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BlessedWith3SNP
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To put away my workbooks for good and turn to living books!
I'm sooooo happy that we finally took the leap of faith and did away with all of the busy work. Our days are filled with wonderful stories and a renewed LOVE of learning. My children are happier, more attentive and excited for each new day.
The only thing I'm stuck on is planning religion. Any ideas?
My children that are school age are working at a 1st and 3rd grade level.
Thanks in advance!
God Bless. Mary
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~Mary, wife to Kenneth and mom to Sean Michael (10/03), Noah Gabriel (11/05), Piper Arwen (10/08), Adam Raphael (4/14)
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jawgee
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Congrats!!! We are workbook free, too, except for math. Isn't it wonderful to read and learn together?!
I'm still struggling with what to do for religion, too. My kids are in Faith Formation at our parish and we read some of the gospel every day, but I feel like I would like to do something more. I'm not sure what.
So, I'll be watching too!
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Monica
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Pilgrim
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I confess, I don't know all of what living books entails, but I thought these lapbooks, and the faith rings the sell look really meat, and like a great way to teach the Truths of Our Faith.  I think the lapbooks look like such a fun way to teach these things to the kids and the nice thing is, they've done the work of what to put in it.
HTH. It can be hard to find all of what we want to use in teaching our children. We may know what we want to pass on of our knowledge and love of a subject, but the implementing, and finding what will do that in a living and exciting way that will take hold can be hard sometimes.
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BlessedWith3SNP
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jawgee wrote:
Congrats!!! We are workbook free, too, except for math. Isn't it wonderful to read and learn together?!
I'm still struggling with what to do for religion, too. My kids are in Faith Formation at our parish and we read some of the gospel every day, but I feel like I would like to do something more. I'm not sure what.
So, I'll be watching too! |
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Yes, I too am still using a workbook curriculum for math. I'm not quite that confident to go it totally alone! LOL 
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~Mary, wife to Kenneth and mom to Sean Michael (10/03), Noah Gabriel (11/05), Piper Arwen (10/08), Adam Raphael (4/14)
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BlessedWith3SNP
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Pilgrim wrote:
I confess, I don't know all of what living books entails, but I thought these lapbooks, and the faith rings the sell look really meat, and like a great way to teach the Truths of Our Faith. I think the lapbooks look like such a fun way to teach these things to the kids and the nice thing is, they've done the work of what to put in it.
HTH. It can be hard to find all of what we want to use in teaching our children. We may know what we want to pass on of our knowledge and love of a subject, but the implementing, and finding what will do that in a living and exciting way that will take hold can be hard sometimes. |
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Thank you for the link! I am currently doing their Catechism at home, so we've been using the Faith and Life series. But my children find it to be very dry. I was thinking of reading bible stories and having them do drawn narrations, but I'm also open to other ideas.
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~Mary, wife to Kenneth and mom to Sean Michael (10/03), Noah Gabriel (11/05), Piper Arwen (10/08), Adam Raphael (4/14)
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zookeeper9
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Right now we are reading the Mary Fabian Windett saint biographies. She as an accompaning manual for a "set" of books. The manuals are called Race for Heaven. They have question and answers for each chapter of the book, some vocabulary and an extention if you wish to do them.
We read a chapter thee the children will narrate it the chapter back to me. We go over the 4 or 5 vocabulary words and figure out how they work in today's language. Then we talk about the saint and anything else that they manual that they suggest. At the end of the book there is a "test" that we go over orally.
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Donna
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jawgee
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BlessedWith3SNP wrote:
Pilgrim wrote:
I confess, I don't know all of what living books entails, but I thought these lapbooks, and the faith rings the sell look really meat, and like a great way to teach the Truths of Our Faith. I think the lapbooks look like such a fun way to teach these things to the kids and the nice thing is, they've done the work of what to put in it.
HTH. It can be hard to find all of what we want to use in teaching our children. We may know what we want to pass on of our knowledge and love of a subject, but the implementing, and finding what will do that in a living and exciting way that will take hold can be hard sometimes. |
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Thank you for the link! I am currently doing their Catechism at home, so we've been using the Faith and Life series. But my children find it to be very dry. I was thinking of reading bible stories and having them do drawn narrations, but I'm also open to other ideas. |
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This is the same for us. Our parish uses the Faith and Life series, but it SO dry. It really doesn't bring life to the subject for the kids. It's too bad, really. The Catholic faith is so full of beauty, tradition, art, literature, etc. I wish they were learning the faith in a way that touched their hearts.
I did buy one of those lapbooks a few weeks ago for my almost 6YO, who learns well when he is making or doing something. I think he will like making it and will really get a lot of use out of it afterwards.
Donna, those saint books look great! I've added them to our wishlist.
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Monica
C (12/2001), N (11/2005), M (5/2008), J (8/2009) and three angels
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ekbell
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The daughter who found the Faith and life books to be 'boring' really liked the Saint Joseph Catechisms ( which I had picked up as inexpensive reference books).
