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pumpkinmom
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| Posted: Oct 01 2012 at 8:49am | IP Logged
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Oh, how I had big plans this year! We were going to dive right into liturgical celebrations and celebrate the Saints. It was going to be a great year!  I don't know what went wrong? Ok, that is a lie! I didn't do any planning! This does not come natural for me at all and I need hand holding. I have the resources A Year With God and Mondays With Mary. I have numerous books on Saints, and book marked a ton of Catholic website to refer to. I just can't pull it all together.
Right now my boys read (usually I read too them) a chapter from Faith & Life each their own grade level. My oldest reads alone 1 or 2 chapters from Bible History by Ignatius Schuster. My goal was to read a Saint story once a week and add in activities for the resource books I have.
Can you tell me what your plans look like? What happens at your house? Lesson plans? We are on fall break for a couple of days and I really plan to write out plans for the next few months to get us on track and meet the goals I had orginally. Anyone want to help? 
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Cassie
Homeschooling my little patch of Ds-14 and Ds-10
Tending the Pumpkin Patch
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MicheleB
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My plans are ....Pinterest! LOl!
The girls read a lesson from the Seton Religion for Young Catholics series and then do a bible lesson: Dd11 is finishing the Benzinger Bible History (and written narrations), and then she and I are going to read through Acts using the Ignatius Study Bible and all those fantastic notes! I am reading Marigold Hunts' Book of Angels to dd8, and then she orally narrates. Next she will use Marigold Hunts' Life of Our Lord and First Christians. (Unless we decide to go with the Mother Loyola Life of Jesus - any preference here?) At some point she will read them on her own, but I am not in a hurry - I enjoy reading it to her. Maybe she could read them to me.
We also do the memory verse system from Simply Charlotte Mason.
(And we are one day going to finish St. Patrick's Summer....and then start King of the Golden City)
As far as saints and Church Year activities, if we have time, we do a craft or activity or snack from Pinterest. I divided up my boards by month and feast to help me plan for Sunday School, but sometimes things work out well for home. my pinterest boards My "liturgical year" boards are down past food and homeschool.
I have tons of files both in folders and on the computer, but sometimes I just want to browse through the pictures on Pinterest for ideas. There are so many ways you could divide your boards. I started by months, then feasts that don't always fall into 1 month or the same month...then realized "Irish Saints" needed to be its own board... So many possibilities!
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Wife of 18 years, mother to daughters Nutmeg 13.5 and Buttercup 10.
http://thestripedrose.blogspot.com/
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MicheleB
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Now that I am thinking about it, I really want to do the bird feeder craft with the girls this week for St. Francis (as well as go to the blessing of the animals.) Maybe I could add "pins" of books I want to read for each feast on the boards as well....
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MicheleB
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| Posted: Oct 01 2012 at 9:54am | IP Logged
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This looks good - this blog post mentions some of our forum friends as well!
post about organizing liturgical year
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Wife of 18 years, mother to daughters Nutmeg 13.5 and Buttercup 10.
http://thestripedrose.blogspot.com/
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pumpkinmom
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Thank you! So many boards! I will have to book mark it and keep coming back to look.  Wonderful!
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Cassie
Homeschooling my little patch of Ds-14 and Ds-10
Tending the Pumpkin Patch
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jawgee
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Something fairly simple might be to include some activities from the Footsteps of American Saints Program. It was developed for Catholic Boy/Cub Scouts, but anyone is welcome to participate!
Maybe you can choose one saint whose feast day is a month or two away and work on completing all the activities suggested. Then you can order the patch for the family.
My sons did Saint Damien over the past couple of months and then just started on Saint Isaac Jogues. There are great living books for several of these saints by Pauline Books, too.
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Monica
C (12/2001), N (11/2005), M (5/2008), J (8/2009) and three angels
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Erin
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Well my plans consist of going to Faith Filled Days however I need to plan a little more than that to make it happen you're inspiring me 
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Erin
Faith Filled Days
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stellamaris
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Well, I think this might be one of your difficulties:
pumpkinmom wrote:
| I have the resources A Year With God and Mondays With Mary. I have numerous books on Saints, and book marked a ton of Catholic website to refer to. I just can't pull it all together. |
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Even though these are fantastic resources, I think it is very confusing and discouraging to try to use too many resources at once. I'd pick ONE and do just two activities from it a month. We have used both A Year With God and Mondays With Mary, and I love them both. Just use them ONE AT A TIME! It will help you keep your focus, simplify planning, and make it much easier to get the craft/food items together.
