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MommyD
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| Posted: May 23 2008 at 8:44am | IP Logged
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So if I do 1st grade and 2nd grade next year, what do I need? I assume both student books but what about the activity books and the teachers guides? What are the activities like?
Melissa
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gwendyt
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| Posted: May 23 2008 at 8:56am | IP Logged
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This is just my own personal experience - I'm sure it will depend on what your kids are like - but I didn't bother with the activity manual. They did them in school (when they were there) without any complaint, but they didn't particularly enjoy them. I felt it was busywork, and they didn't seem to know or retain anymore by doing the activity book. As for the teacher's guide - I bought a couple and really liked a lot of how it was laid out and the activities/questions. That being said I never used them once! It was just too much to use the teacher's manual, as laid out, with three different kids. We would have spent MUCH time on religion in a week (I guess some would say that's not bad!) It has just worked best for me to sit down with the youngest and read through and do the lesson together. It doesn't take much time, we have good discussion, I know immediately if he understands, and he enjoys the one on one time with me. He seems to retain most of what we do. The two older girls I have read on their own - then they narrate the lesson to me orally. If they do a really great job, I leave it at that (what they learn often gets reinforced with other things we do in life). If their narration seems lacking, I go back through the lesson with them and quiz them using the questions and vocab. at the end. Simple - no written work - and no correcting on my part. Plus, like I said, I can tell if they've picked up what they need to know right away. Hope this helps!
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Mary G
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The biggest benefit to the activity guides is that they make sure your child has absorbed the content of the chapter -- you could save the money and have them narrate the chapter and maybe define the terms at the end of each chapter.
I love F&L and used it with my CCD First Communion prep class -- we used the activity guides so that I could make sure the kids read/understood the chapter.
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MaryG
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MommyD
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| Posted: May 23 2008 at 9:15am | IP Logged
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So are the activity guides just worksheets or are they actual "activities"? Is there anyplace online that I can see a sample?
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Lara Sauer
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| Posted: May 23 2008 at 9:35am | IP Logged
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If by activity guides, you are talking about the workbooks that accompany the books, then I have a few things to add about the 1st and 2nd grade books. Be prepared to help your child with them. I usually start my children's religious instruction one year before I start their other education, which means that they are not readers when they are doing the first grade F&L books. I find that the work they ask the children to do is a too difficult for an average first grader to do on their own without parental assistance...there is a lot of writing and copy work...i.e. writing out the commandments. I would use the book as a narration aid and a discussion book as Mary G. said to make sure that your child has a deeper grasp of what was covered in the text.
Perhaps someone else has had a different experience, but that has been ours.
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Mary G
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| Posted: May 23 2008 at 10:19am | IP Logged
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MommyD wrote:
| So are the activity guides just worksheets or are they actual "activities"? Is there anyplace online that I can see a sample? |
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Just old-style workbooks with some "activities" like word-search or crossword ... but mostly fill-in the blank or writing out the commandments, etc.
As mentioned, the activity books are GREAT for a classroom setting, but I wouldn't bother with them at home as you'll know if your child "gets it" ... and can do it in more fun, active ways -- having them act out the Mass in the chapter on the Mass, recite the Our Father or draw the Trinity, etc.
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MaryG
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MommyD
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On the Ignatius web-site they list a student, activity and teacher book for each level. What is in the student book and activity book and do I need both?
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Mary G
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| Posted: May 23 2008 at 11:22am | IP Logged
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The student book is the text -- that's the one you want; the activity is the questions/puzzle for each chapter; the teacher is the student's text with expanded "how to teach" ideas and notes in the margins (and the answers to the activity book).
You really ONLY need the student book -- unless you'd like he helps in the Teacher book ... I found when I used F&L with my kids, and even when I used it with the CCD class, I still mostly used the kids' book and asked questins from the acitivty book but didn't relly need the TM as the answers were fairly straightforward and taken directly form the text.
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Kristi
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| Posted: May 23 2008 at 10:25pm | IP Logged
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I, too bought the teacher's manuals for both first and second grade, but never ended up really using them. We have so many other activities related to religon going on that I forgot about using it as a resource. I think they are laid out nicely with ideas for how you can discuss the chapter, related bible stories, videos etc. They provide a lot of extra information -- saints, prayers, virtues, feast days...Sometimes I would use the Chapter test questions orally to review what we had read. They also have all of the activity book pages with the answers filled in so you could probably read over the questions and have them do some of the activities suggested with out having to"do" the workbook. All that said, we pretty much just read the text and discussed it. 
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