Whoops! I meant to post this last week, but after moving and buying a farm house- our quarantine time has been anything but boring with all the outside work that needs to be done. I figure better late than never though- so here you go!
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As homeschoolers, we’ve always spent Holy Week at home learning about Christ’s Passion story, making crafts, sacrificing in special ways and learning through play. For many of you quarentining because of Covid19 (what a crazy time we’re in!), this is the first time you’re ‘homeschooling’ Holy Week. Yes that’s in quotes, because this time we’re going through is nothing like regular homeschooling either. But alas, we are all at home this week, and I thought I’d share how we usually do Holy Week around here.
Stories, stories, stories
My kids love to listen to read alouds. We always start school with read alouds, but this week we focus on the Passion Story. I often read from our Golden Children’s Bible, starting on page 428 with the story of Jesus going back into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday), and read a little every day this week.
My kids are also huge fans of the Jesus Story Book Bible. This is not strictly Catholic, but it’s fun illustrations and the conversational tone of the writing makes it fun for even my 3 yr old. This book doesn’t align perfectly with Holy Week, but you can start with The Servant King story (pg286) on Thursday. Then read A dark night in the garden and The sun stops shining on Friday, and lastly God’s wonderful surprise on Sunday.
Another book we love to read on Palm Sunday or during the week is The Donkey that No One Could Ride. It all rhymes and tells the story of Jesus going into Jerusalem from the perspective of the Donkey.
Crafts!
While you’re doing all that reading, you can keep your kids busy with a craft. I have a free craft for everyday of Holy Week:
Jesus on a Donkey for Palm Sunday
Judas’ Money Pouch for Wednesday
Last Supper Chalice and Host for Thursday
You might be thinking- yea but I’ve followed your blog for years and we did that last year! And I’ll tell you right now, we do the SAME crafts every year, and my kids never get tired of it. In fact, they ask me throughout Lent when we can get started on them. I guess some thing become tradition by accident. We don’t always make it into a mobile, sometimes they are just made, played with and then set on the table for decoration.
If you don’t want to mess around with all the different page links or coloring it yourself, you can buy the whole thing in one document at my shop. (Thanks for helping support my family and blog!)
If you need more than that, I have a whole page of printable Lent ‘stuff’ here:
What else do you do?
We take the week off of ‘normal’ homeschooling. As in, we don’t do math worksheets, learn reading or writing or do worksheets in general. We do our “Spring Cleaning” during Holy Week, and it’s a way for my kids and me to sacrifice a little and meditate on Jesus’ sacrifice. We often have a discussion about how we ‘don’t want’ to clean or organize, just as Jesus didn’t want to have to die on the cross (take this cup from me, yet not my will but yours be done Lk 22:42) But Jesus sacrificed BIG for us, for our sins and for our salvation. We can never sacrifice enough to compare to Jesus’ sacrifice, but little sacrifices like helping clean our family’s house helps us to understand and grow closer to Jesus. Plus cleaning is a quiet activity (mostly) and gives them time to think about the stories and their relationship with Jesus.
I have a spreadsheet that I print out, put on a clip-board and let my kids choose what to work on. As items are completed we check them off. It’s not beautiful, but it works and I’ll share it with you in Excel so you can edit it for your own house set up:
Often it’s easiest to give things like cleaning light switches and baseboards to the smallest kids. Things that actually really need a good cleaning like underneath couches, are for me or my oldest. My kids really get into it sometimes.
What will you do this week for Holy Week? I’d love to hear how you are adapting your regular Holy Week for the Quarantine version. Ours will look pretty similar (minus coops, playdates and extra curriculars). How ever you teach/entertain or occupy your children, I pray you grow closer to them and our Savior Jesus this week!
