wanted to post an updated list of some of the pro life resources I have used.

The Touch of Life fetal models make such a big impact.  This one is a model the size, weight, and development of a baby 12 weeks after conception.  All of our CCD students got to take home one of these models at the 12 week mark in the spiritual adoption last year.  My youth group loved getting to see the full set of models, which range from 12 weeks to 30 weeks.

I made lots of printables to go along with our 9 month Spiritual Adoption as a CCD Program last year.  Click here for info on Spiritual adoption, including adoption cards, prayer bookmarks, and a Youth Group lesson with links to good YouTube videos. 

Click here for Spiritual Adoption Update Postcards, which can be sent every month with updates on the baby's growth and development and a reminder to keep praying.

A New Endeavor:

It began with Jane Austen.
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