When Traveling During Holy Week - 7QT

I spoke earlier in the year of how we Homeschool when we are not at home.  One of the beauty's of homeschooling is it becomes convenient to travel with our family and just pick things up to keep going!  This coming week we will be traveling and away from our home during Holy Week.  It is a very important week for our family to learn about and celebrate the days of the liturgical calendar but it is also really special that we can have time to spend quality time as a family.  I have learned that we can still carry on special traditions as a family and continue our learning, even when away from home.  All it takes is a little extra planning ahead of time!

See what have done during Holy Week in the years past HERE and HERE:

 

We leave Friday March 18th and come back on Good Friday, March 25th and are driving from Omaha, Nebraska to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado!  I gave myself space in one tote to bring activities and books for the week and this is what I included:

 

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St. Joseph's Feast Day (March 19th)

We have learned that celebrating saint feast days can be simple or elaborate!  To celebrate St. Joseph's feast day this year we will cuddle up during story time to read some of our favorites including Good Saint Joseph and Song of the Swallows.  We also are excited to have our new St. Joseph Shining Light Doll!

 

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Palm Sunday (March 20th)

Palm Sunday is a tough one with little children because Mass is incredibly long, and Palm Branches look a LOT like swords for little boys!  Yet, thankfully we have gotten better and better at Taking our Children to Mass over this past year so we will see how it goes.  I also packed a few fun books including a new one to our family Hosanna to You, Jesus (A Palm Sunday Experience) for the day!

 

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Spy Wednesday (March 23rd):

We love the tradition of finding 30 pieces of silver to reflect the story of the betrayal of Judas for 30 pieces of silver.  Even though we will not be at home we plan to carry on this fun tradition!  We also brought our Holy Week in Handprints that we made last year and also Tomie dePaola's Book of Bible Stories which includes the stories of Holy Week to help us throughout the week in our Holy Week learning.

 

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Holy Thursday (March 24th):

Our children always love celebrating Holy Thursday!  We usually go to Holy Thursday Mass, but we will see if that happens or not since we leave early the next morning to drive home!  We did get the book Jesus Washes Peter's Feet, which is new to our family and we love to have our own little family feet washing as we read the Bible Stories for the day!

 

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Good Friday (March 25th):

We will be driving 10 hours home on Good Friday with our four little boys (that is suffering enough, right?!)  Well, I figured we will have LOTS of time, so during those many hours we will plan on praying the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, Meditating on the Stations of the Cross with our Holy Heroes CD, read our Good Friday book, and my husband and I are hoping to listen to Tre Ore: The Seven Last Words of Christ by Bishop Barron while our kids hopefully take an hour or so nap during the afternoon!

 

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Divine Mercy Chaplet (Begins March 25th)

The Divine Mercy Sunday is the Sunday after Easter or April 3rd this year and the novena begins on Good Friday.  I just finished reading Divine Mercy for Moms, which has helped me take a whole new look at Mercy in my own life during this Year of Mercy.  Since we will have lots of time during our drive home I brought our Divine Mercy Novena and Chaplet along with to start praying as a family!

 

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Holy Saturday & Easter (March 26th & 27th)
 

We will get back into town late Friday night and my husband needs to work Saturday from 6am-3pm.  Thankfully though he is working the day shift at the Emergency Room so we will be able to attend the Easter Vigil Mass Saturday night (we haven't yet decided if we are going to try to brave that Mass with our little ones or not yet; usually we hire a babysitter and go ourselves).  Also, very exciting news is my brother in law will be received into the Church this Easter (he and our wonderful fiancé are our son Peter's Godparents)!!!  Please pray for him during this exciting time!

 

Our favorite Easter books are out in a special Easter Basket, supplies have been bought to make Resurrection Rolls for Easter and all Easter Gifts are bought, wrapped and ready to go!  My husband is so sweet to have hired a cleaning lady to come to our home every other week and she is coming while we are away so I am super excited to be coming home to a perfectly clean home to celebrate Easter with our family!