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lovebeingamom
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| Posted: Oct 12 2009 at 9:22am | IP Logged
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Hi Ladies!
I have 2 children - a 3 yo and a 1 yo. The 3 yo absolutely loves books and since she was about 9 mo. I was able to bring ONLY books to mass to keep her *involved*. It is my 1 yo who really could care less at this point if I brought books for him to look at during mass or not. So lately, I have been bringing laminated holy cards .... that holds him over for about 15-20 mins. then we are ready for something else.
I am looking for feedback on what to put in a *mass bag*. I am really particular that ONLY *mass items* are allowed in the bag ... I would prefer not to have random *toys* as mass is NOT the time to play and this is what DH and I are trying to *teach*. Any suggestions??????
Thanks!
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ekbell
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I only bring missals and holy cards for my children over two. (I tried the coloring sheets from catholicmom.com but the children tended to make too make noise with and over the coloring implements).
I allow *one* quiet toy or busy book (one with things to poke at, pull at, flip etc) for my under two year old. The reason to just bring *one* is then it's easier for the preschooler to understand that it's only for the baby.
I've found that it worked better for us if there were *not* multiple detachable pieces to lose and if the toy or busy book *stayed* in the mass bag. If you hunt you should be able to find quiet religious toys or busy books. If your one year old likes stuffed animals (and will play quietly with them), I'd recommend buying a lamb from your local toy store for mass 
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Erin
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At one stage my then 2 year old had a Mass basket, included were a Bible board book, a little prayer book with, a small statue of the Sacred Heart, a rosary bracelet, a couple of large holy cards with threading shoelace, a small blank book and pencils, and a number of holy cards on a key ring. Currently we have Mass bags with books and Mass colouring books and pencils. Yes it is against much of my previous beliefs, but I am desperate.
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EmilyK
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We have a Church Bag that includes the Beginner's Bible, a few assorted soft-backed church/prayer books, a book of the saints, a touchy-feely animal book and an Easter Egg book. Bag is mostly for the 3 year old and the one year old. I have found the 3 year old will spend a good 30 minutes looking through the bible. The one year old's attention span is of course much shorter. If 6 year old DD wants to look at a book, that is fine too.
Don't do snacks or drinks any longer. too messy.
Holy cards sound like a good idea, but my kids would have them strewn about in no time. Same thing with colors and coloring books.
Emily
DD 6
DS 3
DS 21 mo
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stellamaris
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EmilyK wrote:
Holy cards sound like a good idea, but my kids would have them strewn about in no time. Same thing with colors and coloring books.
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As Erin suggested above, one solution to this problem is to punch holes in the corners of the holy cards and put them on a key ring or one of those individual binder rings you can get at Staples. My kids loved these "holy card rings"!
Another nice type of book to have if you can tolerate a few felt pieces is one of Betty Luken's felt activity books. I like the Bible one I linked to the best; it has fewer pieces than the other books and is easier to cut out and assemble. You need Tacky Glue, sharp fabric scissors, and yarn for assembly. I'd remove some of the pieces of fruit on the tree in the Garden of Eden picture. We got years of use out of this book.
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Caroline
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RenB
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Our children are older now but when they were younger we rotated items in a mass bag every two weeks or so. Items we included were;
- A child's missal, a child's sized rosary to use before mass when rosary is recited, a veil in the girl's bag, books on saints, a child's catholic bible or other special Catholic devotional book rotated during the weeks, and holy cards on a ring (assorted, mysteries of the rosary, ten commandments, and also more separated according to liturgical colors (ordinary, advent, etc..). Some of the cards were those made by me, and shrunk to the size of a holy card before printing and laminating to preserve them. My grandmother also left me her holy card collection, all laminated and segregated by season.
- My mother made all the grandchildren little books using those 5x7 photo holders from Walmart or?? where she cut up Christmas cards or other cards depicting Catholic images, which I must admit fit perfectly. She used alphabet sticker letters to identify who's was whose, and ended each book with a photo of her with them. :) I treasure them all though they virtually have no dollar value to them.