As far as what we do:
1. Bible, twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays--Round-robin reading of a chapter in the book of the Bible we are studying and oral narration as we go. We use an Atlas to look up any geographical sites. I try to ask a "thinking question" that relates to the material. For example, today we were reading in Joshua 7 about the defeat at Ai, and I asked, "How do secret sins affect other people?"
2. Catechism, twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays--Again, round-robin reading aloud and narration. We are using F & L 7 to prep for Confirmation as well as memorizing questions that will be on the Confirmation test.
3. In addition to the above more "academic" approaches, we begin every morning with a hymn (the same one for the whole week or even two weeks), prayers, the reading of a Psalms (the same one for every day in a given week, then the next one the next week), the Gospel reading of the day, and a brief story of a Saint. This year we are using the book Saints for Young Readers for Every Day plus some readings from the Divine Office (plus the Pledge of Allegiance). Once a week (Wednesdays), we attend daily Mass. Also, family Rosary many nights (I can't say ALL nights ) and a short Lectio Divina once a week during which the children silently meditate on a short passage of Scripture, which I read over four times with silence in between each reading.
If I wanted to add something more interactive to the above, I think I'd begin with Mondays with Mary. The year we did those lovely teas really was a special one, even though we didn't usually do the crafts, just the food and readings and prayers. Even once or twice a month would make a tremendous impact on your children.
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Caroline
Wife to  dh 30+ yrs,ds's 83,85,89,dd's 91,95,ds's 01,01,02,grammy to 4
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DominaCaeli
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I just wrote up what we're doing for the school-ish side of religious education for this year on our blog. My children are much younger than yours, so I'm not sure how helpful our plans would be.  BUT, I do have a general goal that I think would apply to various levels.
We do each of these subjects one day a week:
:: Catechism (one full catechism lesson weekly, practice daily of questions and answers)
:: Saints' Lives (not based on the liturgical year--just working through a literary book of saints' lives appropriate to their age level)
:: Bible
:: Religious Story (something like Angel Food, Leading the Little Ones to Mary, book about Marian consecration, etc.)
:: Mass Study (this could be switched out for other "special topics" in other years)
You can see my plans for first grade as an example.
Those are the "lesson plans," and I think of them as separate from feast day celebrations. For celebrating the liturgical year, I like to keep it simple. I look through the month and pick the most important feasts for our home and plan around them. Usually our celebrations consist of a saints' reading, special prayers, and maybe a treat. For big feasts, we sing hymns and do a procession through the house.
Our nightly prayers also focus on the particular devotion for the month (or on the major liturgical season, like Easter, Christmas, Advent, Lent). So for October, we're celebrating the Holy Angels, and each night, the children choose an card from the basket that lists a "kind" of angel and we read about it from a variety of resources I have pulled together. They also learn a new prayer to the angels. Nothing elaborate, but it keeps the seasons of the Church in mind.
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JennGM
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Yes, keep it simple and minimal. I presume you're referring to the Liturgical Year practices.
Look ahead to the week and see what feasts lie ahead. This week is the perfect example of a VERY busy one -- St. Therese, Guardian Angels, St. Francis of Assisi, with Archangels on Saturday.
And my schedule is really tight this week personally, so we're doing the minimal approach.
We decided to go to morning mass on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, and I pulled out picture books for these three days.
That is our minimal. I add some dessert or treat, doesn't have to be themed, just "this is a treat for the feast of guardian angels".
And our prayers we add the saints of the day, and our discussions at meals and such bring out different conversations regarding these saints/feasts.
So, no crafts, no big planning, but the feasts don't get swept under the carpet.
I know that's not super planning, just giving the "Help, I'm drowning, but I still want to celebrate" version.
