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alicegunther
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Dear Friends,
We began work on Memorial Notebooks in honor of Pope John Paul II a day or so after he died. I know many of you are already working on similar notebooks, but I thought you wouldn't mind if I posted our plans to add to the many wonderful ideas already mentioned on this and other lists. My hope for this project is that it will serve as a memorial or keepsake more than anything else.
Instead of our usual binders, I purchased pre-made presentation folders at Staples. The folders are white with twelve built-in sheet protectors, perfect for creating a mini-book on the life of the pope, but large enough that we can include quite a bit of information in a small amount of space. The pages we have created (and plan to create) include:
1. Journal entry--I asked the girls to write an introductory page including something they would like their children to know about what this week was like. This may sound like a vague assignment, but the girls and I have often discussed the fact that the Pontiff of their childhood was the Pontiff of my childhood (JPII was elected when I was not quite 11). I've often told them how glad I am to share JPII with them and how special it is that they will always love and remember him as I do. Here is a sample from my 11 year old's book (her spelling and punctuation are retained):
"The week after Easter was a difficult one for families across the globe. Rain fell like tears from the heavens, tears for Terri Schiavo, who was so unjustly killed, for my mother's Aunt Flo, who had died the week before, for John Shannon, an usher who had perished in a car accident, but mostly for our Holy Father, the Pope. Christians and Jews alike prayed fervently for the repose of his soul, and yet we were all sure that the Lord welcomed him into heaven as the heavenly choir sang songs of joy.
"Who was this extrordinary man? Why was he so special, and how did he become Pope? We all wanted to know, so we did some reaserch, finding out the answers to these and many other questions. Then we gathered up our findings and formed books like this one.
"If you want to find out more about the life and death of Pope John Paul II, and how a new Pope will be chosen, keep reading.
2. Journal entry--This time I will be the one doing the writing. I plan to write a one or two page entry telling the girls some of my personal memories of the pope (including the death of Pope John Paul I, the election of a Polish Pope, his affect on the world and how it changed during his papacy, the assassination attempt in '81, seeing him at Shea Stadium in '79, highlights of my trip to Poland in the early 90s, his trip to NY when my second child was a newborn, etc.). This will be printed out for each of the girls along with photos to include in their books.
3. Narrations--I had originally planned to ask the girls to narrate some sort of biography of the Holy Father, either from a book (Karol from Poland is a good choice for young children) or a newspaper or web account, but then I decided that sometimes less is more. Instead of trying to write a biography of the Pope, they have been narrating episodes, interesting stories we have read about the pope's life. Wednesday's New York Times had an incredible article written by the cousin of a Jewish girl saved from starvation by the young seminarian Karol Wojtyla. We read this article together, and each of the girls narrated it for me. We hope to include other stories as well--the assassination attempt in 1981 and his subsequent reconciliation with his would-be assassin, the Pope's early childhood, his devotion to Fatima. Little by little, I've been reading them interesting articles and allowing them to narrate. Each girls' book should have at least three brief narrations highlighting different events in the pope's life by the time we are done.
4. Copywork--The girls have been copying selections from the book, Every Child a Light. They also copied some of his first words as Pope:
"The ways of Divine Providence are mysterious. In obedience of faith before Christ my Lord, abandoning myself to the Mother of Christ and of the Church, conscious of the great difficulties, I accept." Each girl has this quote displayed along with a picture of the Pope's first appearance on the balcony having just been elected (found on the internet).
5. A coloring page featuring the Holy Father along with the motto, "Totus Tuus," Latin for "All Yours." Please click: Pope John Paul II to view this page. (This would also make a fine cover for the notebooks.)
6. A page featuring the Papal Crest. For this, I used the Pflaum website recommended by Tracy Q and Courtney, in separate threads on this list. (Click on "activities," then "primary," and choose "Color the Pope's Crest.") The Papal Crest is another excellent cover option. My seven year old used it to make a Papal Flag for her cover with a bit of yellow and black cardstock. The crest is not quite the same as the design on the Papal flag, but it is close enough to be effective.
