February 19 - 25, 2012: Lent Begins

We drop everything except math and religion beginning this week, although the little ones will keep up their speech and language activities.

Henry will complete lessons 69, 70, and 71 in Saxon Math K: Covering a design in more than one way, handwriting master 10; paying for items to $1.00 using dimes; assessment #7 - identifying ordinal position.

The rest of the week:

Sometime before Wednesday: Henry and I will sit down and create our "stained glass" votive candle holders to use during Lent.  It's a pretty simple project, just tissue paper scraps and watered-down glue.  I think it will make decorating our Lent table more special, though.

Tuesday: It's Mardi Gras and that means it's time to make a King Cake.  I'll use this recipe again.  I can't cheat and use cinnamon rolls on Shrove Tuesday!

Wednesday: Ash Wednesday.  Lent begins!  I'm not sure if we'll go to Mass or not.  For the past couple of years, we've done our own ceremony at home.  It's not a Holy Day of Obligation, so we'll see. 

Our Lenten activities will begin this night.  That includes hanging the Jesus Tree ornaments, our family Way of the Cross (along with the appropriate coloring pages), and this neat Lent calendar I came across a couple of days ago.  Henry will also complete his Ash Wednesday workbook page from Who Am I?.

Wednesday is also the Solemnity of the Chair of St. Peter.  We're going to do this neat little stained glass window project that I found on By Sun and Candlelight.  It's a simple replica of the image of the Holy Spirit above the altar in St. Peter's Basilica.

I'm going to download the center image in advance and color it in.  Henry will be responsible for the stained glass surround (made of tissue paper on clear contact paper).

This will be our first year of really doing Lent.  I'm looking forward to sharing this as a family and I hope that we all get the same meaningful experiences that we did through all of our Advent activities.