Loyal Little Flowers

These ideas were developed by me for my local group and are not a part of the official Little Flowers Girls Club ® created by Rachel Watkins. To purchase the excellent materials and begin your own local group, please visit www.beholdpublications.com

This post is mostly for the benefit of all the girls who had to miss Friday's meeting (and received their materials in the mail), so no photos or file uploads (yet).

We had another great meeting! The parish where we normally meet was using all their meeting rooms, so we met at the home of one of the girls. Thanks for your generosity! It worked out really well, and the girls were thrilled to get to run around outside before and after the meeting and during snacktime!

Once I pulled them away from the great outdoors, we began in prayer. Instead of speaking right away to the girls about Loyalty, I decided to read them the story about St. Lucy in Sixty Saints for Girls, because I just love those stories SO much! We did talk about the many ways St. Lucy was loyal to her mother and to God.

We talked about to whom we can/should be loyal: friends, family, parents, siblings, schools, pets, religious communities, sports teams, stores, brand names, political candidates, Church, and most importantly God. We discussed what loyalty looks like, and I shared several examples of being loyal or disloyal. I shared how we have to choose carefully to whom or to what to be loyal, as we should not be loyal to those who do not deserve it. And, I tried to explain that being loyal does not mean we do not ever tell on another person. The girls seemed to understand that it is really important to tell an adult in certain circumstances, even if they were told not to do so by a friend or family member.

Then, I had the three rose groups go off to practice and then act out several stories from Bill Bennett's Book of Virtues and Moral Compass anthologies. A mom read the stories out loud for the youngest two groups as they performed, and the oldest group chose narrators to read their own. All groups chose to change the main character to girls instead of boys. :) The stories I chose were: "Hans the Shepherd Boy" (MC), "The Cap That Mother Made" (BoV), and "The Most Precious Thing" (MC). The oldest group had the last story, and they modified it to be two friends living together instead of husband and wife; it worked well!

I explained that our flower is the poppy and read the poem "In Flander's Field," and we talked about the loyalty of soldiers (more info here). This was in preparation for our craft, which we started after snack time. The girls made two poppies from Oriental Trading Company, which are very pretty when finished. On one flower, they put a note or drawing for a veteran to thank him/her for his/her service. I am going to mail these flowers to the VA hospital in town. (those of you who did the craft at home might want to pass along your extra poppies to a soldier or veteran in the family)

When the girls finished their craft, they immediately made their virtue pages (this was because during snack we moved tables into the main room for crafts). Then, we closed our meeting by singing the Scripture song, saying closing prayers, and distributing patches.

We only have one more meeting and then our end of wreath party! I cannot believe it has gone by so quickly! (but I'm pretty glad, as I have less and less energy these days!)

Wise Little Flowers

Now that I have changed our meeting schedule to get done before Baby is born, things are moving more quickly, and this post got lost in the shuffle. Finally, it is finished!


We had our meeting on Wisdom last Friday. After our typical opening prayers, I talked with the girls about the virtue. First, we remembered that Wisdom is part of Prudence, our last virtue, and the girls remembered that Prudence is about thinking wisely, deciding carefully, and acting appropriately. Wisdom is a huge part of the thinking part.


Some people confuse Wisdom with Knowledge, so to simplify it for the girls, we said Knowledge is facts about things and Wisdom is understanding about God and life. With Wisdom we must acknowledge that we can never know everything. We discussed having Wisdom without Knowledge versus having Knowledge without Wisdom. I gave the examples of St. Rose of Lima and Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha who were wise enough to follow a path to Heaven with no formal education.

These ideas were developed by me for my local group and are not a part of the official Little Flowers Girls Club ® created by Rachel Watkins. To purchase the excellent materials and begin your own local group, please visit www.beholdpublications.com

Wisdom is a gift from the Holy Spirit that we receive at Baptism, but like any gift, if we do not use it, it goes to waste. We can also gain Wisdom from the Bible, the Church, the saints, our parents, etc... I stressed to the girls that I want them to focus, for now, on gaining Wisdom from Scripture and from experience. To illustrate how we gain Wisdom from experience, I pulled out a hula hoop.


The girls all stood in a circle holding hands and had to pass the hula hoop all the way around the circle without using their hands. Most of them had never done this before, so it worked really well in demonstrating how the experience taught them something new they might be able to use again in the future. Indeed, many of the girls at the end of the circle had an easier time moving the hoop than those in the beginning.


I reminded the girls that we can only gain Wisdom if we are open to God's teaching. I held up a sponge and a rock and asked them which is the type of heart we need to be open to God and why. They clearly understood that we must be soft like the sponge and willing to learn. I explained that God often teaches us through other people, like our parents, so it is important to receive their instructions with a spongey heart!


Then, I read the girls this version of the "Very Wise King," King Solomon. I stressed that Solomon was open to learning from a tiny, insignificant bee. Holding up a silk iris, I explained that the purple iris has long been known as a symbol of wisdom. I also shared that the word Iris means "rainbow," which reminds me of God's covenant of love, His promise to always give us what we need, including Wisdom.


Our craft for the day was to make bookmarks, and I chose these beautiful ones from Oriental Trading Company at Jessica's suggestion. The mothers had to bend the wires for most of the girls, but the girls were very pleased with their creations. Knowing this would not take much time, I asked the girls in advance to bring a book or story that has taught them a lesson to share with their rose groups. So, as the girls finished stringing the beads and waited on the mothers to assemble the bookmarks, they talked about the books and stories they brought and what they learned from them.



After our snack break, we played a simplistic version of Jeopardy to see if the girls had grown in Wisdom regarding our Little Flowers virtues. I split the girls into two teams and had five questions that applied to the first four virtues we studied in this wreath: Mercy, Courage, Joy, Generosity. Each was worth a different amount of points. The teams chose the question, but I chose the virtue for which they would give the answer. Here were the questions and points offered:

What does the virtue mean? 100
Give an example of living the virtue. 200
Who is the saint for the virtue and why? 300
What is the flower for the virtue and why? 400
Sing the Scripture verse song for the virtue. 500

The girls had a lot of fun, and it was a very close game! When I split the teams, I made sure they had similar numbers of girls from all ages, and I specifically asked the older girls to be sure to include the younger ones. It was so cute to see the older ones whispering answers in the younger girls' ears to tell me!
Then, I shared with them about St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, also known as Edith Stein, the saint for Wisdom. I told them she was born in Germany of a Jewish family but became an atheist at age 13. I explained she was very intelligent and studied under many famous professors, receiving a doctorate in philosophy, and being well-known as an intellectual.


She became Catholic after reading St. Teresa of Avila's autobiography, which devastated her Jewish family. When the Nazis came to power in Germany, though, she was persecuted as a Jew, based on her heritage. She entered the Carmelite Monastery and was sent to Netherlands to avoid such persecution, but when the Germans occupied the Netherlands, she was arrested. They sent her to a concentration camp where she was sent to the gas chambers to die along with her sister, also a convert and Carmelite nun.


The girls then worked on their virtue pages. Since the color for this virtue is silver, I decided to use a white background and give them aluminum foil to add the silver. They turned out nicely.

We closed with our Scripture song and closing prayers, and then I distributed their patches from previous virtues along with their Patch Project Sheets and Practice Pages seen below (if you can't download these, let me know; Scribd has been acting funny). It always gives me such joy to see their pride in receiving the patches for spending time practicing the virtues.