7. We will always remember Pope John Paul II for his devotion to Our Lady of Fatima (whom he credited with saving his life), Our Lady of Czestochowa (patroness of Poland), and the Divine Mercy. For this reason, we will include a page dedicated to these devotions, including photos of the Pope in Fatima and before the image of Divine Mercy. Beautiful images include this fairly recent picture of our Holy Father with Sister Lucia and another showing an earlier meeting. Here is a picture of Our Holy Father kneeling in front of an image of Divine Mercy, especially moving because he died during the Vigil for Divine Mercy Sunday, a feast he established and promoted. I also found an image of the Pope saying Mass in front of the image of Our Lady of Czestochowa, something near and dear to my heart because I visited Czestochowa on a pilgrimage to Poland in 1992.
8. Our notebooks will also include a page on the selection process. This will be a narration of the page explaining the selection process provided by Pflaum Publishing Company (please click on the Pflaum link above). By the way, an entire notebook could easily be created solely using the pages provided by Pflaum (thanks again, Tracy and Courtney!), especially if you are in a hurry. We had a prayer service for the Holy Father on Wednesday using Pflaum pages as well. They are very well done.
9. The last page will be dedicated to the new Holy Father, with his name and photograph, along with the Latin words, "Habemus Papam!" (We have a Pope!)
Additional resources:
We have been saving the newspapers for stories and photos, but you might also like to try CNN's special report on the Pope (I haven't read all of this, so please forgive me if there is anything objectionable included in the coverage).
Karol from Poland
Pope John Paul II Comic Book (This particular comic is published by Pauline Books and Media, not Marvel Comics.)
My Dear Young Friends, Pope John Paul II Speaks to Teens
The Poetry of Pope John Paul II
The Place Within: The Poetry of Pope John Paul II
Easter Vigil and Other Poems by Karol Wojtyla
(I have not seen the three poetry books, so I do not know how much material is duplicated in each book, but I am extremely interested to read the Pope's poem about the Easter Vigil.)
Pope John Paul II Paper Dolls
__________________
Love, Alice
mother of seven!
      
Cottage Blessings
Brew yourself a cup of tea, and come for a visit!
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MaryM
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This is so well organized, Alice. What a great compilation of the material that has been scattered about. Thanks for sharing.
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Mary M. in Denver
Our Domestic Church
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alicegunther
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Many thanks, Mary!
I purchased "The Poetry of John Paul II, Roman Triptych Meditations." (Please see link above.) It is a slim volume containing three poems written by Pope John Paul. According to the dust jacket, these poems are "[w]idely regarded as his spiritual last testament." We will certainly be using these poems for read aloud and copywork, but I cannot resist sharing a small excerpt with you:
From "Meditations on the Book of Genesis at the Threshold of the Sistine Chapel":
"It is here, beneath this wondrous Sistine profusion of color that the Cardinals assemble --
the community responsible for the legacy of the keys of the Kingdom.
They come here to this very place.
And once more Michelangelo wraps them in his vision.
'In Him we live and move and have our being.'
. . . .
"The colors of the Sistine will then speak the word of the Lord:
"Tu es Petrus -- once heard by Simon, son of John.
'To you I will give the keys of the Kingdom.'
Those entrusted with the legacy of the keys
gather here, letting themselves be enfolded
by the Sistine's colors,
by the vision left to us by Michelangelo --
So it was in August, and again in October,
in the memorable year of the two Conclaves,
and so it will be once more, when the time comes,
after my death.
Michelangelo's vision must then speak to them.
'Con-clave': a shared concern for the legacy of the keys,
the keys of the Kingdom.
Lo they see themselves in the midst of the Beginning and the End,
between the day of Creation and the day of the Judgment . . .
It is granted man once to die, and thereafter, the Judgment!"
This is just a small portion of the Pope's stirring poem, and I highly recommend you read the book with your children in its entirety. Sadly, I feel as if I am only now just getting to know this wonderful man. We will always miss him.
