Munnu's First Reconciliation On 23.03.14

It was an amazing day. Third Sunday of lent. All of us at home were poorly. However we thought to go for H mass as we could very rarely go to parish on Sunday. Thank God, we could meet Fr Early after mass,he asked Monsgr. Michael to give First confession to Munnu. Munnu was not prepared for that day, but he prepared there itself in the church went to confessional box. I helped him. Thank God it was amazing, because we were waiting for it to happen and we don't know when that's gone be.

St Joseph Day

It is St Joseph's feast day. We thought to make a St Joseph altar which is an olden tradition carried from cicily. Story behind is having a big feast because there was a huge famine, people prayed through St Joseph and famine gone away. So rich people welcomed poor and the others into their houses on the feast day , with lots of food. St Joseph three tier altar reminds trinity, Joseph, Mary and Jesus.

 St Joseph is the patron of fathers, children wrote beautiful letter to appa, was really great. Then we made some dad donuts, which is a tradition of making  donuts on St Joseph day. It was the first time I made donuts.

 Children making some St Joseph symbols using dough, made nails, hammer, crosses etc and children did some coloring sheets of whole story of St Joseph which we obtained from holy heroes.

St PATRICK DAY

March 17, It's  St Patrick day.  The story of St Patrick was read to them in the morning. Children were very keen to listen to the story and the celts, druids, togas  which were learned recently in Romans, patrick's little friend ben became their friend. Later on , we thought to learn little about Republic of Ireland, their farmings, capital, languages and type of dishes on the St Patrick's day. We went for H. Mass; could see many irish people in that church with sprouts of shamrock as the badge. Annu wore green dress when we went to the church. 

Kids did some word search and found out main places in Ireland.

 As a part of learning, Limerick was learned, which is a nonsense, silly poetry, which is believed to be originated since Patrick's time. Children made their own limerick, first,second and fifth lines always rhymes, third and fourth rhymes together and shorter than other lines, like Hickory dickory dock....

 We looked at how Irish people celebrate this feast day. They go to church and afternoon is for celebration.. Some of their favorites are Irish coffee, cheese caramel puddings. Children putting an attempt to make Irish coffee (but we made it without whiskey and cream; which were the main ingredients; so you can imagine our Irish coffee, but children did their best to make coffee by themselves and enjoyed drinking black coffee.). Even towards the end of the day, I saw them dressed up and  acting the story of Patrick and little Ben with harp, whom was their favorite.

Tinkerbell- Annu's 9 th birthday

Annu is decorating her own cup cakes. She would like to do some sort of fairy theme for her 9th birthday.  So we thought to keep Tinkerbell and friends, some green and purple shades, she wanted to invite  her friends too

Theresu n munnu is doing the cupcake toppers.

Annu and Theresu making fruit cocktail

Annu had about her 18 friends invited for her party. Awakening in Manchester finished on 8th March. Some of us went for H. Mass. Then we started decorating houses.Kids started coming from 12 pm onwards. Kidos played in the trampoline, played cricket, hopscotch and on. Asked everyone for cake cutting, had meals; pizza, pasta and  some other finger foods. Then they had pinata and had a treasure hunt. They were split up into two groups and had a  treasure hunt, which was obviously hunting some chocolates with different clues..

Once the games were finished, we as three groups went together to our Chorlton water park to feed the birds and had a nature walk. I think children all really enjoyed that time too, it was an amazing time. On the way back after a long walk, though some of them got tired; ended up some time in the park. Reached home, had remaining pizza and said bye bye to all with annu and theresu gave party favors as thanks giving for coming. Thank God for Annu and the last wonderful 9 years in her life and with us and having a beautiful time today. We could conclude the day with a thanks giving Holy Mass in the evening in our parish.

Spring time- Daffodils

We thought of learning about Spring. We have a few daffodils growing in our garden. Thought to learn about it. I was really keen to know more about it. Munnu plucked a daffodil and planted in the pot and was observing it for the last few days. It came into my mind why dont learn about daffodils and especially learn about the beautiful poem of Wordsworth. So I could incorporate a few ideas of daffodils together with english, poetry, drawing, science by dissecting daffodils with them and learning the parts. So I was excited to see and learn about daffodils. It's a good time to know more about Wordsworth as part of Country study of United Kingdom.
Learned some vocabulary connected to daffodils. Lot of wonderful resources obtained from starof eight blog and from daffodilusa.org. Lot of coloring sheets are found in here about the different varieties of daffodils.

Dissecting the parts of daffodils 

                      Learning the poem 'Daffodils' by Wordsworth.

                         Copy writing the lines of 'Daffodils' poem.

freedom

Our St Joseph homeschooling group is having  a retreat based on topic 'freedom' and some lenten preparations for children from 10 am to 3 pm. Annu dressed up as St Bakitha to explore about the topic of freedom with small children.

Sacrifice bead made by Annu and theresu is doing some coloring of  St Jacinta.