Per the request of the official Little Flowers Girls Club ® I have removed the downloadable patch project sheets and practice pages. If you are interested in learning about how I used these documents in my group, please contact me directly.

Prudence for Little Flowers

These ideas were developed by me for my local group and are not a part of the official Little Flowers Girls Club ® created by Rachel Watkins. To purchase the excellent materials and begin your own local group, please visit www.beholdpublications.com

Our Little Flowers meeting on Prudence was Friday. It was enjoyable, as always! This time we shared lots of stories. I did not realize how many I had included in the plans until halfway through the meeting, but it didn't surprise me. I love a good story!

We opened with our usual prayers of an offering, a few spontaneous words, a Hail Mary, and the St. Therese song. Then, I spoke to the girls about Prudence. Initially, I thought this would have been really hard to explain to elementary-aged children, but I think it went pretty well.

I shared that prudence basically means choosing carefully the right thing to do. I mentioned it is a cardinal virtue, a gift given at Baptism, that we can use or lose as we grow up. Since our next virtue is Wisdom, I explained how Wisdom is a tool to help us be prudent. I named other tools and had the girls identify which were virtues we have already practiced in Little Flowers (obedience, love of God, truthfulness).

Then, I explained why I thought the African Violet was such a good choice to go with this virtue. None of the other virtues can be practiced without Prudence, and the African Violet is known as the world's most popular houseplant. So, Prudence must be present in our daily lives and watered every day, just like the flower!

Using the Little Flowers Leader's Manual, I identified the three parts of Prudence - think

carefully, decide wisely, and act accordingly. We held up three fingers and chanted: "Think! Decide! Act!" several times, so the girls could remember the steps. I asked them to then help me explain each part.

Think means look at the consequences of our actions. It is important to stop and think before acting. This is where we need to think about what Jesus would want us to do and ask either "What Would Jesus Do?" or "Will this help me as I seek eternal life?" Decide means make a choice. Sometimes this means being obedient to rules. Act means do what we decided. I gave a silly example about thinking about having chocolate cake for breakfast and deciding to have cereal instead but finally taking out the chocolate cake and eating it.

Next, I shared two stories with the girls, two of Jesus' parables that illustrate prudence. First, I used this object lesson to try to demonstrate the Parable of the Wise Man. I had a pan with a rock and a mound of sand, but my cup-houses were too big. So, the one built on rock kept tumbling off when it rained, and the one built on sand sunk into the sand instead of falling. We laughed, but the girls remembered the Bible story and correctly identified which man followed the three steps of Prudence.

Finally, I read the Parable of the Ten Virgins from The Parables of Jesus by Fr. Lovasik, and the girls again identified the three steps of Prudence. This story went along with our craft, so we moved on to making these Tissue Paper Votive Holders from Oriental Trading Company. They turned out so cute, with the older girls making elaborate patterns and the younger ones making collage-style ones. I gave each of them an unscented tea light to put inside, too!

Next, we played two versions of a common game. I had the girls sit in a circle, and we imagined we were taking a trip to Antarctica. Each girl had to make a prudent decision on something useful to take with us and name each of the previous girl's items as we went around. It was fun to see what they chose. My favorites were "ten pairs of pants" and "a tent with a heater." The second time around, we imagined we were going to the beach instead and each girl prudently chose something to take that started with the next letter of the alphabet as we went around the circle. These were simple but fun games that had the girls thinking about making good decisions.

Snack was next, and then we divided into our three rose groups based on age for a short discussion. Each group had a copy of these two (1 2) stories to read and discuss. I instructed the moms in each group to stop where it says WWJD and ask the girls what prudent decisions could be made in each situation. The youngest girls only did the first story. Afterwards, I pointed out that there are often more than one prudent choice, so we should not feel like there is always one answer.

We gathered back in our large group, so I could share about St. Angela Merici, the saint chosen for Prudence. Once again I used my wonderful Sixty saints for girls book by Joan Windham. These stories are SO wonderful! To keep the girls' attention I had made a few quick and easy felt board pieces that went along with the story. I printed images on card stock at home and stapled felt to the back of them. I am so glad I did this, because this was the fifth story the girls heard. You can see them below (although I have tried three times to upload this after rotating it - sorry for the neck strain!): young St. Angela, three headstones, hayfield, moon, ladder, and nun St. Angela.

To wrap up, the girls made their Prudence virtue pages to add to their collection. One of our families brought their collection of craft scissors that cut all kinds of fun edges, so most of the girls used those to spruce up their page. My sample below was made at home, and I forgot we even had some of those scissors! I'll have to pull them out for our next meeting.

As usual, we sang the Scripture song for Prudence, an easy, short one, and talked about our patch projects (you can download our idea sheets below). I had the girls who wanted to share tell us what they were sacrificing for Lent and reminded them that every time they make that sacrifice, they are practicing Prudence. Our closing prayers were the St. Therese prayer, intentions the girls wrote down, and asking for the intercession of the Wreath II saints. Finally, I distributed patches.

If you are a part of our group, please note that I have changed our meeting dates for the remainder of Wreath II, so check your email. With a baby coming the first week in June, I have planned to complete all of our virtues by the end of April and just have a party in May, which means meeting every 2-3 weeks instead of once a month.

Per the request of the official Little Flowers Girls Club ® I have removed the downloadable patch project sheets and practice pages. If you are interested in learning about how I used these documents in my group, please contact me directly.

Generosity in January

These ideas were developed by me for my local group and are not a part of the official Little Flowers Girls Club ® created by Rachel Watkins. To purchase the excellent materials and begin your own local group, please visit www.beholdpublications.com

We had our monthly Little Flowers Girls Club meeting on Friday, and as usual, it was filled with grace and joy! Our virtue for the month is Generosity, and here is what we did.

Of course, we opened with our usual prayers and song, and then I talked with the girls about Generosity. First, I posed this question: If I asked you right now to take off your shoes and donate them to the poor today, how many of you would do it and go home barefoot? With very serious, somber faces, pretty much every hand was raised. I had to smile at their commitment and then reassured them that we are not really going to do that, because I did not ask their parents' permission. I praised them for being so generous and asked if they like their shoes and how hard they would be to give up (for some easy, for some not so much).

The girls told me what Generosity is - giving of themselves and their things. We discussed ways they can be generous on a daily basis and then bigger ways they can be generous that do not happen every day. We compared when it is easy to be generous and when it is difficult and talked about how the more generous we are, just like all the virtues, the easier it becomes to be more generous.

Then, I asked them the opposite of Generosity. They answered selfishness (I had written down greed), so we went with their answer and talked about what it means to be selfish, giving several examples. We recounted examples from the Bible of Generosity and shared the story of the Widow's Mite.

Next, I asked if they know the story of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas and what happens at the end. We focused on how giving back the presents caused his heart to grow, just like being generous causes our hearts to grow. We were a bit silly with demonstrating how big our hearts could get!

There was a simple story from The Saints and Our Children by Mary Reed Newland that I read to them about St. Macarius the Younger and how he and his fellow monks demonstrated Generosity with a bowl full of grapes. Here is a link to read it online.

I also shared with them two rules about being truly generous. One is to give not just your excess but your best and to give until it hurts. I told them the story from the Little Flowers Leader's Guide about Mother Teresa who turned away a very rich man who wanted to donate a lot of money. Only when he returned offering an amount that truly hurt him did she accept his money. The other rule is not to expect anything in return. We gave examples like inviting someone to a party, even if you were not invited to theirs, and giving a gift and not expecting one from the other person.

