Honoring Our Lady
Yesterday was the feast of the Queenship of Mary, as well as the traditional feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary!
I spent most of the morning and early afternoon running errands and grocery shopping (By myself!!!!) so I didn’t have an opportunity to make a crown cake like we did last year. Anne did though, add hers turned out absolutely beautiful! Perhaps we will be able to make another one in May, on the traditional feast of the Queenship of Mary, which is also the day Captain received his First Holy Communion… (Speaking of which, I still laugh whenever I remember that day!)
Nevertheless, I still had a little bit of time to whip up a batch of simple crown cupcakes and print a few lovely coloring pages for our children to enjoy after we prayed the rosary last night.
Hail, holy Queen enthroned above, O Maria.
Hail, Queen of mercy and of love, O Maria.
Triumph, all ye cherubim, Sing with us, ye seraphim,
Heaven and earth resound the hymn:
Salve, salve, salve Regina!
Our life, our sweetness, here below, O Maria!
Our hope in sorrow and in woe, O Maria!
Triumph, all ye cherubim, Sing with us, ye seraphim,
Heaven and earth resound the hymn:
Salve, salve, salve Regina!
(The children & I practiced this beautiful hymn each morning this past week in honor of Our Lady’s feasts both this Saturday and last.)
More Pictures From My Brother’s Wedding…
~ Our family with the newly married couple ~
Celebrating the Assumption
This past Saturday we celebrated the Feast of the Assumption. Here are a few pictures from a little bit of our day…
Queen Assumed into Heaven ~ Pray for Us!
Our Plan 2009-2010: The Schedule
6:00 WAKE, MORNING CHORES, BREAKFAST
8:00-9:00 MORNING FAMILY BLOCK – “CIRCLE TIME” ::
(Friday mornings we will go to Mass & Benediction)
- Morning Prayer
- Saint of the Day Story from Saints – A Year in Faith and Art
- Saint magnet placed on Calendar
- Review Days of the week, months, seasons and weather.
- Seasonal Songs and/or Poems.
- Seasonal Bible Story (Advent/Jesse Tree; Lent/Jesus Tree; Easter/Garden of the Good Shepherd)
- Religion Lesson using one of the following: Baltimore Catechism #2 Lesson/Drill; Corresponding Angel Food Story; Catholic Mosaic or other Liturgical Year Picture Book; Religious Reading / Devotional Story
- Liturgical Hymn
9:00-10:00 MORNING LESSON BLOCK #1 ::
- The Older Boys (with Mom) : Right Start Math followed by Math Games
- The Girls & Baby : Signing Time; Puzzles / Learning Toys; Workbooks
10:00-11:30 MORNING LESSON BLOCK #2 ::
- The Older Boys : Language Arts (Independent Work) – Handwriting FYC; Spelling FYC; English FYC; MCP Phonics.
- The Girls (with Mom) : Right Start Math (30 min); Alphabet Path (including Handwriting Without Tears and Phonics Lesson) –
Monday: Presentation; Letter Formation using Modeling Beeswax and HWT Wooden Pieces; Flower Fairy Coloring Page
Tuesday : Science themed Picture Books and Coloring Page and/or Worksheet
Wednesday: Picture Study (ABC Museum)
Thursday: Saint Story (Alphabet of Saints and various picture books) and Craft
Friday: Serendipi-Tea Time Recipe
11:30-1:00 LUNCH BREAK ::
- Pre-Lunch Chores while Mom prepares lunch
- Angelus at Noon
- Lunch
- Outside Recess
1:00-2:00 AFTERNOON LEARNING BLOCK #1 ::
(Read Alouds and Independent Reading)
- Monday – Along the American History Path / Geography (allow two-three weeks per stop)
- Tuesday – Exploring Creation with Astronomy
- Wednesday – RC History Volume 2 (one unit per month)
- Thursday – RC History Volume 2
- Friday – Prima Latina Lesson
2:00-3:00 AFTERNOON LEARNING BLOCK #2 ::
(Projects and Crafts)
- Monday –American History/Geography Projects and Assignments
- Tuesday – Science Lapbook and/or Crafts/Experiments
- Wednesday – World History Creative Writing and/or Hands on Project Assignments
- Thursday – Timeline Work
- Friday – Liturgical Year Craft / Year of the Priests Lapbook
3:00 :: TEATIME AND OUTDOOR PLAYTIME
5:00 :: CLEAN-UP HOME AND PRE-DINNER CHORES
6:00 :: DINNER
8:00 :: ROSARY AND BEDTIME FOR THE GIRLS
Back-to-School Daybook :: August 17th
FOR TODAY: August 17th, 2009
Outside my Window… it is dark and almost time for bed. Yay!
I am thinking… about sleep, but I really want to finish this post and share a little bit about our first day for this school year!
I am thankful… for Signing Time
From the school room… I finally was able to post pictures of our school room yesterday. If you missed them, you can see them here. The room worked pretty well today, though we did take all of our reading to the front porch or living room.
Living the Liturgical year at Home… we celebrated the feast of the Assumption this past Saturday and I will try and post a few pictures soon. It was such a lovely day! This coming Saturday is the feast of the Queenship of Mary and I am considering making another crown cake or some crown cupcakes .
We also caught up on our Saint magnets for the month, now that our calendar is back on the wall, and added the magnet for today this morning as we read about the Saint of the day, St. Hyacinth. I wanted to try and find time to make some paper hyacinths, but I already had too much planned for today. Perhaps next year. (It also looks like Snuggles snatched a couple dates off the calendar — one of his favorite things to do!)