__________________
Love, Alice
mother of seven!
Cottage Blessings
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chicken lady
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Thanks Alice this is wonderful, we started a notebook on the "Chair of Peter" (Feb 22nd) and then, we have obviously expanded to include the life of JPll. Your hard work has given ne new ideas, and tons more to work with. Forget Lapbook, this is turning into a"BOOK"....very memorable...I really like the last page being about our new Pope!!
Thanks again
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alicegunther
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molly wrote:
Thanks Alice this is wonderful, we started a notebook on the "Chair of Peter" (Feb 22nd) and then, we have obviously expanded to include the life of JPll. Your hard work has given ne new ideas, and tons more to work with. Forget Lapbook, this is turning into a"BOOK"....very memorable...I really like the last page being about our new Pope!!
Thanks again |
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How wonderful that you have been working on this since February 22nd. I have always wanted to do something special for the Feast of the Chair of Peter, but never actually managed to plan anything.
I spent a good portion of the afternoon reading John Paul II's poetry and his book, "Crossing the Threshold to Hope." My mother bought the latter for me years ago when I was still in my twenties. Re-reading it now, I am even more impressed and moved than I was then. His writings on human love are just beautiful. How right you are that a lapbook could not begin to cover all there is to learn about this great man (and his successor)--we really do need a whole book!
__________________
Love, Alice
mother of seven!
Cottage Blessings
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chicken lady
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I have a reason for remembering the feast day Alice it just happens to be my b-day, and I get chills every year when they read the gospel, from Matthew 15:16 (I think) You are Peter,on you I will build my church and the gates of Hell will not Prevail...PARPHASED obviously....my it gives me goose bumps just writing it. And now with the conclave it brings me great HOPE!!
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materdei7
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Hello all,
Alice you have once again inspired us! Thank you for laying down the ground work for this memory book of the Holy Father. I wish to tell you all that at Costco, they have a few recent books by the Holy Father. We picked up one called
An Invitation to Joy.....it is a gem, loaded with beautiful photos. It is normally $30.00, but, at Costco it is only $4.99!!! The children have been pouring over it. The pages are full of direct quotes from the Holy Father.
A real treasure! There is such an abundance of copywork
to choose from. We truely been blessed by God!
Blessings
__________________
Kathleen, mother of five on earth, three in heaven.
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alicegunther
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Wow, Kathleen, thank you for the tip (not to mention your very kind words). Just to show there are no coincidences, an email from Costco came in my inbox simultaneously with your post. Normally, I would delete it without opening it, but now I will do a search for books by the Holy Father.
By the way, EWTN has great information on the Pope and the Conclave, including a printable brochure called In Memoriam Pope John Paul II. I am printing it out right now for the girls.
__________________
Love, Alice
mother of seven!
Cottage Blessings
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alicegunther
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This link will take you to three Costco offerings on Our Holy Father. Thanks so much for mentioning this, Kathleen.
__________________
Love, Alice
mother of seven!
Cottage Blessings
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BrendaPeter
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Hi Alice,
I'm just wondering how your school days work when you are doing a project like this. Do you have certain things you do every day like math or memory work? What do you do with the little ones? When do you have time during your day to type up all the plans?
Thanks for sharing!
Brenda (mom to 6)
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Elizabeth
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I'm confused about the nine days of mourning. The EWTN brochure sounds like they began as soon as he died but I've heard it reported that the day of the funeral is the first day and that a different cardinal will say a memorial mass and preach a homily on each of the nine days follwing the funeral. Also, where is the list of cardinals assigned to this and where could we find copies of the homilies?
__________________
Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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Karen T
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Elizabeth,
The nine days began on the day of the funeral. this page at EWTN lists each day, and has a link so far to Cardinal Ratzinger's homily from the funeral, so I think they will add the other homilies soon?
funeral rites of John Paul II
It already shows which cardinal will preside on each day.
hth,
KarenT
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alicegunther
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BrendaPeter wrote:
Hi Alice,
I'm just wondering how your school days work when you are doing a project like this. Do you have certain things you do every day like math or memory work? What do you do with the little ones? When do you have time during your day to type up all the plans?