Finally, I told them that the flower representing Generosity is the daisy. I shared that the daisy is a cheerful flower to remind us to be generous cheerfully and that the daisy spreads rapidly in the wild. One daisy can start a whole field of daisies just like one act of Generosity can remind someone else to be generous and so on.

Next, we made these simple and adorable Tissue Paper Daisies! I was SO thanking Oriental Trading for making this so easy that even the four-year-olds could do it! The flower is adhesive, so you just stick on the pre-cut tissue paper squares. So nice! We did hot glue the pipe cleaner stem to the back of each one when the girls were finished (or when we ran out of time) to allow them to take them home. Since the project kits come with To/From tags, I told the girls that this is a project they need to give away to another person to practice Generosity. Here is an unfinished one.

I had planned to do an activity about stewardship and time, treasure, and talent, but instead I decided to allow the girls to work longer on their daisies, since they were enjoying them so much, and it was taking them so long. So, after daisies, we had snack.

After snack, the girls got into their rose groups to play The Giving Game with M&Ms. I took the idea from this lesson (see the last page) and developed my own version. For ours, each girl started with ten M&Ms in a cup, and each group had a baggie of M&Ms and a set of cards. I used the following file and printed three pages for each group. Our game was timed (2 minutes for the first round, 3 minutes for the second one), and the goal of the game was to have the fewest number of M&Ms when the timer went off (or to run out completely).

The cards say things like "Take 2 M&Ms from another person." and "Give 4 M&Ms to another person." The girls decided from whom and to whom they took and gave. There are also cards that said "Take 3 M&Ms from the bag." which added to the fun. When the timer started, the girls took turns turning over cards and simply following directions. For the non-readers, a mom read the cards for each girl. This game was a hit! They had a great time and saw the joy in running out of M&Ms, especially as their generous group members shared some of their stash for the winner to eat!

After this, I gathered the girls to talk about our saint, St. Katharine Drexel. I first held up the Vision Book Saint Katharine Drexel: Friend of the Oppressed and encouraged the girls to ask their mothers for it. Great story! Then, I gave them a brief summary of her life, focusing on the following points: her wealth, how her parents modeled Generosity, founding an order of missionaries at the Pope's request, founding schools and missions for the poor, giving her own money and praying constantly for the poor. When I mentioned she was the fifth American citizen to become a saint, I had the girls name them all. Can you? The only one they did not get was St. Rose Philippine Duchesne, so I invited them to look into her life.

Going back to our tables, the girls completed their virtue pages. These are going very quickly now, which is perfect for the end of our meetings. You can see a sample below of the quotes I chose. The only glitch we had was that apparently my computer did not print out enough St. Katharine Drexel graphics, so I had to email it to the girls to print and attach at home.

Finally, we gathered to learn the Scripture song for Generosity, say our usual closing prayers (with the girls adding several intentions about the tragedy in Haiti), and distribute patches. This meeting was a simple one, not too full, and I am glad it seemed so leisurely to me, at least. Next month, we will focus on Prudence, which I think will be harder to teach than Generosity. Below are the Practice Page and Patch Project Sheet for those who are interested.

Per the request of the official Little Flowers Girls Club ® I have removed the downloadable patch project sheets and practice pages. If you are interested in learning about how I used these documents in my group, please contact me directly.

Joy at Christmas

These ideas were developed by me for my local group and are not a part of the official Little Flowers Girls Club ® created by Rachel Watkins. To purchase the excellent materials and begin your own local group, please visit www.beholdpublications.com

I had truly hoped this would be posted sooner, despite the busy-ness of the holidays. Oh well. In December, our Little Flowers Girls Club met to discuss the virtue of JOY! This was so appropriate as we approached Christmas and completed our Advents of prayer and preparation. So, here is my very detailed description of our meeting for those who missed it or those who just really want to know!

What a miserable rainy day it was! We had heavy thunderstorms all day long with some flooding, even a tornado warning in the morning. Because the forecast looked like things would settle down for the afternoon, though, I decided not to cancel the meeting. A few moms called me, doubtful they would be able to get their cars out of their driveways or down their streets, but all were safe, and our meeting went well.

After our usual opening prayers (offering, spontaneous prayer, Hail Mary, St. Therese Song), we began to talk about this virtue of joy. I chose to use the whiteboard this day to illustrate a few things, so I wrote JOY in large letters at the top. The girls shared with me their thoughts on joy and then I shared my thoughts on the differences between happiness (usually based on material things or experiences) and joy (a much deeper feeling). We also briefly touched on mirthfulness, since the manual uses that word. I kept that simple, explaining that mirth is like having a positive attitude and being of good humor.

Then, I went back to the large letters at the top and told them that I had learned a secret to how to live the virtue of joy your entire life. We discussed how joy, like any virtue, is a gift from God and that for the gift to grow, we have to practice using it. Writing "esus" under the J, "thers" under the O, and "ourselves" under the Y, I shared that the secret to practicing joy lies in remembering these three things in order. First, we live for Jesus. Second, we live for others. Last, we live for ourselves. I had the girls recite "Jesus, Others, Yourself" several times to remember this unique acronym.

To get the girls moving, I invited them to imitate "If You're Happy and You Know It" and clap their hands if the things I said made them happy. My ideas included ice cream, candy, vegetables, new toys, spiders, sharks, funny movies, playing games, etc... Then, I told them there is an old saying about jumping for joy and asked them to jump if the things I said gave them joy. My ideas included new babies, family times, funerals, the Eucharist, getting lost, Jesus, etc...

By the end everyone was laughing and smiling, so I used the opportunity to ask the girls if laughing and smiling always indicate joy. We talked about how these can be outward signs of joy, but sometimes people laugh or smile at material things (or bad jokes) even when deep down they are not full of the joy that comes from God. I mentioned briefly the Ecclesiastes verse regarding a time to weep and a time to laugh to illustrate that sometimes, even when we may be very joyful, it is not an appropriate time to laugh, especially loudly (such as at funerals or in the middle of Mass).

Finally, we talked about whether it was possible to be joyful even during hard times in our lives. We discussed that one does not have to be rich to have joy and that even a homeless person might have true joy. I reminded them that many of the saints have found joy in mundane tasks or difficult circumstances, like St. Therese and Bl. Teresa of Calcutta. I also told them the flower for joy is a tulip, because tulips are found in the spring when everything is fresh and new and inspires great joy!

Our craft was simply to color this adorable nativity scene below with markers. As you can see, most of the girls did not finish, but I was glad this would give them an opportunity to pull out their posters the last week of Advent to remind them of our meeting and the joy of Christmas.

Before snack, I wanted to let the girls work up a bit of an appetite and move around. I taught them the song "I've God the Joy" and motions to go with it. Here are the lyrics and my motions are below. This mommy was worn out from all the up and down and spinning!

