Celebrating Lent

I grew up in a Catholic home and attended a Catholic grade school. We always practiced Lent as a way to get ready for Easter. I remember Ash Wednesday Mass, tuna casserole on Fridays, watching my grandparents give up dessert (they also invited everyone over for all birthdays in Lent as an excuse to break their fast and eat cake), praying the Rosary and the Stations of the Cross with my school, Passion readings during Holy Week masses, a rice bowl fundraiser for Catholic Relief Services, feeling intensely sad about Christ's suffering on Good Friday, and celebrating Easter with baskets (I could never find mine) and pretty dresses my mom sewed and Easter egg hunts at my grandparents' house with my siblings and cousins (some years were outside in the spring weather and other years were brought indoors because of freshly fallen snow). 

In college I continued to participate in some of these activities, but they slowly fell away as my future husband and I navigated combining our different faith backgrounds and began attending a Protestant church together. I remember one year early in our marriage showing up at church only vaguely aware that it was Easter and really regretting that I had not taken any time to prepare my heart and mind beforehand. Since then I have made an effort to participate in Lent in my own way. Below is a list of ideas for Lent. I'll be picking a few from this list in the upcoming weeks as I prepare to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus. 

Ideas for Participating in Lent:

- Read a Lenten devotional by yourself or with your family

- Read one or more of the gospels in preparation for Easter

- Add writing, drawing, or memorizing Scripture

- Fast from something and seek God instead

- Set aside extra time for prayer or learning more about prayer

- Journal

- Practice gratitude by recording things you are thankful for each day

- Give of your time or treasure

- Listen to music or reflect on art that reminds you of Jesus' sacrifice on your behalf

- Attend a church service that participates in the Lenten season if yours does not

- Make a set of Resurrection Eggs to open the 12 days before Easter (one idea is here https://faithgateway.com/blogs/christian-books/making-resurrection-eggs-easter-story)

- Plant a Resurrection Garden (a few examples are here https://carrieturansky.com/make-your-own-resurrection-garden/)

- Demonstrate the events of Holy Week with legos, other toys, drawings, etc.

- Bake resurrection rolls or hot cross buns

- Dye Easter eggs and talk about new life in Christ

- Send a few Easter cards

- Display an Easter Nativity (my daughter and I made one out of paper similar to this one several years ago https://www.amazon.com/Decoration-Religious-Resurrection-Nativity-Decorations/dp/B09TW2T6CD?th=1) 

- Complete an Easter Art Project or two by yourself or with your family

What would you add to my list? Happy Ash Wednesday!

For you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Genesis 3:19b. 

Homeschool Day in the Life with a 14-year-old

I am writing this post to link up with Simple Homeschool's Day in the Life Series (simplehomeschool.net).

Today is an average Wednesday in February. Wednesday's are one of our at home days. My alarm goes off at 5:40, and I actually wake up and avoid doom-scrolling on my phone, something I have been struggling with since Christmas break. Instead I pray, complete my Bible Study for my class later today, and work on my blog. My husband is already up, exercising, and getting ready for his day. My daughter likes to get up early too. Her alarm goes off at 6:30, and she reads a devotional I got her for Christmas (New Morning Mercies for Teens by Paul David Tripp) and a book of choice to herself (Strangeworlds Travel Agency by L.D. Lapinski, my daughter loves fantasy, and as she tells me about this book, I can tell all the worlds have really captured her imagination). Around 7:00 we all migrate to the kitchen, where I pack a lunch for my husband and we all gather a simple breakfast for ourselves.

During breakfast we watch CNN 10, a ten-minute current events news program for middle and high schoolers. Today's program is an interview with two astronauts staying on the international space station longer than expected and a segment on static electricity. We move to the couch and read a few books together:

A Red Pencil - a novel in verse about a family fleeing their home in Sudan in 2004 by Andrea Davis Pinkney
All Creatures Great and Small - a memoir by James Herriot, a veterinarian in a farming region of England in the 1930s
Peculiar Treasures - a Biblical Who's Who by Frederick Buechner

It doesn't look much like "morning time" did years ago, but I still enjoy reading aloud from a variety of genres before starting the rest of our day.

Quite a sunrise this morning while we eat breakfast!

The real star of the show!

