Circle Time Renewed

I am trying again to renew the idea of having Circle Time with the kids. My goal is to be both more organized and more relaxed. By relaxed, I mean that I'm not going to try to have it at the same time every day, just to squeeze it in some time most days. By more organized, I mean that I want to try to have our Circle Time contain certain common elements--so, I made a pictorial sign.

I'd like Circle Time to include praying a decade of the rosary, reading at least one Bible story (but John always requests more and more till I have to stop him), reading a poem, learning about the saint of the day or special feast day, and listening to and/or singing a song. In an ideal world, these elements would all be coordinated, but I'm not going to aim for that right now.

Today we began by reviewing the pictures on the poster, and both children called out, "I want to pray the rosary first!" Strange since we (regrettably) aren't in a good habit of praying the rosary as a family right now. Praying the rosary daily as a family really is an important goal. I can't tell you how many times I've heard from mothers of big families who say that the first step to training children to be quiet and still in Mass is to pray the rosary together daily. How likely is it that the child will know how to be quiet and still for an hour once a week if he's not getting practice in shorter periods daily (by praying the rosary)? And, as should be obvious, praying the rosary has many more fruits than simply quiet children at Mass!

For our rosary today, my goal was to have the children to be respectfully quiet and each to stay on his or her own pillows and not flop around/lie down. Mary was unable to stay still, so she had to sit on my lap (which is exactly what we do at Mass).

We read about Adam and Eve and their being expelled from the Garden and about today's saint, St. Anthony of the desert. We read a poem about St. Nicholas (just happened to be vaguely religious, it was chosen by John by poking his finger into the index) and listened to Salve Regina in simple tone. (John complained a little by asking when the song would be over, but not two minutes later he was making up an obviously Gregorian chant-style song which he sang with great interest. These things do rub off!)

I had to interrupt myself many times to remind children to sit still, don't talk over me, and 'you'll need to sit in my lap if you can't sit on your pillow.' But at the end, each child asked me, "Can we do Circle Time again tomorrow morning?"

That was gratifying.