Category: Our Faith

September 4, 2016 Morning Basket, Our Faith, Our Homeschool, Uncategorized 1 Comment

Teaching the Catholic Faith in Our Homeschool

These are my favorite resources for teaching the Catholic faith to my kiddos.

Catechisms

 

St. Patrick’s Summer: A Children’s Adventure Catechism 

(Marigold Hunt)

A fun approach to the Catechism in storybook format. The children in the story are visited by Saints who deliver catechism lessons and tell exciting stories from the history of the Church. A great read aloud for those preparing to receive the sacraments.

An Illustrated Catechism (Inos Biffi and Franco Vignazia)

Richly illustrated in a style reminiscent of medieval illuminations, this beautiful book is organized according to the outline of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, with a section corresponding to each of its four main parts: The Creed, The Sacraments, The Commandments, and Prayer.

The New Saint Joseph First Communion Catechism

Originally published in 1963, this more traditional catechism is presented in question and answer format. The topics of creation, the fall, redemption, and sacramental life are all presented in an orderly manner, with accompanying full color pictures. This is a very thorough presentation of the faith at a level young children can grasp.

Jesus and the Saints

A Life of Our Lord for Children by Marigold Hunt 

By the same author as St. Patrick’s Summer, this lovely book tells the story of the gospels in a way that is engaging and accessible to children. No dumbing down here. Hunt takes nothing away from the gospel and adds only enough to help children understand the context of the time and place.

The First Christians by Marigold Hunt 

Another one by Marigold Hunt, this tells the story of the Acts of the Apostles in her signature engaging style.

Saints and Angels: Popular Stories of Familiar Saints by Claire Llewellyn 

Stories of some of our favorite “Super Saints” and the Archangels accompanied by absolutely gorgeous illustrations.

First Reconciliation and First Holy Communion

Receiving Holy Communion
(Rev. Lawrence G. Lovasik, S.V.D.)

Pretty “old school” in it’s style and tone, this book offers a beautiful, straightforward explanation of the Sacrament of the Eucharist. It includes an explanation of the origin of the Mass; prayers for before, during, and after Mass; as well as conditions for receiving communion and a simple examination of conscience.

Going to Confession (Rev. Lawrence G. Lovasik, S.V.D.)

An excellent companion to the above book, this one explains the origin and meaning of the Sacrament of Reconciliation and takes kids through the logistics of the sacrament. It also contains a thorough examination of conscience based on the Ten Commandments. This is an excellent, gentle explanation of the sacrament that focuses on Jesus’s mercy and love for us.

A Picture Book of the Mass: Illustrated by the Masters (Lacy Rabideau)

This is a missal for young children from the creator of Catholic Icing. It provides the responses for Mass and is current for the new translation. Each page is illustrated with a gorgeous, classical painting to help children (or adults!) meditate on what is happening in the Mass. Helps young children to follow along and understand the Mass.

Jesus in my Heart (Sr. Immaculata Vertolli, OSB)

This book, written and illustrated by a Benedictine nun of the Abbey of St. Walburga, is part workbook, part textbook, and part keepsake. It was written to provide a hands-on curriculum for sacramental preparation that would engage a child’s senses and imagination.  The highlight of the book is the 3-D  card with fold-out “gates” and pocket inside representing a tabernacle. The child is invited to visit the Blessed Sacrament and insert the prayers he writes to Jesus into this card.

The Weight of a Mass
(Josephine Nobissio and Katalin Szegedi)

This beautifully illustrated and gentle tale celebrates the power of the Mass. A shabby, penniless old woman enters the baker’s shop as he is preparing luscious creations for the king’s wedding. When the baker refuses to give the old woman even a crust of stale bread, she offers to say a Mass for him, in exchange for food. Scoffing, he writes “One Mass” on a tiny piece of paper, places it on his scale, and tries to overbalance it with heaps of his finest pastries, but to no avail. The Mass outweighs them all.