Next we do science. This year we are using Berean Builders' Discovering Design with Earth Science. Some days we do this together, and other days my daughter uses the audiobook to complete it on her own. Today I read the next section aloud while my daughter fills in the note pages that I create for each section. I just started doing this, and it really seems to help with remembering the material, being able to study effectively for the test, and hopefully learning effective note taking. Usually science is one of our favorite parts of the day, but today there are lots of definitions to write down and some conversion factor problems to practice. My daughter gets frustrated and shows some teenage angst. I try not to get frustrated in return. Not our best moments. We eventually get through the section and complete the comprehension check and relevant chapter review questions aloud.

She recovers and starts on her math test. After some false starts this fall with trying Algebra 1 with her cousins, we went back to doing math on our own with Denison Algebra in November. I debated about starting the program with Algebra 1 or going back and reviewing pre-algebra. I ultimately decided on pre-algebra, which she is flying through. 

After she finishes her math, she starts working on her independent work for a co-op that we attend on Mondays. She does her writing assignment (revising some descriptive prompts that she drafted over the last two weeks), completes her geography of Africa atlas assignment, and reviews for her upcoming quiz on African countries. Some days she also does work in Paragraphs for Middle School by Don and Jenny Killgallon, which helps with her grammar and spelling as well as her writing and is literature-based, WIN. While she is working, I hang out in an adjacent room, answering any questions she has, creating the notes page for tomorrow's science reading, correcting her math test, paying some bills, making a phone call, and drafting this blog post. Then I get ready for the day and take the dog out for a walk around our neighborhood.

Usually by now books and schoolwork are scattered all over the floor. 
Today they are on the counter as I use them to write this blog post.

It is almost lunchtime when I return from my walk. I putz around the house for a bit. My daughter has finished her schoolwork, reads for a bit, and works on a painting from the book Acrylic Landscapes for Beginners, which my mom got her for Christmas. She almost always has an audiobook going while she works on her art (she is currently listening to Medusa by Katherine Marsh, she says I would find it too fantasyish for my taste, but would enjoy the quality friendships between the characters). We each warm up some leftovers for lunch and watch some college softball highlights. Afterwards we play a few rounds of "Uno No Mercy". Then I do the dishes and join my on-line Bible Study Fellowship class (bsfonline.com). I miss getting to meet in person, but on-line has been a great option to work around our busy homeschool days. While I am in class my daughter practices some softball pitching drills in the basement and starts making paper crafted Easter cards, which she plans to sell at our co-op's Entrepreneur Day at the end of March.

I lose! Look at all the cards I had to draw!

Finally won one! 

After my class we head to the grocery store together and also stop at the Dollar Store to see if they have any supplies that might be useful for the cards. On the drive we listen to The Night Diary by Veera Hiranandani, which takes place during Partition in India in 1947, and discuss some of the similarities between this book and our readaloud, the common grace that God gives to all people, and what I recently learned about India in the 1940s from google.

We return from our errands in time for a snack before my daughter's online piano lesson with Outschool. I read during her lesson. I can't decide if I like my current book or not yet! Just some fun Christian fiction, which takes place in the jungles of the Amazon. I have a feeling the author hasn't been, but I haven't either so I can't tell for sure.

Next my daughter and I complete a workout with fitnessblender.com. She has been joining me since her volleyball season ended, and it has definitely kept me more accountable! We usually do a mixture of strength training with free weights and various bodyweight cardio exercises. We listen to our current audiobook during this time too.

Always nearby!

Workout Complete!

Afterwards we both take the dog out for another walk, prep dinner together, make some brownies, and try to patiently wait for my husband to get home from work. We start a new puzzle while we wait. After dinner I take my daughter to youth group, hang out with my husband, and do the dishes. My daughter is really enjoying youth group this year. The youth pastor does a great job of mixing activities middle schoolers enjoy with relevant, relatable, and memorable lessons about Jesus. I pick her up, and we all head to bed, where I read some more, decide I don't actually like the book, and realize I need to finish anyway because I want to know how the author solves some of the problems she has created.

As I mentioned above, Wednesdays tend to be the days we stay at home the most. On Tuesdays and Thursdays my daughter joins her cousins for a worldview Bible class while I teach two of her younger cousins language arts. On Mondays we attend a co-op where she takes classes in drama, art, geography, and writing, while I teach writing and assist in several other classes. On Monday nights my daughter does an on-line BSF class for Middle Schoolers. On the evenings she doesn't have an activity, we often play games, work on a puzzle, or watch a show together.

Throughout our days, I try to find the right balance between prepping my daughter for the demands of high school, enjoying the freedom we have as homeschoolers, cultivating her strengths and interests, passing on my faith legacy, reading tons of books, and enjoying these days we have together. Happy Homeschooling!