Thanks for sharing!
Brenda (mom to 6) |
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Dear Brenda,
I usually devote about one to two hours per day to a project like this, having the girls create only about two pages at a time. Oftentimes, as with the Easter Vigil project, the girls will develop enough of an interest that they create additional pages or artwork on their own during their spare time. My seven year old, for example, spent about a half hour working on her own replica of the Papal flag to use for her cover, and my 11 year old is currently writing a poem dedicated to our Holy Father.
There are subjects we do every day no matter what else we are working on--math, reading lessons for the younger ones, grammar, literature (read alouds), history, and religion, for example. Science, nature study, and foreign language (Latin/French) are studied once or twice a week (sometimes more depending on what we are doing). Still, when a project like this arises, is timely, and has lighted a fire of interest in the children, I am glad to find ways to use the project to accomplish my goals in *many* subjects. The Pope JPII Memorial Notebooks, for example, have given me the perfect opportunity to give interesting writing assignments (narration, journal entries, reams of copywork, dictation, literature, and research). Normally, our writing assignments center around history and nature study, but, at least for the next week or so, they will all focus on John Paul II and the selection of our next pope. Fortunately, John Paul II was a creative and prolific writer, so we have a great deal to work with, including his beautiful poems.
Because of John Paul II's unique influence on the history of the twentieth century, the stories we have read about his life have enabled the girls to begin to understand so many things--the Nazi invasion of Poland, the evils of Communism, and its ultimate downfall in Europe, thanks largely to Our Holy Father. These are things they did not know before, but they will certainly never forget. We had a wonderful moment in our house the other day. My husband was reading a newspaper article reporting that, if John Paul II receives the title "the Great," he will only be the third Pope in history to have it. My daughters blew him away by naming both St. Gregory and St. Leo as the other two popes with this title and then telling him what they knew about those two great popes. All of a sudden, our history reading from earlier this year had renewed interest for them! They could see how our own times are part of history as well.
Needless to say, the project is a good opportunity to practice handwriting, spelling, Latin, and art (both art appreciation and drawing), and the entire thing is centered around religion. We spent the week listening to the CD "Pilgrimage of Faith--Words and Music Celebrating Pope John Paul II's Return to Poland" for music appreciation. Even nature study has come into play because the Pope's love of nature is so evident in his poetry. I guess what I am saying is there is nothing better than a project that covers a mulititude of subjects seamlessly, and better yet, painlessly!
As for the little ones, I try to involve them as much as possible in whatever we are doing. For this particular project, only the 11, 9, and 7 year olds are making notebooks. My 5 year old was affronted by this (she'd created an Easter Vigil notebook, after all), so I had to appease her with her own binder and many coloring pages, including the ones from Pflaum. I also gave her a printout of photos of the pope I had found at various sources and let her create a beautiful collage. My three year old is also encouraged to color, and he and the five year old loved listening to the book "Karol from Poland." As always with a project like this, I try to provide materials on a variety of different levels and hope each child comes away learning exactly what he or she should know about a subject.
By the way, we read a very touching story about a friend who dropped in on the Pope and his father during the years when they lived alone (after the Pope's mother died) and found them playing soccer in the house with a ball made out of rags. This was so moving to me because it shows what a wonderful man Karol, Sr. was. Anyway, the girls liked this so much that they made their own ball of rags and had an impromptu game--needless to say, the five year old and three year old were very much involved in this part of our "project"!
>>>When do you have time during your day to type up all the plans?
I haven't any to tell you the truth! Fortunately, I am a bit of a night owl (it's almost midnight now), or I don't think I would ever get anything done at all.
__________________
Love, Alice
mother of seven!