The Mass Explained to Children (Maria Montessori)

While this book is written about the old rite of the Mass, it is an excellent, detailed, and understandable explanation of all aspects of the Mass from the prayers to the vessels to the vestments. Truly a treasure.

Confirmation

My Path to Heaven
(Geoffrey Bliss, S.J. and Caryll Houselander)
*Age 10 and up

Based on the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises this “retreat in a book” provides detailed illustrations to guide your child’s meditation on such  essentials of the Faith as God’s will, angels, Heaven and Hell, the Fall of man, the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, the Nativity, the Passion, salvation, the sacraments, faith, hope, love, and contrition, and it teaches children the relevance of these truths in their lives and in the decisions they make. Best for kids a bit older as some of the imagery might be scary to younger or more sensitive children. Also excellent for adults.

Archdiocesan Curriculum to be available ?

There is remarkably little available to prepare young children for Confirmation. Most material is geared toward teenagers. As our Archdiocese shifts to conferring the sacrament on 8-year-olds, parents will be challenged to find appropriate materials. The Archdiocese has indicated its plan to release a curriculum which will be made available in May of this year.

 

April 16, 2016 Morning Basket, Our Faith, Uncategorized Post a Comment

Memorize the Beatitudes – More Helpful Hints!

Are you having a hard time memorizing the Beatitudes? We find that getting them in order is a real challenge. So we came up with a mnemonic device to help us. And we want to share it with you! And just to help you out, I turned it into a free printable.  Because I'm awesome like that. 

Remember back in elementary school when we learned about the order of the planets and we all learned that "My very educated mother just served us nine pizzas?" Apparently these days the very intelligent mother serves nachos because Pluto isn't a real planet anymore. But whatever. The point is, we memorized that sentence and - BAM! - we knew the order of the planets - Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto.

So we came up with a couple of sentences to help us get the beatitudes in order. Helen, in typical Helen fashion, offered up a sentence about monsters and mopping up poop. I rejected that one, but you should feel free to make up your own sentence if mine is too boring for you. 

Because there are so many beatitudes, we have three sentences. Or two sentences and a sentence fragment if you want to get technical about it. Here they are:

Please make me ham and mashed potatoes. Pretty please? I prefer eating red raspberry pie. 

The printable below shows you how these sentences match up to the beatitudes. 

This little ditty, along with the slides I posted before, are really helping us with our goal of memorizing the Beatitudes. Our goal is to master them by the end of the Easter season. 

Click the image below to get the newest free printable!

April 7, 2016 Morning Basket, Our Faith Post a Comment

Memorize the Similes of Salt and Light – More Free Printables!

Are you having fun with the Beatitudes Memorization Printable? Well, I have some more printable goodness for you.

As I mentioned in my last post, we are working on memorizing Matthew Chapter 5, AKA The Sermon on the Mount, or as my husband calls it, How to be a Christian - In a Nutshell. The Beatitudes are the first big chunk of that. And they're surprisingly challenging to memorize which is why you really want to check out that post for tips and tools to get it done.

The Similes of Salt and Light come after the Beatitudes, and they are much simpler to memorize. In fact, they'd make a great place to start with scripture memorization. And I've made it even easier with these printables.

Here's how it works. I've broken the verses into bite-sized pieces and paired each piece with a memorable picture. The picture helps anchor the text in your brain. You'll start by going through the slides with pictures and the texts printed on them. Once you feel like you're ready, you'll switch to the pictures only. And once that's easy, you go without the aids.

You don't actually have to print the pictures. You can just scroll through the slides on your computer if that makes more sense for you.

It's unbelievably satisfying to hear children reciting scripture. Especially cute 5-year-old boys.

IMAG0290
Gratuitous picture of my cute boys. And my messy kitchen.

So now, without further ado. Here are the magic memory slides. For more details on how to use them, please refer to the previous post.