I also love the idea that I think Dawn had that she had one liturgical tea for the week, and it would highlight the feasts of the week, which could be more than one.
And all you have to do is have tea time, decorate the table nicely depending on age of children, have a treat, even if storebought, and put out a little holycard or book of the saint(s).
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jawgee
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| Posted: Oct 02 2012 at 9:23pm | IP Logged
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Another idea came to me this afternoon.
This year we decided to use these Pflaum Student Planners for homeschooling. We bought them as part of a group-buy in our homeschool group, so they were only about $5 each.
They are an excellent way to incorporate faith into your day. This week both the Primary and the Intermediate planners had activities regarding angels in the Bible. There is so much information, yet presented in an orderly fashion, that could lead to more study.
Check out some sample pages if you are interested!
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Monica
C (12/2001), N (11/2005), M (5/2008), J (8/2009) and three angels
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JennGM
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Oh, and coloring pages. My oldest didn't like that as much, but now with the younger these are winners.
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Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to & ds1 '03 & ds2 '07
Family in Feast and Feria
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pumpkinmom
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| Posted: Oct 04 2012 at 4:58pm | IP Logged
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These are all great ideas!
I sat down today to work on my plans and I came up with nothing. I take that back since I did make a plan, but it was the same plan I had 3 months ago that isn't getting done. I was going to go into detail, but I stopped myself to rethink again. I did pull out two Saint books that I want to use and I read through it and marked the Saints I want to read about. This is an improvement! Had I done this three months ago we would have read half a book already.
Maybe it is the Faith & Life books that I'm not liking? I like them because the lessons are short and simple and they have beautiful pictures (I actually learn lots of stuff from reading them). My kids are not fans of them, so I get the sigh and a short sentence. This is why I haven't touched these books in over two weeks.  What should I do instead?
I'm going now to find my Monday's With Mary to plan a weekly tea and activity from this book. I like this idea and I bet I can get my boys to like it if I include a treat. I think I can keep it simple and minimal!
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Cassie
Homeschooling my little patch of Ds-14 and Ds-10
Tending the Pumpkin Patch
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jawgee
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pumpkinmom wrote:
Maybe it is the Faith & Life books that I'm not liking? I like them because the lessons are short and simple and they have beautiful pictures (I actually learn lots of stuff from reading them). My kids are not fans of them, so I get the sigh and a short sentence. This is why I haven't touched these books in over two weeks. What should I do instead? |
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F&L online is a lot more interesting for my two boys (ages 10 and 6). It's located at My Catholic Faith Delivered. Each course on there is $25 for the year.
It is a lot more interactive. Every lesson has some audio, occasionally there is a video (from the Holy Land, for example), and every lesson has a game section that has Bible and Saint trivia.
I also like that the lessons are short - 25 minutes maximum. That leaves lots of time to explore other things about our faith that interest us. At this time we are reading a book about St. Issac Jogues, reading the book An Illustrated Catechism, working on a project about St. Leo (Pope Leo I, who is our church's patron saint), and memorizing Scripture. We are also really liking Classically Catholic Memory so far.
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Monica
C (12/2001), N (11/2005), M (5/2008), J (8/2009) and three angels
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Barbara C.
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This year I shelled out the money for the Family Formation catechesis program. I chose it because it's designed to teach multiple age groups at once and they send you most of the materials for crafts along with the monthly lesson packet. (I am craft-challenged.) So far, I've been pretty pleased with it. I usually split it over three days, but we could probably get it done in 45 minutes each week.
The best thing I think I've done (although the kids would disagree) is incorporating the Rosary one day each week. On Thursdays we do either the "Introductory" prayers and the first two mysteries/decades -or- the last three decades. Then after we go through all four sets of mysteries we do the Divine Mercy Chaplet before starting back at the beginning.
I use this free Rosary CD ($1 shipping per copy) to help me keep track of where we are amidst the chaos of having so many little ones. Anyone first grade or older has to participate in some way, either with beads or doing a coloring page while reciting the prayers. I also pause at the start of each mystery to explain what it means.
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4Real Forums : Domestic Church
Topic: Struggling with our religion education!