I'm currently debating the merits of buying the Angel food books (which have been correlated to the catechisms).
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jawgee
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ekbell wrote:
The daughter who found the Faith and life books to be 'boring' really liked the Saint Joseph Catechisms ( which I had picked up as inexpensive reference books).
I'm currently debating the merits of buying the Angel food books (which have been correlated to the catechisms). |
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You can get the Angel Food books in PDF for under $12 here. I have them loaded on my Kindle.
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Monica
C (12/2001), N (11/2005), M (5/2008), J (8/2009) and three angels
The Catholic Cup on Facebook
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CrunchyMom
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jawgee wrote:
ekbell wrote:
The daughter who found the Faith and life books to be 'boring' really liked the Saint Joseph Catechisms ( which I had picked up as inexpensive reference books).
I'm currently debating the merits of buying the Angel food books (which have been correlated to the catechisms). |
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You can get the Angel Food books in PDF for under $12 here. I have them loaded on my Kindle. |
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We use these a lot. I also like to reference Jen's chart for coordinating the topic to the Baltimore Catechism. I do like using the catechism approach with my children. I hemmed and hawed, but it has not been too "schooly" for us.
Angel Food books coordinated with Baltimore Catechism
I also like Inos Biffi's Illustrated Catechism
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
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Grace&Chaos
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CrunchyMom wrote:
jawgee wrote:
ekbell wrote:
The daughter who found the Faith and life books to be 'boring' really liked the Saint Joseph Catechisms ( which I had picked up as inexpensive reference books).
I'm currently debating the merits of buying the Angel food books (which have been correlated to the catechisms). |
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You can get the Angel Food books in PDF for under $12 here. I have them loaded on my Kindle. |
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We use these a lot. I also like to reference Jen's chart for coordinating the topic to the Baltimore Catechism. I do like using the catechism approach with my children. I hemmed and hawed, but it has not been too "schooly" for us.
Angel Food books coordinated with Baltimore Catechism
I also like Inos Biffi's Illustrated Catechism |
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Ditto This is our first year using these books and the kids are enjoying Angel Food for Boys and Girls very much. The Inos Biffi are favorites too! We've used these during Advent and Lent, but I'm looking forward to trying these as a year long source. And I can't forget, we enjoy using picture books about Saints all year long on their feast days. We read and have tea  .
For my little ones I really like the Tomei De Paola Book of Bible Stories and they are enjoying the Illustrated Catechesism for Little Children by Neumann Press.
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Blessings,
Jenny
Mom to dds(00,03) and dss(05,06,08,09)
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jawgee
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I'm just realizing that the $11.97 Angel Food on Vintage Catholic contains Angel Food, For Heaven's Sake, Going His Way, and Just for Juniors. It does not include Angel Food for Jack and Jill or Angel Food Time (volumes I and II in Jen's spreadsheet). Any idea where to get those as e-books??
Also, I just realized that the four volumes on Vintage Catholic are available individually as e-books on Amazon. They are 99c each. That's a steal!!
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Monica
C (12/2001), N (11/2005), M (5/2008), J (8/2009) and three angels
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AmandaV
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You might want to try Mater Amabilis for some religion ideas. Your first grader would fit into the Level 1B suggestions, but you could combine your children easily using suggestions from 1B and 1A. We have enjoyed the selections from MA's curriculum the last few years.
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Amanda
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BlessedWith3SNP
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Thanks so much for all of the suggestions! I'm having a blast clicking through to all of these links.
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~Mary, wife to Kenneth and mom to Sean Michael (10/03), Noah Gabriel (11/05), Piper Arwen (10/08), Adam Raphael (4/14)
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Chris V
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Like others, we also use Inos Biffi's Illustrated Catechism, along with a variety of picture books, Saint books, and I also have some books by Donna Piscitelli. She has authored The Mass Book for Children, Little Acts of Grace, Living the 10 Commandments for Children, Beatitudes for Children, among others.
Edited to correct link.
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Chris V
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Pilgrim wrote:
I confess, I don't know all of what living books entails, but I thought these lapbooks, and the faith rings the sell look really meat, and like a great way to teach the Truths of Our Faith. I think the lapbooks look like such a fun way to teach these things to the kids and the nice thing is, they've done the work of what to put in it.
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Those lapbooks look really nice! My oldest would really like those I think. I've never done lapbooks before with my girls ... I wish they weren't so expensive (because you know, with three girls, they ALL have to have the same thing - so you don't just buy one, you buy three  else everyone is in tears for hours and what started as a beautiful activity has quickly deteriorated into despair and hopelessness from my overly-dramatic ladies ).
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Chris
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Pilgrim
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Chris, I think if you buy the digital version or CD-ROM of the lapbooks, you can print off as many as you want. When I print off things right now, I've started printing for all three toddlers for the same rteason you mention, they all want their own.