I've got the --- point to self
joy, joy, joy, joy --- clap four times
down --- squat to ground
in my heart --- stand up, hold heart
(where?) --- shrug shoulders with arms extended in questioning
down --- squat to ground
in my heart --- stand up, hold heart
(where?) --- shrug shoulders with arms extended in questioning
down --- squat to ground
in my heart --- stand up, hold heart
I've got the --- point to self
joy, joy, joy, joy --- clap four times
down --- squat to ground
in my heart --- stand up, hold heart
(where?) --- shrug shoulders with arms extended in questioning
down --- squat to ground
in my heart to stay --- stand up, hold heart

And I'm so happy, so very happy. --- twirl with a partner, linking arms
I've got the love of Jesus in my heart. --- switch partners, twirl
And I'm so happy, so very happy. --- switch partners, twirl
I've got the love of Jesus in my heart. --- switch partners, twirl

We all needed snack after that and were blessed by a special treat of cupcakes for our holiday meeting. Then, we sat down and talked about St. Clare. I read the first part of the story of St. Clare from my beloved worn copy of Sixty Saints for Girls by Joan Windham inserting the word joy wherever it was appropriate. We discussed how Clare had such a deep joy that giving up all her riches and struggling to lead her sisters did not discourage her. I also read this amazing story about St. Francis, reminding the girls that it was St. Francis who taught St. Clare, and so his explanation of perfect joy was her understanding of the virtue. This sparked some wonderful discussions on having joy in miserable situations, both those the girls encounter in daily life and more devastating trials.

I asked the girls to tell me how we can make sure we stay joyful even when life gets difficult, and they remembered Jesus-Others-Yourself. Then, I told them I had one more secret to share with them that day, the key to staying joyful. This is modeled after this game I found online. The girls lined up in two lines facing each other and stood about five large steps apart. I gave each of the girls in one line a Hershey kiss (for the holidays). They threw the kiss to the girl across from them. Not very many were able to catch the kisses, chasing them to pick them up, and I asked them how easy it was to catch that sweet treat being so far apart. Of course, they said it was not easy, so I told them to take one giant step towards each other. Then, the girls threw the kiss again. This time I had them raise their hands if they caught the kiss and only about half of the girls did. So, I told them to take another giant step towards each other. At this time, they were only about a step apart. They threw the kiss one last time, and pretty much everyone caught it.

I reminded them how much easier it is to receive something sweet the closer you are to the one giving it. I told them the kiss was to represent the sweet virtue of joy and asked them from whom we get joy. Since God was the answer, my next question was to ask them how they can stay close to God, so it would be easier for them to be joyful at all times. The girls had many wonderful answers from going to Mass to helping the poor to saying prayers. I was impressed how the Holy Spirit took this simple, quick game and made it a very meaningful object lesson. And, yes, at the end I gave all the girls kisses to eat and put a few more handfuls on the tables to eat during our next activity.

While enjoying those sweets, the girls completed their virtue pages on joy. You can see the quotes and images I chose to include below. Now that the girls have done several of these, they are getting quite creative and beautiful.

As the girls were finishing their pages, the electricity went out in the church where we were meeting. This caused a bit of excitement and worry among the girls, but fortunately, the room we were in has excellent emergency lighting. The light was dim, but we were not in the dark. Our biggest difficulty was having to sing the Scripture song without the accompanying CD. I had to call on other moms to help, as I am not confident in my ability to teach a tune.

All ended well, after we sang the Scripture song, we said our closing prayers (St. Therese Prayer, intentions from the girls, asking the saints of this wreath to pray for us), and I distributed patches for Mercy and Courage to those girls who completed their patch projects. Most girls did not get to finish Courage due to the busy Advent season. They took home their Patch Project Sheets and Practice Pages, which you can see below. Some families are really enjoying the Practice Pages and some are not using them, which is great! I wanted to add them as an optional component this year and am glad it seems no one feels pressured to add them where it would be too much for their family and/or daughter(s).

Also, as they were leaving one of the moms had brought goody bags for the girls to take home for Christmas, and I gave each girl this ornament pictured below wrapped for them to open whenever they wanted and hang on their Christmas tree, as the perfect reminder from where true joy comes!

Per the request of the official Little Flowers Girls Club ® I have removed the downloadable patch project sheets and practice pages. If you are interested in learning about how I used these documents in my group, please contact me directly.

Courage ~ Little Flowers Girls Club Meeting!

These ideas were developed by me for my local group and are not a part of the official Little Flowers Girls Club ® created by Rachel Watkins. To purchase the excellent materials and begin your own local group, please visit www.beholdpublications.com

What fun we had at our November meeting! I am posting the notes a week later than I hoped, but Thanksgiving week was a bit rough around here. Our virtue for November was Courage, and we learned about Blessed Margaret Pole. Here is what we did...

As usual, we gathered for prayers and began with our offering, my spontaneous prayers, and a Hail Mary. I had forgotten the song sheets, so we skipped our St. Therese Song to my dismay. Then, I went right into presenting the virtue.

I asked the girls what courage means. We talked about some ways you can show courage and some people they know who show courage. I reminded them that courage is NOT about just being different but in choosing to do the right thing. We talked for a few minutes about people who make difficult choices that are the wrong choices, and how those people are not courageous.

Then, I told them the story of David and Goliath from the Bible to remind them how we can have courage. I had found these three (1 2 3) songs written by Steve Case and read them like a very long poem to tell the story of David. This was great, because it kept the girls' attention, as every once in a while, I paused and let them guess the missing rhyming word! I stressed how David took five stones but only had to use one, because he knew God was on his side. We also discussed how David was probably afraid of Goliath (and should have been) but faced him anyway. I wanted the girls to understand that we should be afraid of some things and that there are some fears we should face with courage.

Next, I asked the girls to share specific examples of when they showed courage. This was wonderful. I reminded them that it takes courage to be yourself and to be the Christian God created you to be. We talked about how their families are courageous for homeschooling and being devoted to their Catholic faith, because sometimes it's not easy to do these things. But, of course, it is the right thing to do. I also reminded the girls that the way to grow in any virtue is to practice that virtue, so they must find ways to be courageous in order to be stronger.

The flower for this virtue is the yucca flower. It is mentioned that the yucca plant is one of the hardiest plants that blooms and grows in desert climates. Just like courage that grows under difficult situations, the yucca flower blossoms without much water and under a very hot sun.

Next, we went to the craft tables and made our craft of David's Bag of Stones. For this, I bought these simple canvas bags at Oriental Trading Company. We decorated the bags with fabric markers and fabric paints and then put five neutral colored pom-poms in the bags. I encouraged the girls to write courage or draw something that would remind them of David relying on God to be courageous, so they would remember the meaning even when the pom-poms are gone. I thought these turned out really cute!

Next, the girls went with a mom to their small rose groups to different corners of the room. They were each given a piece of scrap paper and something with which to write. Each girl was told to write or draw all the things of which they are fearful. After the girls were all done writing or drawing, they crumpled up their papers all as a group and said "God is with me!" to remind them to conquer their fears. I had taped up the face of a giant very high on the wall to represent Goliath. So, then, they took turns throwing the crumpled fears at Goliath's head to see if they could hit him, also saying "God is with me!" as they threw the paper. This was simple, but the girls really seemed to enjoy it.

We took a snack break next. Then, we played my improvised version of Marco Polo. I took three girls, one from each rose group and had them start with their eyes closed as the Marcos, but their job was to say, "God is..." The rest of the girls (Polos) had to say, "with me!" as they tried to stay away from the Marcos. When a "God is..." tagged a "with me!" the "with me!" had to close her eyes and become a "God is..." until everyone was caught. I also turned off half of the lights to remind them not to be afraid when they cannot see. This was a hit! The girls really seemed to have fun with this simple game!

Next, we sat down again and talked about Blessed Margaret Pole. First I explained why she is not called Saint Margaret Pole, since she lived a life of virtue and was a martyr but no miracles are necessarily attributed to her intercession. I explained about her noble history, growing up in a castle and such and being related to kings and queens. She married Sir Richard Pole, which made her Lady Pole, and she became a lady in waiting to Queen Catherine and later the governess to Princess Mary Tudor.

