Lenten Learning 2016

We have been taking the time during Lent this year come together as a family and focus on prayer, fasting and almsgiving (as well with some fun learning)!  Here are a few things that we have been doing.

 

Our Lenten Plans - 2016

 

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The Giving Tree

 

We LOVE Catholic Mosaic and The Giving Tree was such a great book to read during Lent.  Although the book is not a Catholic book the lesson plan with Catholic Mosaic brought about a fantastic conversation about Giving and our own relationships with God.

 

 

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Lenten Lunch

 

 I was so excited to finally take the time to do a Lenten Lunch this year!  We are going to be out of town during Holy Week, but we decided we could do this at any time during Lent to increase our learning and fun.  Thank you to Lacy at Catholic Icing for doing the tough part of putting it all together and making it easy to execute! 

 

It was really great to read the Bible Stories together and to have foods that related to each part of the story.  Our boys especially loved having chocolate with lunch with the Hershey's Kisses and Peppermint Patties since that is not typical for our family.  It was a real treat!

 

 

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The Tale of Three Trees

 

The Tale of Three Trees is another great book that is included in Catholic Mosaic!  We also read this book when we celebrated the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross in September, but the story also goes along great with the Passion story as well! We just love our read aloud time during our days and finding great books to add to our collection.

 

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Lenten Rosary

 

One of the things that we wanted to focus on this Lent was praying a daily rosary.  It has not been "perfect", but overall we are doing pretty well!  Sometimes we listen to the Holy Heroes CD in the car, sometimes get to daily mass early to pray with our church community, sometimes we pray together at the lunch table, sometimes we pray the rosary before bedtime; we definitely have learned that we need to be flexible to fit it in!  There are moments of wiggling, but we are all definitely learning and growing as a family!

 

Also, if you are looking for a beautiful Easter gift or something special for yourself or loved ones definitely check out Butterfly Blue Rosaries!  A fellow homeschooling mother creates beautiful custom rosaries and sells them on Etsy!  She made me a rosary with the beads of the 5 decades as the birthstones of our 4 children here on Earth and 1 in Heaven!  It is beautiful and something that I will always treasure.

 

 

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Little Rose of Sharon

 

Another great Catholic Mosaic selection for Lent is the Little Rose of Sharon.  It is all about Self Sacrifice and the most beautiful little story to teach our children about what is really important to God, and that is for us to give of ourselves to others.  It is a very important topic to discuss at all times, but especially during this liturgical season where we remember Jesus giving His life for us.

 

 

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Starting St. Joseph Novena

We started the St. Joseph Novena March 10th, and love using Catholic Icing's  St. Joseph Novena printable!  Check out what we did last year to celebrate St. Joseph's Feast Day HERE!!

Also, this year we got the new St. Joseph Shining Light Doll!  We LOVE Shining Light Dolls so our kids were really excited to add St. Joseph to our collection!
 

 

 

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Stations of the Cross

 

We are continuing each week to pray and meditate on the Stations of the Cross each Friday.  We have used the Holy Heroes CD's in our Little Oratory within our home, prayed at the Holy Family Shrine near our home, at our local parish and this week we are going to go to our local cemetery.  Our boys also love to use their Passion Week Peg Dolls to tell the story that they are learning to know so well. 

 

 

That's what we have been up to the past few weeks of Lent!  We are linking up with This Ain't The Lyceum this week as well!