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jawgee
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Pilgrim wrote:
| Chris, I think if you buy the digital version or CD-ROM of the lapbooks, you can print off as many as you want. When I print off things right now, I've started printing for all three toddlers for the same rteason you mention, they all want their own. |
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Yep! I got the digital version of one of those lapbooks, so I can just print away!
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Monica
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Mackfam
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Hi Mary! So glad that you are finding a renewed invigoration in the lovely and worthwhile methods of enjoying worthy, whole books as the foundation of your home education! It truly is twice blessed! My children delight in it and it is such a blessing for me as well!
BlessedWith3SNP wrote:
The only thing I'm stuck on is planning religion. Any ideas?
My children that are school age are working at a 1st and 3rd grade level. |
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I'd love to recommend some wonderful living books for your children! In general, at this age, we simply read together for our religion! We read and enjoy learning about our faith. And the children narrate to me. Occasionally, we may do a fun project if the children have a desire, or if it relates to a special feast day, but the bulk of our early years faith formation consists of coming to know Our Lord through the writing of beautiful, engaging living books.
We begin lessons spending about 5-10 minutes working from a catechism.
K - 1 - Illustrated Catechism for Little Children (Neumann Press)
2 - 5 - Baltimore Catechism #1 (St. Joseph's)
6 - 8 - Baltimore Catechism #2 (St. Joseph's)
9 - 12 - Baltimore Catechism #3 with commentary by Father Connell (Benziger Brothers)
From there....we delight in reading. These are all books we enjoy using at the 1st/3rd grade age:
For the Preschool to First Communion crowd:
** Their Hearts are His Garden (Sister Mary Marguerite - Neumann Press)
** Manners in God's House (Sister M. Juliana of the Maryknoll Sisters - Neumann Press)
** Jesus and Mary - The Lives of Jesus and Mary and the Story of Fatima (Father Gales - Neumann Press)
** Angel Food for Boys and Girls (Father Gerald Brennan - Neumann Press)
** The Catholic Children's Treasure Box Books (edited by the Maryknoll Sisters - TAN)
** My Jesus and I (The Sisters of Mary Immaculate of Bishop Morrow)
** Leading the Little Ones to Mary (Sister Mary Lelia - Montfort Publications)
** God's Love Story (Sister Mary Jane Frances)
** Small Acts of Kindness (James Vollbracht)
** Miniature Stories of the Saints (Rev. Daniel Lord)
** Saints biographies found at Neumann Press
** Saints and Friendly Beasts Series at Neumann Press
** Catholic Mosaic (Cay Gibson - Hillside)
For the First Communion and older crowd:
** Jesus of Nazareth: The Story of His Life Written for Children (Mother Mary Loyola - St. Augustine Academy Press)
** First Communion and After (Mother Mary Loyola - Little Flower Press)
** First Confession (Mother Mary Loyola - St. Augustine Academy Press)
** I Belong to God (Mother Lilian Clark - Neumann Press)
** True Stories for First Communicants (Neumann Press)
** The Catholic Bible in Pictures (Msgr. Dante Del Fiorentino, 1955, oop - The Greystone Press)
** The Mass Explained to Children (Maria Montessori - Roman Catholic Books)
** Conferences to Children on Practical Virtue (Abbe Verdrie - Mother of Our Savior/Refuge of Sinners Publishing)
** Crusade: Adventures of Our Catholic Heritage series of magazines (oop, Maryknoll Sisters)
** Inos Biffi books that others have recommended
** Angel Food for Boys and Girls (Father Brennan - Neumann Press)
** Stories to Learn By (Msgr. John Koenig)
** Parables to Learn By (Bob Hartman)
** King of the Golden City (Mother Mary Loyola - CHC)
** Catholic Tales for Boys and Girls (Caryll Houselander - Sophia Institute Press)
** More Catholic Tales for Boys and Girls (Caryll Houselander - Sophia Institute Press)
** Stories of the Child Jesus from Many Lands (A. Fowler Lutz - Sophia Institute Press)
** St. Patrick's Summer (Marigold Hunt - Sophia Institute Press)
** The First Christians (Marigold Hunt - Sophia Institute Press)
** A Life of Our Lord for Children (Marigold Hunt - Sophia Institute Press)
I hope this is a help to you as you consider your approach in this most worthy area of education!
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Jen Mackintosh
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JennGM
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I always love Jen's lists. There are always new books every time she shares.
It was said already to look at Mater Amabilis for planning ideas. The Religion area is broken down into several sections:
1) Bible History
Old Testament
2) New Testament
3) Catechism
4) Saints
Then for the different seasons of the Year (Advent, Lent, Easter) there are readings that would be scheduled in place of New Testament readings.
I think it's a lovely way to break it down. You can then plug in the books for each area.
Reading around the Liturgical Year, having picture books or other appropriate reading for feast days and seasons, is a really great way to connect your Domestic Church with Holy Mother Church. This crosses over the Saints readings and the different Liturgical Seasons readings.
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Jennifer G. Miller
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: You've given me the confidence.....