Some of the girls were familiar with the concept that King Henry VIII did not like Catholics, but I only briefly mentioned it was because he wanted to marry another woman, saying that he wanted to be more important than the Pope. We talked more about how he started killing the Catholics and imprisoned Blessed Margaret, eventually having her beheaded as an old woman. I stressed that she was known as a very virtuous woman and prayed for her murderers before her death. We agreed that all the martyrs showed great courage.

The girls returned to the tables to make their Courage virtue pages. This went much more smoothly than last time, except for two glitches on my part. I had one too many quotes to fit on the page, so some girls just left them off or put them on the back. Also, some generous moms make my copies for me after I email them the files, and the font I used for the word Courage came out as nonsense. So, we gave the girls blank white paper to write courage and helped the littlest ones write theirs. It worked.

Finally, we gathered to sing the Scripture song for courage and close in prayer. We all prayed the St. Therese Prayer, and I read the girls' prayer intentions, including an adorable one about the "pig flu," that made us all giggle. We asked our saint friends to intercede for us, and then, I passed out Mercy patches to those girls who had turned in their patch project sheets at the beginning of the meeting. As they left, the received the patch project sheet and practice page for Courage.

Our next meeting in December will be on Joy, a perfect virtue to discuss as we approach Christmas!

Per the request of the official Little Flowers Girls Club ® I have removed the downloadable patch project sheets and practice pages. If you are interested in learning about how I used these documents in my group, please contact me directly.

Mercy ~ Our First Wreath II Meeting!

These ideas were developed by me for my local group and are not a part of the official Little Flowers Girls Club ® created by Rachel Watkins. To purchase the excellent materials and begin your own local group, please visit www.beholdpublications.com

What a joy it was to begin a new year of our Little Flowers Girls Club last Friday with so many enthusiastic girls! We are doing several things differently this year to give things a fresh start and make them more manageable for me. Most significantly, we are only meeting once a month instead of twice a month. This means our meetings are longer and more packed, since we only get to learn about each virtue at one meeting.

Friday's meeting was on the virtue of Mercy. This year I have 26 girls registered, which is delightfully different than the 47 I had last year. Part of this is due to a group being formed of girls who used to drive quite a distance to attend our meetings; they will start this week with seven girls. We are meeting at one of the local parishes which is especially supportive of our homeschooling group, 1-4PM.

Our meeting began with lots of buzz as the girls arrived and received their nametags. We only had one new girl at this meeting, and several families were sick. I believe 8 girls were missing. I had a lot of supplies to organize for this meeting, so I was busy with that! Finally, though, we began in prayer. To demonstrate some consistency from last year, I began with the same daily offering as before, added a few spontaneous words applicable to our meeting topic, and we all prayed a Haily Mary. Then, we sang the Little Flower song that is on the Little Flowers CD, having learned it at our end-of-wreath-one party a few weeks ago; I had handouts with the words.

The offering is:

Mary, holy Mother of God, our dear guardian angels, blessed saints of God, and especially you, St. Therese, take us under your protection this day, pray for us, and defend us from all dangers. Through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Then, I invited the girls to get excited that our meetings are going to be longer this year (although less frequent) and reminded them it will be extra important to participate fully and give me their attention from the beginning all the way to the end of the meeting. With slightly skeptical faces, they assured me they would. I retaught our chant, which is what I use to get their attention when they are otherwise occupied. I say, "God is good!" They respond, "All the time!" I say, "All the time!" They respond, "God is good!" The key to this is that as soon as the chant ends, their mouths are closed, and their eyes and ears are on me.

I told them that is basically our only real rule for our meetings besides some other things we might want to practice, like loving our neighbor, humility, industry, etc... We went through all nine virtues from last year, and I told them I expected them to practice these virtues at our meetings, starting with love of neighbor. So, to get the girls moving, we played the popular game from last year - Do You Love Your Neighbor?

This is where the girls all sit in a circle (we had chairs this time) with one less chair than there are girls. One girl is in the center. She says, "Hi, my name is N." Everyone responds, "Hi, N. Do you love your neighbor?" She responds, "Yes, especially those..." and inserts a descriptive phrase about something some of the girls are wearing or how they look (i.e. wearing sandals, with brown hair). Everyone who fits that description must get up and find a different chair, including the girl in the middle. Usually, a new girl ends up in the center, and we start all over again. I like this game, because no one loses and we learn names.

Then, we sat down and talked about mercy. I kept my presentation relatively short, knowing we had a lot to do. First, we talked about God's mercy, how He showed us mercy in the Bible, and how He shows us mercy in our lives, and in Confession (although thinking back, I may have been distracted and forgotten to mention Confession, oops). Then, I explained how our practice of mercy is imitation of God's mercy, and that mercy is more than just forgiveness. It is generosity and compassion, too, overflowing and given when not expected. The girls kept focusing on forgiveness, so I hope they will remember mercy goes deeper than "I forgive you."

I asked them to whom we should show mercy. We decided we must show mercy to our family, our friends, our extended family, and sometimes even strangers. At that, I reminded them briefly of the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy we discussed last year for Love of Neighbor. I pulled out my booklet and read through some of them to help them remember, and most of them seemed to remember at least a few works of mercy. Hooray!

Next, I made an impulsive move to do our hardest craft first instead of last. Good change! I shared with them that the Lily is the flower for mercy, because we usually see lilies at Easter, when God showed us the greatest act of mercy by dying and rising for us. Lilies are often cream-colored, so I told them cream is the color for mercy today (but that we were going to make white lilies).

Our craft was to make handprint lilies based on this craft idea from Enchanted Learning. Instead of paper, though, we used craft foam to make them a bit sturdier. We also added a yellow pipe cleaner cut in half and folded in half for the stamen. So, here were our steps:

1. Trace your hand on a half sheet of white foam with a pencil.


2. Cut out the handprint.


3. Fold a half of a yellow pipe cleaner in half and twist it around the end of a green pipe cleaner.


4. With a big glob of glue, glue the pipe cleaners where they meet to the bottom edge of the hand. Affix with a paperclip if needed until dry.


5. Roll the hand like a cone, so the pinky finger and thumb overlap. Glue them together. Affix with a paperclip if needed until dry.

The most amusing part of this craft was how different the four-year-olds' lilies looked compared to the nine-year-olds'! So sweet! Pictured are mine, my 7 year-old's, and my 4-year old's. Ours took overnight to dry, so I was glad we did them first. It allowed them some time to sit before they were transported home. Our littlest girls really needed help tracing their hands and cutting out the fingers. I was grateful one of the mothers donated plastic tablecloths to cover the tables and protect them from glue; we will reuse them at each meeting this year!

Next, I had the girls go into small groups to discuss mercy a bit more. Last year, we did this activity using M&Ms; this year, Skittles were on sale! Each small group went to a different corner of the room with a mom. Each girl started with two Skittles and answered the questions according to which colors she had. Once the girls answered their questions, they got to eat their Skittles. Here were the "questions" I used:
Purple – Name one of the spiritual or corporal works of mercy.

Green – Name a way you can show mercy to strangers.

Yellow – Name a way you can show mercy to friends.

Orange – Name a way you can show mercy in your home.

Red – Name a way God has shown us mercy in the Bible or in our lives.