- My father slips the children a signed holy card upon occasion for the older ones to include in their missals. They really love getting these from him, something no one seems to do anymore. Just one at a time with intervals in between, but signed by him to cherish forever. Cheap and lovely. They usually ask me to laminate them to preserve them and some have chosen to take extra ones and keep them at home in their prayer books for night time.
- I've made many other items for inclusion into the bags, but find the most successful thing is rotating the items and often. Some have been the children's coloring of saints, scanned and shrunk down to slip into a book or laminated the size of a holy card. It's always so beautiful to revisit a favorite saint this way and they are proud of their artwork when seeing it during mass once again, usually able to recall the saint with ease. Special.
- Other ideas are laminating parts of the mass for a wee one, laminated on a ring, easy to flip over to get to the next card for those who don't desire to use a book in hand.
So many ideas, so little time....LOL Our older children are now using some of the items I made ages ago for them with their own children and I've been touched more than once revisiting old friends. Leaves me a bit speechless to be honest.:)
We keep all our items for mass bags at home in a large Ikea wicker basket on the library bookshelf, all except for the Advent/Christmas and Lenten/Easter items are in there because I store them with other items of the same for an easy retrieval when the liturgical season begins anew during these times. Each week we gather the mass bags and insert prepare for Sunday mass the night before, a real easy thing to do before setting them next to the door in a larger wicker basket for a visual so no one forgets theirs. It works for us.
Some things we opted not to bring to mass were coloring or food of any sort because we found it too distracting those around us and our other children in general. I also find many folks who bring food for their children, be it only a few cheerios, often do not clean up after themselves or don't notice them on the carpets which are eventually ground in and results in the priest's mentioning the state of the church. It's not a pleasant topic when one knows they've contributed to it, and I admit I used to do this myself years ago. We save snacks and drinks for after mass as we drive quite far to attend and are generally hungry afterward.
Another thing to consider; where are we when using these mass bags? At mass right just like you mentioned so this is a great time to kindle in the child's heart the beauty and holiness of the mass.
Inclusions into the mass bags would reap many blessings if the child is able to reflect on setting the Sunday (especially) apart from the others in the week. We keep all other books, toys and misc at home, or in the vehicle for later. What a great way then to create reverence for the mass in a wee child's heart.  During week day or First Friday/Saturday masses, we still keep the mass bag filled with Catholic items only. Our children look forward to using their bags all week. Our grandchildren love theirs too. And because they aren't used outside of mass, they remain special.
Our grandsons have specially made mass backpacks with their names noted on them and contain items of age appropriate altar server cards hole punched on a ring to review.
Another tip; If you begin to spread the word of your children's mass bag usage, some of your loved ones may include a special item in their gifts. I like to make/create something every Christmas and Easter for our grandchildren (and our younger children) to bring to mass in their mass bags. Before laminating (if that's what I do), or whatever I do with them, I always sign the item with a love note, the year, and my name. These become keepsakes over time. Last year I copy/pasted photos from all the grandchildren's baptisms and made them their very own book about this sacrament to have for review when desired. This year it will be First Communion photos made into a gift for the older ones, with prayer cards for confession and their act of contrition. For Easter, I will make something with the Act of Faith, Act of Hope and Act of Love this year and their patron saint. The girls get a new bonnet or veil every year, the boys a small pin or new tie (if they wear one). The pins go on their mass backpacks, a nice little collection is building there.
Hope these are more ideas for you to ponder, the sky is really the limit and it depends on what you are willing to collect for rotation weeks. Whatever you do, don't allow it to become stale over time with nothing to revisit from time to time. It seems to matter to our younguns to continue the rotation system.
God Bless!
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Renee
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JenPre
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I just wanted to say thank you ladies for this topic! I was searching through the forums for "Mass bag" suggestions and these helped a lot!
Last night at Mass our 1 year was all over the place until I gave her a plastic Rosary from a front table and she sat for a good 15 minutes holding it. I then remembered this topic from here and have decided to put together our own Mass bag.
We've been sitting in the "cry room" so she can walk around but I'm starting to feel like that's not the best for her. I want her to begin to learn where we are and that what we're doing there is very special.
I'm planning on making her a Rosary; finding a few board books; and I LOVE the idea of a Holy Card ring. I've got tons of Holy Cards around here so will be making up one of those!
