My Prayer Journal and Prayer Puzzles

This is something that came to be at the end of the year.  All of the children had been working on their Missals and a few especially loved doing the work.  They asked me if they could make another book.  We had been discussing prayer and how to pray for the sick, etc.  So I got the idea of a Prayer Journal.  They loved it.  It meant I had to go home and cut out beautiful pictures from Christmas, birthday, and all occasion cards and put them in the box you see to your left.  There are only 5 pages in the journal but they could add pages if they wished.  I told them that they had to talk to Jesus as in a letter to him.  The picture they would glue on the left and perhaps this would give them an idea what they would write to Jesus.  Lined paper is pasted on the right only.  Then when they are finished I tie yard through the holes and tie the pages together just like we do with the Missals to take home.  This material is kept in the bookcase behind the starfish.

Under this old desk I keep the prayer puzzles which really help the children learn their prayers.   So when they come early which most do, they know I will test them on their prayers and while waiting they should be doing these puzzles to learn the prayers.  They really help.  A catechist friend made a couple of them for me and I really don't know if they are CGS material.  However, they work well and they help the children learn their prayers.  So I made one for each prayer we learn in Level II.

     After I retired from classroom teaching I took 5 computer courses at Cochise College.  Never did I dream how much they would help me with CGS.  I've made all the Scripture booklets for our atriums and prophecies, prayer cards, prayer books, Maxim booklets, Ten Commandment booklets.  It's been so helpful.  I had a mother one year tell me she was disappointed that we didn't prepare the children for Reconciliation using the Ten Commandments.   I told her that we use the Maxims and showed her what they were.  However, she wasn't convinced one bit.  So after that I thought, "Well, how much extra time would it be to introduce the Ten Commandments to the children in one of the class meetings?"  From that time on I've done so.  In the Maxim Booklet and the Ten Commandment booklet, I have written in small print at the bottom of each page an "Examination of Conscience" for each Maxim or Commandment.  These booklets go home with the children to prepare them for Reconciliation.