As I wandered the room, these discussions were precious. I love hearing the girls come up with their own ideas, and the mothers do such a great job of letting the Holy Spirit guide the conversation! When they were done, we took a snack break, having teased their appetites with only a few Skittles each. Our moms take turns signing up to bring drinks or snacks each time, and this is a great time for the girls to relax, chat, and play.

Next, we gathered back in our circle to discuss our next activity. This year, I am having the girls make virtue pages like Jessica's at Shower of Roses. I used most of her content but changed fonts and colors a bit to save on color ink. Once I explained the plan, I sent the girls to the craft tables. This day, we made a cover sheet and the Mercy page. The girls absolutely need glue sticks for this. Many of them only had white glue, and it got pretty messy.

Anyway, the cover sheet was a pastel color of their choice with the words Little Flowers Girls Club in fancy font, a picture of St. Therese, and their names. Some decorated with markers, too. The Mercy page was on cream construction paper cut to standard paper size with a picture of St. Faustina receiving the Divine Mercy image and a lily in color. All the text was in black. The older girls cut their items fancy or decorated, while the little ones kept it simple. They are all beautiful!

I gave the girls a plastic report cover, with the sliding binding, in which to put the two pages when they were finished. I had originally thought about going with something sturdier, but most other options cost too much. Plus, I have a huge box of these in case any get damaged, lost, or broken. Then, I passed out their Member's Guides to color St. Faustina. I had the idea to let them listen to the St. Faustina Glory Story while doing this, but even though they were obedient in working quietly, the general noise of cutting and gluing in a large room made it hard to hear. We reviewed the whole story afterwards, since some of the girls had heard it before.


I wanted to do one more game that specifically referred to mercy in some way at the end. I think the game made its point but wasn't one of our most fun. From here we played the Goodness and Mercy Will Follow Me game (scroll way down) as we recited Psalm 23:6. Because of limited time and space, I had the girls take turns and not everyone got a turn. I need to find a way for us to go outside without interacting with the schoolchildren there (that's why we're supposed to stay inside). Oh, and I mistakenly only gave the girls two footprints each, so it was harder. Regardless, it was another way to drive mercy into their minds!


Finally, we gathered to sing our Scripture song. I print the words out in advance and tape them to a big poster, so we can all sing with the CD. The little ones can't read, but surprisingly, many of them pick it up. Then, I had the girls sit and listen to my explanation of the two handouts we are using this year. The first is the Patch Project Sheet, just like last year. I feel like the activities in the member's guide are limiting, so I try to include an additional page of ideas for the girls. The girls were very excited to hear that I would be passing out patches at the end of each meeting this year. I reminded them that they do not have to get their project done by the next meeting; that is up to each girl and her parents. With such busy lives, I do not feel deadlines help the girls or their families. Additionally, there are some virtues which take longer to understand or practice. If one of the girls wants to do a big project that takes longer, she should have the time.

Also, this year I am giving the girls a second sheet each month. It is the Virtue Practice Sheet. This one has a few limited ideas on how to practice mercy on a daily basis in simple ways and a picture of a bare bush. The idea is the girls will hang this in their home and for the next month will add a flower to the bush every time they practice mercy. They can draw the flowers or use stickers. I hope this will reinforce the lesson throughout the month, since we will not discuss mercy again as a group for an entire meeting.

Our closing prayer was like last year. This time, I printed and taped the words to the St. Therese Prayer from the Member's Guide on a poster, so we could all say it. Many of the girls know it just from saying it at each meeting. Then, I read the intention list the girls where the girls wrote their intentions throughout the meeting. During the Skittles game, I took the clipboard to each small group to remind them to do this. Their intentions are always so precious! We always close by asking our friends St. Therese and the saints for this wreath, St. Faustina, to pray for us!
Next month is Courage!

Per the request of the official Little Flowers Girls Club ® I have removed the downloadable patch project sheets and practice pages. If you are interested in learning about how I used these documents in my group, please contact me directly.

Little Flowers Meeting - Piety #2

These ideas were developed by me for my local group and are not a part of the official Little Flowers Girls Club ® created by Rachel Watkins. To purchase the excellent materials and begin your own local group, please visit www.beholdpublications.com

This post is late again. As you can see, I am re-evaluating my blogging time, so this got pushed to back burner. On June 26 we had another Little Flowers meeting about Piety. Here is what we did.

As always, we gathered and began in prayer. I was running late, so the gathering happened before I got there, actually. It was bound to happen sometime, I guess! Our opening prayers always consist of an offering and spontaneous prayer that I say and a Hail Mary and song the girls pray. We are still using the virtues song I made up to the tune of "Mary Had a Little Lamb:"

I want to grow in virtue,
Virtue, virtue.
I want to grow in virtue,
Because I love you, God.

I love you, Lord, with all my heart,
All my soul, all my mind.
I love my neighbor as myself.
And obey my mom and dad.

I want to grow in virtue,
Virtue, virtue.
I want to grow in virtue,
Because I love you, God.

Then, I gathered the girls for a brief presentation. It is interesting to me that the girls are more fidgety at our summer meetings indoors than they were at our outdoor meetings previously. Maybe I am different; maybe it is just the girls, since there are fewer. Anyway, I invited the girls to tell me what they remember about piety. I reminded them that piety is something we do all the time in many different ways.

Next, I divided the girls into groups based on birthday months, so we would have mixed ages in each group. Each group got a large piece of banner paper and a marker. I asked them to write P-I-E-T-Y down the side of the paper and write something, a word or phrase, for each letter of our virtue that demonstrated that virtue, like an acrostic. For example, "P" could be for "Prayer", "I" could be "I go to Mass," etc...

When the girls finished this, I collected their banners and read them aloud to the whole group. This worked well, I thought, because it had the girls internalize some of the ways they can live the virtue of piety. It was simple, too! I wanted it to be something we could do quickly to prevent me from talking too long this time! :)

For our craft, we made Piety Bookmarks. I bought these kits from Oriental Trading Company, because they included a lot of stick-on foam shapes and letters.

However, we substituted the pastel ribbons they provided with ribbons of the colors of piety from the Little Flowers manual. They are:

Celestial blue – fervor in prayer
Rosy red – zeal in hearing Mass
Bright gold – practice of frequently raising the heart to God
Verdant green – sanctification of Sunday
White – fervor with obligations as a member of pious groups & associations
Scarlet – works of charity
Violet (the fundamental color) – renunciations, self-denial, self-conquest

Of course, I read these aloud to the girls before we started the bookmarks, and I explained each one by giving examples. They glued a small label to one side of their bookmark which I had printed out of the above colors and what they represent.

While the girls worked on their bookmarks, with help from the other moms, I snuck out to see about Adoration. Our parish usually has Adoration all day on Fridays, but our pastor has been ill. So, I was not sure if there was Adoration and how many people were in there. It was my hope that I could take the girls on a brief visit, since that would go well with the virtue of Piety.

It was pouring rain! I mean torrential downpour here, so I was skeptical about how it would all work out. My daughter went with me to check the church, and she slid across the wet tile walkways several times. But, when we went inside of the church, the Eucharist was in the monstrance on the altar, as I had hoped, and we noted there were only two women there, both sitting on the right side of the church. To me, this meant we would all sit on the left side, which was perfect.

Back in our classroom, the girls were finishing up their bookmarks, so we cleaned up those materials. Then, I explained to them that we were going to make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament in Adoration to ask the Lord for the graces to grow in virtue, specifically piety. I reminded them how important it is to be still and silent in Adoration to both honor God in the Eucharist and not disturb others who are praying. I told them the plan was for me to lead them in and kneel at the front, so they could see when I was ready to leave.