 

Matthew 5:13 - Pictures and Words

Matthew 5:13 - Pictures Only

Matthew 5: 14-15 - Pictures and Words

Matthew 5: 14-15 Pictures Only

March 28, 2016 Morning Basket, Our Faith Post a Comment

Memorize the Beatitudes – with a free printable!

Earlier this year I set us the ambitious task of memorizing Matthew Chapter 5 as part of our Morning Basket Time.

Having grown up Protestant, my fist inclination was to search for a song. The scripture songs I memorized as a kid are still with me and I can still recite 1 John 4:7-8 because of the Psalty Song.

 

So naturally, I began my search on YouTube for Beatitude songs. I found some fun ones, but they weren’t really working for us as far as actually memorizing the verses went.

In my search, I stumbled across an amazing resource by Bible Buffet which uses the trick of pairing words to pictures to help you memorize lengthy passages. This guy has put together an amazing resource and we worked our way through his videos with a decent amount of success.

But we hit a snag when we tried to review it. I’ve found that depending on YouTube during morning time is not always a good idea at our house. Kids tune out, or we get distracted by other videos, or the technology doesn’t work for some stupid reason. I wanted to print the pictures used in Bible Buffet’s videos so that we could review them quickly and easily.

I did actually contact the channel’s owner to ask if he had the pictures on file. Sadly, he does not.

I told my kids I was going to put together pictures to help us review the Beatitudes and I asked them if they wanted me to use the original pictures (Bible Buffet suggested I could do screen shots of the images), or if they wanted me to create new pictures. They voted new pictures.

I believe one of the reasons the original pictures didn’t stick for us is because one face blurred into another. The images were 100% appropriate and captured the tone of the scripture passages perfectly. But they weren’t exactly memorable. In my version, the images are all clip art. They may even seem irreverent to you in some cases, but the idea is to use memorable pictures, and even a bit of humor, to cement the words into your brain.

I created slides in Google Presentation that you can view and print and use at home. You can also just pull them up on your computer and scroll through the slides. One set has the words with each picture, and the second set has just the pictures. Start with the words, and when you feel confident, move to just the picture cues until you can do it from memory with no cues.

You want to work on about 3 beatitudes at a time – don’t try and do them all at once. I highly recommend watching the Bible Buffet video above to get an idea of the process of memorizing this way.

We have now used this process for memorizing the Similes of Salt and Light. It was fast, easy, and fun. I am forever grateful to Bible Buffet for his videos that taught me to memorize scripture this way!

Here are the slides!

jesuswordsjesusnowords



April 14, 2015 Book Reviews: Books for Children, Media Reviews, Morning Basket, Our Faith, Preschoolers Post a Comment

Tell Me about the Catholic Faith for Small Children {Book Review}

This year, along with the usual assortment of crazy making candy and that magical substance that removes newspaper ink from paper and holds tight to the fibers of my couch and the seat of my pants, the Easter Bunny delivered new books for each of the children. They each received a book about the faith and a fun book. The Easter Bunny had a blast picking them out and in the process began quite a long Amazon.com wishlist of other good books for Catholic children. The Easter Bunny will now be asking Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy to help him complete his wishlist.

I told the Easter Bunny I would submit a formal review of each of the books he delivered so that he will know whether to deliver these books to other children in the future.

Tell Me about the Catholic Faith for Small Children by Christine Pedotti looked like the perfect book for a 4 year old. I was super excited when I flipped through it. It walks you through salvation history beginning with the creation story, through Noah, Abraham, the escape from Egypt, David and the Prophets. Then it takes you through the New Testament hitting all the highlights. But there are plenty of children’s Bibles that also do this and, honestly, do a better job of it.

The best part of the book, the part I was most excited about, are the last two sections titled “The Christian Faithful” and “The Catholic Faith.” “The Christian Faithful” section speaks about the early church from the first Christians through Saints from our time. It highlights missionaries, monks, and “super Saints” like John Bosco and Therese of Lisieux.

