Monday, November 19, 2012

Flower Petal Rosary Review

Monica from Arma Dei Shoppe and Equipping Catholic Families had asked me to review one of her Cathletics Kits called Spiritual Bouquet of Prayer Petal Flowers.  I blogged about it over at Community of Catholic Bloggers today but I think the word needs to get out... so I'm blogging about it here too.  

Monica is famous for creating engaging and hands-on activities for children to learn about their Catholic Faith.  This particular prayer craft has 3 prayers/activities in it.  You can use it to teach the rosary, make a rosary garland or use the Divine Mercy Chaplet.  When you purchase the kit, Monica will send it to you by mail or as a PDF printable version.  I received it as a PDF file and printed the templates out on white cardstock and then made color copies of the Flower Petal Rosary.  I cut out all of the pieces to make our flower and then brought it to use with my first graders in religious education.

I opted to use it as a game format to informally test my students on their prayers.  I'm well aware that it's easy to recite prayers in a group but a different matter when saying it aloud on your own.  I thought this was the perfect way to do this in a non-threatening way.  Turns out, it worked beautifully for my assessment.  Here is how I used it:

  • Informed students that we were going to pray one decade of the rosary together yet each student would have an opportunity to lead 2 Hail Mary's.  (My class size is very small!)
  • Instructed students that they could either recite the prayer by memory or use the petal as prompting.  Each petal has the Hail Mary printed on it.
  • Students sat in a circle and I placed the stem with the mysteries down in the center, explaining the first decade of the Joyful Mysteries~ The Annunciation.
  • I then placed the circle with the Our Father on it and we recited it together.
  • Then one by one, each student placed their petal around the circle and led a Hail Mary Prayer.
  • As a group, we prayed the Glory Be and Fatima Prayer together.
Here are a few photos of our prayer circle:





This Cathletics kit is a fun method to teach children the basic prayers in our Catholic Faith.  It can be used again and again or it can be made into a wall display for a perpetual reminder.  Perfect for at home use or in the classroom.  Anyone who wants to teach a child how to pray the rosary would love this!  Check out Monica's blog HERE or her shoppe HERE.

Blessings,
Noreen






2 comments:

  1. Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving Noreen! God Bless.

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  2. Hi Noreen!

    Wow, this looks like a fantastic teaching tool! I think my kiddos would love this...and maybe even Mary's classroom teacher too. I'm going to pass on the info to her. Mary is in 2nd grade this year and makes her First Holy Communion in April. Can't wait! I'm just impressed with her Act of Contrition...a totally different version from the one I learned at age 7! I asked her to recite it for me (part of her Catholic school homework) and she was able to rattle it off! Now we just need to work on understanding what we're saying! ;)

    Blessings...hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving!

    Valerie

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