Before leaving, we did our closing prayers in the classroom, because I knew our little field trip would make it difficult to get their attention afterwards. Our closing prayers are always everybody trying to say the St. Therese prayer from the Little Flowers manual, me reading the intentions the girls write on our list before the meeting each week, and all of us asking our saint friends whom we have learned about this wreath to pray for us.

We managed to get to the church with no one slipping too badly, although we did get a tiny bit wet crossing the driveway. I reminded the girls we should let nothing deter us from spending time in prayer! Once we got into the church, I led them to the front, pointing for them to sit in the pews on the left. I went up to the altar rail and knelt there. What was first remarkable was that one by one the girls began to join me on the rail until the entire rail was full. Then, a few more came and knelt on the ground just behind the others. It was beautiful! I had my cell phone with me to watch the time, and we stayed for exactly five minutes.

The girls were perfectly silent and visibly prayerful. Praise God for the opportunity! I was actually astounded they were so attentive to Jesus in the Eucharist, not seeming to play or fidget at all. With around 20 girls ages 4-11, I was not sure how they would do, but their reverence inspired me tremendously. The entire time I praised the Lord for the opportunity to present these girls to Him.

Getting back to the classroom to collect our things before leaving was another story. It had rained so much that there was a constant bucketful of water pouring down the covered ramp up to the church entrance. I do not know if there was a hole in the roof or what, but it was impassible. So, I ran back to the classroom through the rain to get umbrellas, and we ferried the girls two and three at a time across the parking lot with three umbrellas. What an adventure!

Next time (this Friday) we are going to start the virtue of Humility!

Per the request of the official Little Flowers Girls Club ® I have removed the downloadable patch project sheets and practice pages. If you are interested in learning about how I used these documents in my group, please contact me directly.

Little Flowers - Piety Part I

These ideas were developed by me for my local group and are not a part of the official Little Flowers Girls Club ® created by Rachel Watkins. To purchase the excellent materials and begin your own local group, please visit www.beholdpublications.com

A week ago Friday, we did have a Little Flowers meeting. Sorry to those of you who wanted to see this post earlier. I am trying to find a balance in the use of my online time, but it is still a work-in-progress.

We met inside at our parish this time, as we will for the rest of the summer, and we moved the meetings to the mornings, since most families are not schooling full-time in the summer. Plus, due to the before-lunch meeting time, we are not doing snack during the meeting, so we have shortened the meeting from two hours to one and a half hours. With these changes, this past Friday's meeting seemed to fly by...in a very good way! I was not nearly as exhausted as I usually am at the end of our afternoon meetings.

First, I thought we needed a new opening song to enjoy during the summer, so I came up with this little number:

Virtues
(Tune: Mary Had a Little Lamb)

I want to grow in virtue,
Virtue, virtue.
I want to grow in virtue,
Because I love you, God.

I love you, Lord, with all my heart,
All my soul, all my mind.
I love my neighbor as myself.
And obey my mom and dad.

I want to grow in virtue,
Virtue, virtue.
I want to grow in virtue,
Because I love you, God.

I modified a song I found in a book that was given to me a few years ago called Teach It - Early Childhood . It was verse two from "Law of Love" in that book that got me started. As usual, I prayed an offering and spontaneous prayer, followed by a group Hail Mary and the new song.

I was determined to keep the girls moving, since we were indoors. We began standing around our prayer table at one end of the rectangular classroom and then moved to sitting in chairs at the other end of the classroom for my teaching presentation. Piety was the new virtue with St. Cecelia as the saint and Forget-Me-Nots as the flower.

To begin, I wrote Piety on the white board (so glad to have a board!) and drew a lousy picture of a pie. I know it was lousy, because no one else knew what it was until I underlined the Pie in Piety. The rest of the family can draw anything; I can only copy pretty well. Anyway, I proceeded to act really giddy and say, "Great! We get to talk about pie today! Do you think we will eat any? What is your favorite kind of pie? Mine is chocolate meringue!" They looked at me very oddly, but my point was made.

Some of the girls tried to give me an explanation of piety, and they did a pretty good job. Here is the definition I gave them - "Piety is being obedient to your role in life; it is the fidelity or devotion to natural duties." We talked about how some people think piety means praying all the time, and I asked them if they thought I would be pious if I read my Bible all day long, ignoring my children completely and not doing laundry or cooking meals or anything. Of course, they were appalled I would even consider such a thing, especially my daughter, whose expression here was priceless!

We talked about all the different devotions and prayers our families practice and some that we have heard of but do not know much about - Rosary, Sacred Heart, scapulars, prayer cards, holy water, Mass, etc... I stressed that these things are all important but that being prayerful is more important than saying prayers. Piety means doing everything you have to do as a service done to God and practice our devotions with a heart of love within. (Here I reminded them of the hardened heart and the gentle heart, like in obedience with the cooked and raw eggs.)

I explained that since piety is something that encompasses our whole lives and every moment of the day, the Forget Me Not flower is appropriate, so that we are reminded constantly not to forget God in everything that we do! Then, I read to them a story about St. Cecelia from
Sixty Saints for Girls by Joan Windham. The story was longer when I read it aloud compared to when I read it at home, but it was the best living story about St. Cecelia I could find that was appropriate for all ages, although it does mention briefly that they tried to chop her head off three times and failed (I rushed through that part but still saw some cringes.).


If you do not know, Cecelia took a vow of virginity but was obligated to be married. On her wedding night, she told her husband that her angel was a constant guardian over her body, so she could not consummate the marriage. He was so angry, being an atheist, that he was determined to become a Christian, just so he could see the angel. He became a Christian, and they worked together to convert others. But, you can see this story would be difficult to tell to young children. The Windham version of the story simply talks about the angel that her husband cannot see and wants to see, skipping the references to her virginity and body.


After that long tale, which is quite hilarious at parts, I quickly moved the girls into their rose groups to begin the craft. For the summer, I did decide to adjust the groups based on birthdays. In January, groups were set up based on the age each girl would be by May 31. This time I did it based on September 30, since we will start a new wreath in October. A few girls were moved up to the next group, which balanced the groups nicely. (Aimee Vibert roses are 4 & 5. Duchesse de Montebello roses are 6 & 7. Salet roses are 8 & 9. Louis Philippe roses are 10 & 11.)



This was the craft, thanks to Oriental Trading Company! Who would have thought they had a Catholic craft? It was simple, and the girls enjoyed it! I brought printed pictures of St. Cecelia for them to put inside the boxes, as well, to remind them to say their Rosaries piously.


For the activity, in honor of St. Cecelia, I taught the girls a song. I had actually printed out song sheets previously for several songs, so we could choose a couple, but the time was so tight, we just did one. This is the song I taught them, which they enjoyed. It is meant to be sung faster and faster as you repeat it over and over. I do not sing well, nor play an instrument, so this worked well, although I had brought CD accompaniment for the other three songs on the sheet.

I am a C

I am a C
I am a C-H
I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N
And I have C-H-R-I-S-T in my H-E-A-R-T
And I will L-I-V-E E-T-E-R-N-A-L-L-Y

Finally, we learned the new scripture song for piety from the Little Flowers CD. I always print out the words in size 60+ font and tape them to a colored posterboard and hold it up for the girls to follow as they sing. Only the littlest ones cannot read.
Our closing prayers are always the St. Therese prayer, reading the intention list the girls write on before and during the meeting, and reciting a short litany of all of the saints we have met in this wreath, so far. Then, we passed out the St. Cecelia coloring page and the project sheet for piety. This is what the project sheet looks like.