The final section, “The Catholic Faith,” is a sort of mini catechism. It talks about prayer, the sacraments, death, Christmas, Easter and the Church. It speaks to children at their level and encourages virtues such as forgiving, sharing, and welcoming.

So here’s what I like about the book. The illustrations are nice. They appeal to children without being childish. They are simple and colorful and add a lot to the text. I also really like the scope of the book. It touches on all the major topics you would want to cover with a young child. Everything is in here from creation to St. John Paul II, Christian living, the Church and the Sacraments. It makes a really great starting point for conversation.

The book’s weakness is in it’s breadth. In trying to cover all of salvation history in 93 pages with illustrations and at a level appropriate for a 3-7 year old, well, I’m not sure it can be done well. Some parts are great. The two page spread on baptism does a great job of communicating the basic form of the sacrament and the joy involved. But the one sentence summary of baptism on the sacraments’ page is pretty weak: “Through baptism, we are bathed in the love of God.” Nothing about being cleansed or purified or our need for God’s love.

There are many places in the book where it simply doesn’t make sense if you don’t have any background knowledge of the faith. Imagine you know nothing of Christianity or the Saints and that you’re 4 years old and someone reads this to you: “Clare asked Francis to cut off her long hair. She wanted to love Jesus more than anything else.” Ummm. Okay. What in the world does cutting off long hair have to do with loving Jesus? This one sentence just isn’t sufficient to properly communicate what is happening here. Also, is this the one most important thing about Saint Clare?

I was actually planning to return the book, but then I saw my 9 year old snuggled up in our rocking chair reading it to himself. He has much more context for the book than my younger children, and he really enjoys it.

In my final assessment, I would say that this book is great as a conversation starter. It might prompt you to tell your child more about St. Clare, for example. The pictures are really nice, and it brings up a lot of important stories and ideas. But it is so incomplete in it’s explanations. I would have much preferred if the author had either limited her scope or had expanded the book into a four book series going a bit more in depth into each of the four sections of this book.

I would love suggestions for a first catechism type book for 3-7 year olds with beautiful illustrations and age-appropriate explanations of our faith. And stay tuned for more reviews of the Easter Bunny’s books. There are a few I really love!

August 7, 2014 CD Reviews, Our Faith, Our Homeschool 2 Comments

15 Favorite Catholic Hymns

FavoriteHymnsPinIt

Part of our Morning Time this year will be learning a hymn each term. We will listen to a beautiful performance of the chosen hymn and then sing it every day of the term during Morning Time. I’ll also provide sheet music so the kids can learn to “read” the sheet the music. At this point I just want them to see the pattern of the notes going up and down with our voices, and start to see the different counts of the different kinds of notes.

I asked the members of my local Catholic Homeschooling group to share their three favorite hymns with me. I got quite a huge response, and noticed there were many that were cited over and over again. I thought you all might also appreciate a handy resource for favorite hymns. So here you go. In no particular order.

Holy God We Praise Thy Name (this was easily the most often mentioned) Here’s the sheet music.

Oh, Lord I Am Not Worthy

Jesus, My Lord, My God, My All

The King of Love My Shepherd Is

Alleluia Sing to Jesus

Immaculate Mary

Faith of Our Fathers

Angels We Have Heard on High

Ave Maria

Soul of My Saviour

All Creatures of Our God and KingHail Holy Queen (Some might not like this less traditional version, but I think it’s great.)

Be Thou My Vision (And here’s a beautiful instrumental version.)

Hail Mary, Gentle Woman

Prayer of St. Francis

Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee (And because I love flash mobs, here’s a great one that makes me cry every time I see it.)

Please do share your favorite hymns and links to favorite versions of the ones listed here. I had such a lovely morning putting together this post and listening to beautiful music!

September 8, 2011 Our Faith Post a Comment

Happy Birthday, Mary!

