Happy March Fo(u)rth– the only day of the year that is also a command! We read about this ideas years back in an old issue of Family Fun, so on this day we like to make plans for something we want to accomplish. For me, I would like to get through March without completely losing it.

Feasts and Festivals

March is, first and foremost, the liturgical season of Lent. Some of our Lenten plans include following our Lenten calendar and reading Bible Stories for the 40 Days, praying the Stations of the Cross, making personal sacrifices, fasting, giving alms, making sacrifice mice and a Lenten spiral, and learning some Lenten hymns. For more ideas, be sure to check out my Lent and Holy Week Pinterest board.

Additionally, we’ll be celebrating the following feast days as a family:
3/3: St Katharine Drexel (Katie Grace’s nameday!)
3/8: St. John of God, the patron saint of heart patients
3/17: St. Patrick (and be sure to check out our St. Patrick’s Day circle ideas here!)
3/19: St. Joseph
3/26: The Annunciation

And of course we’ll also be celebrating the first day of spring on the 20th! And hopefully I’ll remember to make a pie on Pi Day, 3/14.

Learning Plans

We’re in the thick of things here. I’m hoping for 5 solid weeks of good work until Easter. To tell the truth, we never really got our groove back after Christmas. Ah well. “Always, we begin again.”

Michael is doing a unit on the Renaissance, with an emphasis on reading biographies and studying the lives of some of the great artists and inventors. Unfortunately, the Medici family seems to have captured his imagination most of all, so for his literature selection he’ll be reading The Medici Seal by Theresa Breslin. We found a brand new copy of the Medici board game at the thrift store, so that should be fun.  We’ll also hit on some science and mathematical themes. My hope for this block is that just as the great thinkers of the Renaissance were moving out of an era where most men blindly accepted what they were told and went on with their day-to-day struggle for survival and into an era of great expansion of thought, invention, and discovery, so too will my now-13-year-old also stretch his imagination and think grand ideas for himself.

Katie Grace will be exploring American geography through the use of tall tales. She just finished read The Adventures of Molly Whuppie and Other Appalachian Folk Tales, which she enjoyed. Now we’ll be moving on to Cut from the Same Cloth: American Women of Myth, Legend and Tall Tale. We’ll be reading stories from the various regions of the United States. I’m not sure what our cumulative project here will be, although I do expect there to be some writing of tall tales involved. I’m specifically choosing tall tales with women as the main character because so many of the familiar stories seem to be about men.

Nicholas’s main lesson block will center around Celtic saints. This is one of my favorite blocks by far. So far we’re looked at St. Ciernan and St. Brendan. I expect we’ll move on to St. Columba and his alphabet cake next, and I’m hoping this will really speak to Nicholas’s heart as he takes off with reading. And then of course there’s St. Patrick and we’ve already tackled St. Brigid.

Daniel will be looking at the following themes in Nursery Rhyme Nursery School:
Green
St. Patrick and leprechauns
Rainbows
Spring

And of course we’ll be breaking out the Spring Seasons of Joy!

The babies will continue with their cute lessons.

Some Family Traditions

For St. Patrick’s day we’ll have corned beef and cabbage and mashed potatoes.

On the first day of spring we’ll go to Rita’s for a free Italian ice.

Throughout Lent, we’ll pray the Stations of the Cross. I like to light 14 candles and have the children take turns extinguishing them one by one as we work our way through. Not only does this really make an impact when we’re left in the darkness after Jesus’ death, but it also helps to hold their interest.

We have Family Night on Friday nights. I would like to try hula hoop weaving on one night and garden planning on another. I’m thinking of making a family project of creating a home for the “little people” one night as well. I was thinking of having everyone learn a magic trick and putting on a magic show one Friday night as well, and that will fill up our March!

We keep a “March Comes in Like a Lion and Goes Out Like a Lamb” chart every year. Last year we kept track with glass gems in a jar. This year we have a bar graph and Nicholas has been writing a word that describes each day on each little card.

We’ll be putting away King Winter and Jack Frost and getting out Mother Nature and her root children for our nature table. I always enjoy this nature table scene.

Our character trait this month will be sincerity: “eagerly doing what is right with transparent motives.”

Homemaking Rhythms

It is, of course, spring cleaning time. I’m taking my time and going one room at a time, from the top of the house to the bottom. Yesterday I got half the bathroom finished. Well, a third of the bathroom finished. Slow and steady and all that. I’m hoping to have the first floor clean for Easter.

We’ll be getting outside more as the days grow warmer. Since gas prices are skyrocketing we should probably do a lot more walking. Garden planning is on the list, as is repairing my clothesline that the boys hung on and broke.

I’m still working on moving towards whole foods and will continue along with that. I’m hoping to add kombucha to my repertoire this month. I’m also still working the kinks out of my kefir.

What are your plans this March?