This particular meeting was simple and fun, which worked well to get the summer started. We had a few new families join us, as well, so I wanted them to feel included right away. I gave those girls their folders and bags and passed out the St. Therese medals for them to pin on their sashes just before closing prayers.

Per the request of the official Little Flowers Girls Club ® I have removed the downloadable patch project sheets and practice pages. If you are interested in learning about how I used these documents in my group, please contact me directly.

The Big O - Obedience

These ideas were developed by me for my local group and are not a part of the official Little Flowers Girls Club ® created by Rachel Watkins. To purchase the excellent materials and begin your own local group, please visit www.beholdpublications.com

I am a bit behind on finishing a bunch of in-the-works posts, so I am sorry that this is so late.

We had another meeting on Friday, which was great! The girls continue to inspire me with their enthusiasm for God and willingness to learn. This meeting was a big one, because we began the virtue of Obedience. Much anticipation has led to this virtue study (at least from the mothers)!

It rained in the morning, but fortunately, it cleared up just long enough for us to meet in the park pavilion again. We're doing that just one more time this month, and then we will switch to our indoor, and air-conditioned, parish hall for the summer!

Beginning our meetings in prayer always sets the tone...for me and the girls. I noted this week how the opening prayers are always very informal and done with a little chatting on the sides by girls and/or mothers but are also always very sincere. It made me smile, since this is the type of atmosphere I try to create in our homeschool.

So, after prayer, I jumped right into talking about obedience. I asked a few girls if they knew what virtue we would be studying and what saint goes with the virtue, and some knew. This prompted one mother to ask me after the meeting what she was missing and whether or not her daughter was expected to know this before the meeting. She is not missing anything and is not expected to know that, but I do send that information out in the email to the mothers the week of each meeting, in case they want to do any preparatory discussions.

Most of the girls knew the basic story of Joan of Arc. I listened to their comments and input and then told this summary of her life:

Joan was born to a peasant family in France in 1412. She often helped on the farm and frequently went to a nearby chapel to pray to Jesus. From age 12 to 17 she heard the voice of God through the voices of St. Michael, St. Catherine, and St. Margaret. At first, she dismissed the voices, but they became more insistent. Even so, she never told people any specifics about them except when specifically asked. When she was 17, she obeyed the voices by going to King Charles VII to ask to drive France’s enemies, the British, out of France. She was given a small army, because the king believed God sent her. With a banner which said Jesus and Mary, she led many victories for the French against her enemies as a brave soldier until she was captured in battle and sold to the British after two years of fighting. When she was 19, she was burned to death at the stake by the British as a heretic, someone who goes against the Church. As she died, her eyes were on a crucifix, and she cried out, “Jesus, Jesus!” She was later cleared of this accusation when a full investigation was done.

I asked the girls how Joan of Arc obeyed. Then, I admitted that, like for Joan of Arc, obedience is difficult. In fact, I said this over and over in different ways for the rest of the presentation. Obedience is hard work!

I asked the girls who they obey - parents, teachers, etc... I asked the girls who I obey - the laws, my parents, etc... It was my intention to mention that I obey my husband, as well, just so they hear that concept, but the girls distracted me with a tangent, which often happens, so I will have to throw that in next time.

I asked the girls how old they are and how old the people they are supposed to obey are. The difference is why we obey; those people have more years of experience and thus deserve more respect for that reason alone.

I told a silly story I read about St. Francis to explain to the girls that we must obey even if we think it is silly (or dumb): St. Francis of Assisi was evaluating some men who wanted to join the order. He instructed them to plant some cabbages…upside down. One man did as he was told and nothing grew. The other man realized how silly the instruction was and planted his right side up, so it grew. As soon as St. Francis saw the cabbage that grew, he approached the man who disobeyed and told him that the lesson was about obedience, not about planting cabbages.

Then, I did a visual, which was harder to explain than I originally thought. The point is to demonstrate how only if our heart is soft and willing to bend and obey will we remain obedient and avoid Satan's grasp. Some of the girls got it, but I will revisit it next time to explain in a simpler way.

I brought a hard-boiled egg and a raw egg to the meeting, but I did not tell the girls this at first. We named the eggs with some names of girls that are not in Little Flowers (I forget what names they chose). On a cookie sheet, I had some volunteers try to spin each egg like a top. One egg (hard-boiled) spun easily; the other did not. Then, for drama, one at a time, I threw down each egg hard on the cookie sheet, so they would break, demonstrating that one was hard-boiled and the other was raw.

The hard-boiled egg was easy to spin; this is the person with a hardened heart. The devil can make people with hardened hearts do things they know are wrong. The raw egg was not easy to spin; this is how we should be, with a soft heart, obedient to the Word of God. This came from http://www.kidssundayschool.com/, by the way!

Next, we decorated shields in honor of St. Joan of Arc, to remind us to be on guard against the devil and disobedience. I found the cardboard shields at Oriental Trading Company! Each girl's was unique and special. (I bought some extras and sent them home with the girls for their brothers that were there, too!)

While they were decorating shields, I passed out the Joan of Arc coloring pages and obedience patch project sheets. We have a patch ceremony at our next meeting, so some of them will be speedy and get their obedience projects done; some will take their time and get them later in the summer.

Snack was next, followed by our game. We played, what I know as "Jenny's Game." I told the girls the point of the game was to see if they can obey my instructions, even when it is silly like St. Francis and the cabbages.

I divided the girls into four mixed-age groups just by numbering them off. Each group chose one shoe to use as the "hot potato." When the music was on (which we couldn't hear very well; I need a new CD player), they passed the shoe around. When the music stopped, whoever had the shoe was given something to do every time they got the shoe in the future. The first girl had to stand up, raise the shoe in the air, and declare loudly, "I am the Statue of Liberty!"

So, with the music back on, the girls are passing the shoe, and each time one of the girls who has a task to do gets it, she does her task. The other tasks were moo like a cow, twirl like a ballerina, give me a high five (I kept moving around to make this more interesting), recite your ABCs, and hop like a frog. The result is a constant state of silliness with girls mooing, statue-ing, twirling, hopping, ABC-ing, and running around to find me for a high five.

Point made. They can obey. Now, they just have to do it outside of our meetings! We practiced our new Scripture song for Obedience and closed in prayer, as usual. I read the intentions the girls had written during snack time, and we asked for each of our Little Flowers saint friends to pray for us!

Then, as usual, I had the typical swarm of - "Do you know what my dog did last week?" and "We're going on a vacation next time to the mountains with my grandparents and..." It is so sweet to hear their stories; I do my best to listen to and recognize each one (even when they interrupt my presentations!).

I have been trying to get organized for the summer, planning our meetings and ordering craft supplies. Out of our 47 girls, 29 will join us for the summer meetings, so I have collected money and scheduled our parish hall for that. I am looking forward to being indoors and in the morning with a smaller group, just for a change of pace and environment!

As always, if you have any questions about what we did or plan to do, feel free to email me! I write these posts for the mothers of girls who miss our meetings (to allow them to catch up) and other Little Flowers Girls Club leaders, in hopes of sharing what we are doing, what is working and what is not. I am willing to share my project sheets or any other files in these posts if anyone needs them.

Per the request of the official Little Flowers Girls Club ® I have removed the downloadable patch project sheets and practice pages. If you are interested in learning about how I used these documents in my group, please contact me directly.