Cottage Blessings
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Karen T
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Well, now i see your confusion, b/c on that page I listed the link to, if you click on "Novemdiales" for the explanation, it does say "beginning with the day of death"
But since it shows the whole schedule of the Cardinal's Masses and the exact dates, I think it begins with the funeral
Karen T
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alicegunther
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I cannot resist sharing with you this historical quote about the Pope published in The New Yorker Magazine, April 11, 2005 (The Talk of the Town, Comment by David Remnick):
"Not long after his ascension to the Chair of St. Peter, the Pope declared that he would make a 'pilgrimage' to Poland--an event that the Communist Party in Warsaw anticipated with dread. To counteract what it knew would be the destabilizing impact of the visit, the Party sent out a desperate, secret memorandum to the nation's schoolteachers:
'The Pope is our enemy. . . . Due to his uncommon skills and great sense of humor he is dangerous, because he charms everyone, especially journalists. Besides, he goes for cheap gestures in his relations with the crowd, for instance, [he] puts on a highlander's hat, shakes all hands, kisses children, etc. . . . It is modeled on American presidential campaigns. . . . Because of the activities of the Church in Poland our activities designed to atheize the youth not only cannot diminish but must intensely develop. . . . In this respect all means are allowed and we cannot afford sentiments.'
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Love, Alice
mother of seven!
Cottage Blessings
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MEBarrett
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This week's National Catholic Register is devoted to the Holy Father. On the back page there is a short biographical sketch of his mother, Emilia, his brother Edmund and his father Karol Sr. There are also some lovely family photos including a baby picture of the pope. He had cute chubby cheeks!
If anyone is unable to get a copy of the paper but would like to include this in their notebooks let me know and I will be happy to make you a copy and mail it. I do recommend getting the issue if possible as it is full of wonderful info including a timeline.
__________________
Blessings,
Mary Ellen
Mom to seven beautiful kids
Tales from the Bonny Blue House
O Night Divine
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MEBarrett
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Alice what kind of notebooks do you use for this kind of project? I was thinking of a binder and page protectors. Is there another more creative way?
When the children do their copywork what kind of paper do they use? Notebook paper or something more special.
Sorry for all the questions, this is new to me and I want the books to be special. Since these poor children were born to a creativity-impaired mother I often need guidance.
Thanks!
__________________
Blessings,
Mary Ellen
Mom to seven beautiful kids
Tales from the Bonny Blue House
O Night Divine
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alicegunther
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MEBarrett wrote:
Alice what kind of notebooks do you use for this kind of project? I was thinking of a binder and page protectors. Is there another more creative way?
When the children do their copywork what kind of paper do they use? Notebook paper or something more special.
Sorry for all the questions, this is new to me and I want the books to be special. Since these poor children were born to a creativity-impaired mother I often need guidance.
Thanks! |
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Dear Mary Ellen,
First, thank you for the National Catholic Register recommendation. I will try to get a copy.
For most projects of this sort, we use binders with sheet protectors, but for this particular project, I purchased special presentation binders from Staples. They are white with 12 sheet protectors built in. This is helpful in that it forces me to keep the project to a manageable length!
We usually use plain loose leaf for copywork, but often cut it out and affix it (using tape or glue) to prettier paper later. Beautiful lined paper would be nice too. Catholic Heritage Curricula used to publish gorgeous "holy papers" for copywork, but I think they have been discontinued.
__________________
Love, Alice
mother of seven!
Cottage Blessings
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MEBarrett
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I miss the CHC paper too! I used it even before I homeschooled!
Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions.
__________________
Blessings,
Mary Ellen
Mom to seven beautiful kids
Tales from the Bonny Blue House
O Night Divine
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Elizabeth
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I've adapted Alice's plan a bit for my high school aged child.
1. A narration of the day the Pope died.I'm posting it in the Narrations forum.
2. A copy of my column "Farewell, dear Papa."
3. A timeline of Karol Wojtyla's life.
4. A narration on his devotion to Mary.
5. A summary of how Pope John Paul II shaped the 20th century.
6. A narration of the Teaching Company lectures on how the Pope is chosen.
7. A biography of the new pope and Michael's impressions of that day.
__________________
Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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4Real Forums : Domestic Church
Topic: Pope John Paul II Memorial Notebooks