Today the Church celebrates the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Last year we made a cake for Mary, and Helen still talks about it. So this year we threw a birthday party with some friends.

The kids wanted to make a red cake and decorate it with roses. Our roses were inspired by Lacy’s awesomeness over at Catholic Icing. I’m not sure how Lacy got hers to look so cute. But the kids had fun making them anyway.

We decorated the dining room with our various Marian icons and statues, and had our friends bring their own to add.
Henry spent much of the morning running around involved in sword play, and in an effort to tie his play to the feast day, I told him about the Seven Sorrows of Mary and showed him this picture:
Helen then decorated the picture and hung it on the wall as part of our decorations. And Henry created his own drawing to add. That’s Jesus in the middle on top and Mary on his right and Joseph on his left.
Then he added his own depiction of the Trinity:
How cute is this little guy? He looooooves Mary!
Notice the gorgeous statues of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Our Lady of Le Leche. 
I didn’t get any pictures of the primary party games. The girls played house and the boys were engaged in light saber fights in the back yard. What? Don’t you have light saber fights at your Marian feast celebrations? 
Happy Birthday, Mary!! 

September 12, 2010 In the Kitchen, Our Faith Post a Comment

Fall is in the Air!!!

Fall is absolutely, hands down, my favorite time of year. The infernal heat of summer transferring its intensity to the blazing leaves of the trees. Harvest festivals,  apple cider, farm field trips, pumpkin carving, cool mountain hikes, Halloween, Thanksgiving.  
One of my favorite fall events is the perfect trifecta that is All Hallowed’s Eve, All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day. My son thinks there’s nothing better than a holiday that allows him to hack into pumpkins, dress up in a scary costume, and stay up late to wander the neighborhoods collecting an enormous bag of candy. 

After all of that excitement, our family spends the next day in the cozier activity of baking bread. Pan de Muerto to be exact.  There’s just something about baking bread. And baking bread in the shape of a skull is, apparently, kid nirvana. For me, I’ve found bread baking to be the perfect way to commemorate a holy day which, in our culture at least, is not widely celebrated. It’s an all day activity, and each time we go back to the dough, my mind is brought back to the importance of the day.  It’s become one of my favorite fall traditions.  

Pan de Muerto 2009
August 10, 2010 Our Faith, The Joys of Boys Post a Comment

Whatever is pure . . .

We’ve recently had some run-ins with superheroes at our house. It seemed harmless enough at first, but it has started to cause problems with behavior. Spiderman recently swung from his web (i.e. the shower curtain) and ended up in the ER with 4 staples in his head. That was clearly a problem, but the greater problem, really, has been the physical aggression and the level of disrespect and the mood swings that seem to have escalated since we’ve invited these wonder men into our home. But it was the ER visit that made me start really thinking about it.

Yesterday, at H1’s request, we got a copy of some Batman cartoons from the library. I watched one with him, and truly it was horrible. Very dark, very violent. But H1 loves the excitement. I spent a lot of time yesterday pondering the role of this sort of entertainment in the life our family. I asked God to speak to me about it. It came to me that this is just the beginning of our job as parents in determining what forms of entertainment are appropriate for our children, and we have to learn how to discern what is good and right for our family. Would we let our son surf porn online just because “everyone’s doing it?”

Still, taking something a child loves away from him is never easy as a parent. At least it’s not for me. I dread conflict. I dread tantrums. It’s a weakness of mine as a parent and an area I know God is asking me to grow in.

As nap time approached today (when H1 watches TV while H2 naps), I was dreading the meltdown that would come when I informed H1 that there would be no Batman today. I thought. I prayed. I fretted. Then I remembered the following passage:

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. (Philippians 4:8)

I decided to read it to H1. I asked God to guide me. I prayed to H1’s guardian angel. When he asked me to put on Batman, I asked him to first sit on the couch with me and read something from the Bible. I told them that they were words written by Paul, who used to be Saul. (Saul’s conversion story made a huge impact on him and he’s always remembered it.)