I am creating (or rather created)… Colonial food with my children for Tea Time this afternoon, as part of our first stop Along the American History Path. (Monday afternoons are dedicated to American History this year… Tomorrow we will be moving on to Science and starting their Astronomy Lap books.)
We made Cornbread. Yes, we took a nice little modern day shortcut and used a mix.
Then we made Maple Cream from the recipe found in American Kids in History: Colonial Days
I am going… to be staying home as much as possible this week as we try to develop a good routine for this school year.
Around the house… amazingly everything is in pretty good shape. Sticking with my schedule, and staying off the phone and computer, really made a huge difference. In addition to school, by the time hubby got home, the kitchen had been mopped, dinner was prepared, dishes done, 4 loads of laundry washed and put-away, and the house picked up for the most part.
One of my favorite things… Homeschooling!!! (15 years ago it was one of my least favorite things. God really does have a sense of humor!)
- Our first week of school.
- Visiting friends for the afternoon and dinner on Tuesday.
- Our new freezer will be delivered on Wednesday. I am so excited!!
- Mass & Benediction on Friday
A few more pictures from today:
Schultütes
In fact, this was the “best day of school EVER!”
Back-to-School Schultütes
I used a combination of this and this tutorial and they were quite easy to make. I especially liked using the wrapping paper on the Schultütes for the girls, they turned out so pretty!
We are now as ready as we are going to be (It just isn’t possible to be totally ready, is it?), for our first day of school tomorrow, and my children are finally excited! They have been begging all week to postpone school “just one more week.” Not any more! 😉
When do your children begin school for the year, and do you have any back to school traditions? I think this just might be the start of one in our home.
The New School Room
I’ve been meaning to post a few pictures of our new school room for quite awhile, and just haven’t had a chance until now.
This room has gone through many different stages. When we first purchased our home over 9 years ago, just a few months before our oldest was born, it was to be the room for our children. At one point it belonged to our three oldest just before we added on more bedrooms. At that time, the closet was removed from this room (to add a little extra space to our small living room) and a hallway was built into it to attach the addition making it much smaller than before. With the new bedrooms for the children, it became a storage guest room. After Snuggles was born it then became the nursery. Though, honestly, Snuggles rarely slept in this room. In the winter months it is just too cold at night for a baby, plus being so snugly, he always preferred being close to his daddy and momma! Now with another baby on the way, it was time to shift everyone around to make a little better use of our home. The boys went to the old school room (which also was our old master bedroom when we first bought this home), the girls moved into the boys old room, Snuggles moved into the girls old room for now (he’ll join his brothers in a year or so) with plenty of room for the baby to join him, and that left this room for school. (Our home doesn’t have a dining room, and the kitchen is just too small…)
It is much more cramped cozier than our old school room, but it should work just fine. Plus, trying to figure out just what to do with everything has really helped in making our home a little more organized.
Well enough explaining, I’ll get on with a few pictures! I took these pictures a couple weeks ago (or so) and I am still in the progress of fine-tuning the room, which I am sure will be an ongoing process as we begin using it more often starting tomorrow, our first day of school for the year!
My desk is just inside the door (it is a bit cluttered right now with two computers as I work on transferring everything over), the boys desks are on either side of the window, and the table takes up the rest is in the middle of the room.
Since taking this picture I did give-up on trying to squeeze around the end chair, and it has been moved out for now. We don’t really need it right now anyway. You can also see the beginnings of the girls Madeline Lapbook in the basket on the table… It is still in progress and the girls have been having so much fun with this one.
The desk on the left has a built in bookcase on the end which I use for our CD’s (Glory Stories, Music Masters, Wee Sing, and a few others) as well as all of our Father Lovasik books and other religious books.
The desk on the right didn’t have a bookshelf, but I placed one I already had at the end to use as well, since I never seem to have enough room for all of our books.
The boys also have their shared American History timeline above their desks…
… as well as a basket each for their binders, geography scrapbooks, science lapbook, and Book of Centuries .
I am hoping to paint this someday either brown or green… I will have to take a picture now that it is filled with all of our Feast of the Assumption books and crafts!
There is our United States map… I am still trying to decide whether or not to hang up our World Map, or just stick with the globe. It could go above my desk, but that’s about it… We’ll see.
Our Art Shelf is below the map, on top of some stacking shoe organizers which are now holding puzzles, pattern blocks, lacing shapes, and other school time toys. (Thanks again Jen for the inspiration!)
As you can see, I’ve managed to cram quite a bit into a pretty small area, but right now everything has a place, it is organized, and it seems to be working much better than the old school room…
Now, I do have one area that still needs a little work… It is the shelf on TOP of the hallway, which you can see above the bookcases — just not in any of the above pictures.
Here is a closer look:
It looks kind of funny right now with just the one curtain hanging down in the middle, but what my children don’t know is that behind that curtain are quite a few of their Christmas gifts all wrapped and ready for December.
My plan is to keep items I am not using this year (or season) up and out of the way. I also want to try and find (or perhaps make) a few curtains that would nicely hide it all. The rest of the craft supplies, the ones we use on a frequent basis, are now being stored in my closet — and another work in progress as I try to organize it all, but it is coming along nicely.
So, there you go… A little peek at our School Room. Now I am off to finish getting ready for tomorrow!! I have a few Schultütes to make.
On the Feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe
Today, August 14th, is the feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe.
After dinner this evening my children asked to listen to The Knight and Our Lady! The Story of St. Maximilian Kolbe while coloring Charlotte’s wonderful coloring page.
They also asked me to post their finished pictures for you all to see:
In the meantime, also inspired by Charlotte, I tried making some St. Max’s Candy for dessert.
Random Summertime Photography :: Slip ‘n Slide
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