4Real Forums: Issue with Letter of the Week programs

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Topic: Issue with Letter of the Week programs

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TryingMyBest
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Posted: July 12 2013 at 12:40am \| IP Logged

I understand what letter of the week programs are trying to achieve. However, one thing that bothers me is that the saint studied during the week, who matches the letter studied that week, doesn't match the saint's feast day.

Has anyone else been troubled by this? I want my daughter to live her life in the Church year and that to me suggests that we should be remembering a saint on his/her feast day.

Has anyone tried to match up a letter of the week program with the feast days? Am I overthinking this?

Jennifer

Angi
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Posted: July 12 2013 at 7:07am \| IP Logged

I have never tried it, but since it does not matter what order the letters are learned, it should be pretty easy to match the saints to feast days. :)

TryingMyBest
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Posted: July 12 2013 at 7:33am \| IP Logged

I know in my DD's Montessori school, there is an order to have the letters are introduced to children. They don't start with A, for example. Therefore, I guess one isn't bound by studying the letters in alphabetical order.

Another thing that makes combining a letter of the week program with a particular saint difficult is that some letters have many saints while other letters have very few. For example, I want to teach DD about both St. Michael and St. Martin.

I think I might move away from matching up the letter of the week with a saint and study saints based on the Church calendar instead.

Sara
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Posted: July 15 2013 at 12:53pm \| IP Logged

I am doing the Alphabet Path with my girls this year. I think Elizabeth Foss's suggestion was to make sure to celebrate each "Saint of the Week" with a tea party on their feast day. I think what I decided to do was make the "Saint of the week" more educational by narrating a book about the saint and that Saint's day more of a celebration with a tea party or nice dinner. Of course, we would review the lives of the saint on their feast day too. I am looking forward to doing this with my girls because I know they will love have a theme each week. However, I find themes and unit studies in general to be a bit confining at times. We have to do what works best for our families

AmandaV
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Posted: July 15 2013 at 3:36pm \| IP Logged

I think the kids will find the connections. I disliked that a bit as well but we are still using 26 letters to Heaven this coming year. After hs for 4 years in a CM-minded way, I think that the connections come. So if I celebrate a saint once a month with a special meal or tradition, and we read about one or two of the saints of the week (liturgically), if we go through 26 of them alphabetically over the course of the year separately most kids will remember and connect. "Oh! I remember when we went to mass on St. Thomas' day" or "Yes, I remember coloring about St. Paul last year and you read a story about him" when going to mass a few months later on their feast. I have not had these exact circumstances but similar with my older children. Just some food for thought.

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Amanda

wife since 6/03, Mom to son 7/04, daughter 2/06, twin sons 6/08 and son 7/11, son 1/2014

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