I read it to him and then I summarized it again for him, telling him that God wants us to spend our time with things that are true, honorable, right, pure, lovely and excellent. I told him that I’d been thinking about the TV shows we’ve been watching and I don’t think that Batman fits into this category. I waited for the protest. He was quiet for a moment and then he said, “It’s not true, but it is honorable.” I said, “Well, beating people up isn’t honorable and Batman does a lot of beating people up.” He was quiet again for a second and then he picked up a copy of Popular Mechanics for Kids and said, “How about we watch this instead?”

I wanted to weep! I told him I was very proud of him for choosing a more suitable program and he is now happily watching something I feel very good about.

I never cease to be amazed by these miracles. I wish I could remember that when we seek to do the Lord’s will and ask for His help, He will make the seemingly impossible not only possible, but easy.

Thanks be to God.

July 14, 2010 Our Faith, Our Homeschool 2 Comments

Thoughts on Community Service

Random, unorganized, half-formed thoughts on community service.

I was recently exposed to an educational philosophy that has me very excited about my decision to homeschool (more on that later). One of the key tenets of this philosophy is that the primary curriculum of a child’s early years (birth to about age 8) is simply (ha!) learning good from bad, right from wrong, and true from false. These are the impressionable years where you have the opportunity to fully indoctrinate your child into your family’s values. 

Of course, this has me thinking about our family’s values. I am, once again, renewing my efforts at (weekly) daily Mass attendance. I believe that I have found a nice, nearby Mass at a time that almost works for my family (it’s the 8:15 am Mass at St. James for those who may be interested).

I am also, once again, interested in finding some sort of service opportunity to participate in with my children. And this is where I begin sharing my rambling, half-baked, stream-of-consciousness with you.

It occurred to me as I was searching for an opportunity that something as simple as baking cookies for the elderly couple across the street would be a great way to serve with my kids. It also seems the best formalized service available to me with small kids is visiting seniors in nursing homes. I cannot imagine anything I’d less like to do. It seems so awkward. Does anyone who’s done this have any insights on how to do it well?  


I’d like to start modeling service to the community for my kids, but . . . This is hard for me to articulate. I don’t want to create an “other” mindset. Does that make sense? I want my children to value serving everyone – not just those who are officially “at risk” “in need” or “less fortunate.” I want them to serve their father, mother, sister, brother, neighbor, friend. I don’t necessarily think that serving at a soup kitchen has instrinsically more value than sharing toys with your sibling. Does that make sense? I think in many ways it’s easier to spend an evening feeling good about yourself serving soup to the homeless than it is to be nice to the people in your own home. I’m not saying that volunteering in a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter or a food bank is a bad thing. Not at all. These are very, very important things to do and opportunities I have considered. I just want to make sure that I don’t give my kids the idea that spending time with a senior at a senior home is somehow better than spending time with their own grandparents.

And yet, even as I write that I think, “is it really not?” I mean, their grandparents have lots of friends. The old guy at the nursing home may not have anyone who comes to see him. Their grandparents are healthy and vital, nursing home residents generally can’t get out and seek their own adventures.


The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that “the family should live in such a way that its members learn to care and take responsibility for the young, the old, the sick, the handicapped, and the poor (2208).”

The Bible tells us that “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world (James 1:27).”

We are also told “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8) and “If any woman who is a believer has widows in her family, she should help them and not let the church be burdened with them, so that the church can help those widows who are really in need” (1 Timothy 5:16).

So it seems to me that, yes, we are called first and foremost to “take care of our own.” But this in no way diminishes our obligation to help our neighbor.

Okay. So again, random, jumbled thoughts! I’m not sure what I’m after here. Just thinking out loud I suppose. I welcome your own thoughts on the topic – even if they’re as incoherent as mine!

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