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florasita
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How little boys ! shiney shiney rosaries ! not plastic ones either  little boys like shiney things .
I've thrown in statues at times too those mini ones . although it depends if you have a loud child who will use the statues as action figures with sound effects then be careful
those felt books are great because they come with a ton of felt figures/ peices to use in the book .
being a 1yo I'm not sure if you could get away with having those nice smooth stones that have words on them like faith hope peace etc. but a nice smooth stone often calms children .
our boys loved holy cards ones that kept them entertained and focused were ST.george and the dragon , the most powerful hand . again shiney sparley golden edges holy cards are best
we received one year for Easter a hologram card it is fun for kids because it changes it appears to be a lamb under a tree in sprigtime then as the child moves it butterflies & birdies appear  are there catholic hologram cards out there ?
A 1yo is a hard age that is for certain .
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Lacy
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florasita wrote:
are there catholic hologram cards out there ?
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Yes, there's a whole line of Catholic hologram cards including one with the shroud of turin (spellig??? ) that changes to Jesus' face and one with the Fatima children kneeling down and Mary appearing. I do want to get more of these!
We seriously need to make a mass bag. I try to bring religious books, but my kids usually end up playing with matchbox cars scraped from the bottom of my baby bag.  I find that rosaries are a really loud mass toy because my kids want to drag them on the pew. This would be ok at a church with padded pews.
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JenPre
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Lacy wrote:
We seriously need to make a mass bag. I try to bring religious books, but my kids usually end up playing with matchbox cars scraped from the bottom of my baby bag. I find that rosaries are a really loud mass toy because my kids want to drag them on the pew. This would be ok at a church with padded pews. |
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I make knotted rosaries from twine which helps with the noise. Plus if my daughter puts it in her mouth I don't worry that she'll bite through it and swallow a bead!
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JennGM
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JenPre wrote:
Lacy wrote:
We seriously need to make a mass bag. I try to bring religious books, but my kids usually end up playing with matchbox cars scraped from the bottom of my baby bag. I find that rosaries are a really loud mass toy because my kids want to drag them on the pew. This would be ok at a church with padded pews. |
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I make knotted rosaries from twine which helps with the noise. Plus if my daughter puts it in her mouth I don't worry that she'll bite through it and swallow a bead! |
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We do the knotted rosaries, too. Either the quality went down, or my boys were rougher, but growing up we had the wood bead rosary and it lasted through many children. I tried several with my oldest and they were destroyed. The knotted rosaries are colorful and quiet.
I have a bag set aside (it has a Penn State logo, but otherwise basic blue) with kleenex, some pencils, and books and rosaries. The pencils are only allowed before Mass for the kids programs, and then I take them away during Mass. When my boys were younger, I also had holycards that were laminated inside a small zipper pouch that would be used during the Mass. A ring to hold them would have been smart, but I did find that sorting (Jesus, Mary, Saints) and laying in order and also putting in and out of the pouch were key quiet activities during Mass (also sticking in Daddy's pocket).
Most of the books were Mass books, prayer book, or something related to the Liturgical year or the readings of the day.
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Susana
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I bought our Mass bag at Hobby Lobby. It's one of those canvas bags with 3 pockets in the front. Inside we have:
My chapel veil
Kids missals
Adult missals
Photo books with holy cards backed with card stock
And two of these lovely books: Traditional Latin Mass in Pictures
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atara
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Melissa and Doug tracing things
Doadots!!! It's a marker that acts like a bingo stamp w/coloring books.
Small color and paper set I ordered from etsy
Catholic books
large size rosary
sippy cup & crackers when it's a 911! HA HA! This is for the cry room only.
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JennGM
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atara wrote:
| sippy cup & crackers when it's a 911! HA HA! |
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Our church has requested no food and drink (except baby bottles, of course). There has been a pest problem due to all the food brought in. But after finding out this, it really sealed my resolve to not send mixed messages. Mass and Church events is a different attitude, different focus from our daily lives, and even our Mass bag reflects that.
I'll bring snacks that they can eat before or after Mass in the car.
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4Real Forums : Domestic Church
Topic: What's in a Mass Bag?
