In the past few weeks three different people have asked me what we do for Religious Education with the boys. We actually do several things.
1. We attend Mass weekly. We decided not to sign them up for religious education at our parish this year because the Kindergarten and Preschool classes are held during the Mass we normally attend. We think it's more important at this point for them to attend Mass with us and learn how to behave in Mass.
2. We do have a homeschool religious education textbook program that we use, but I'm not thrilled with it. It is the one recommended by Catholic Heritage Curriculum. It's called "Who Am I." I follow their chapters and we read the scripture readings and do the worksheets. I pull that out a few times a week. Beginning next year we plan to use the Faith and Life program at home.
3. The boys attend a Catechesis of the Good Shepherd program one morning a week. Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is a Montessori approach to religious education. It is being offered in more and more parishes. It is very hands-on and child-directed. The boys love it and I would highly recommend it.
4. The MOST IMPORTANT thing we are doing for religious education is CELEBRATING THE LITURGICAL YEAR IN OUR HOME. The liturgical year is the center of all that we do here. We have a prayer table in our living room which is decorated according to the liturgical year. Every morning we pray as a family before Daddy leaves for work. We talk about each day's liturgical season/color and each feast day and/or saint of the day. We often continue that discussion with a book, coloring page, or other project during our school time. We have a section about the liturgical year in our portfolio binders where we collect all of these pages/projects.
I recently created a little nook next to our kitchen table where I am also putting the liturgical color, any appropriate statues or symbols, and a piece of artwork for us to look at and discuss each month. (The artwork is from Catholic Heritage Curriculum's "Art Masterpieces" packet.)
During some special months, we have devotions we read/post near the kitchen table (usually at dinner time). We do a Lenten Journey poster, Easter Garden poster, November Thanksgiving poster, and an Advent calendar and wreath in December. Here's a picture of this year's Thanksgiving poster:
Each evening we each tell something for which we are thankful. We write those things on the fruit/vegetable papers and hang them on the poster.
Obviously, this could be done on a much smaller / less elementary-schoolish scale. (You can take the teacher out of the school, but you can't take the school out of the teacher I guess!)
We pray together again at bedtime, usually reciting rote prayers and then offering special intentions. We also have some special things we do on a monthly basis. We pray a decade of the Rosary each night during May and October. During November we read about a saint each night. During December we are going to do Jesse Tree readings and ornaments. During Lent we read Bible stories each night.
And then there are the big Feast days. We have gradually been building up traditions surrounding the big Feasts. I have posted some of them here already. This week we commemorated All Souls Day by planting some tulip bulbs. (We usually also visit the cemetery, but that didn't happen this year.) The tulip bulbs are symbols representing our bodies. When we die our our bodies go into the ground, but Jesus promises New Life for us at the end of time. The transformation from bulb to beautiful flower represents the passage from death to new life. As we planted each bulb we prayed for someone we know who has died.
All of these things are relatively simple. I know many of you already do these things and more. Please share any suggestions/ideas you can add!
It is by LIVING the faith that we best teach it to our children. It's amazing how much they notice and absorb and how simple it can be to plant the seeds of faith in our youngest family members. There will be lots of time for learning doctrine and studying the Catechism, but for now I want my children to love God and to experience Catholicism as our way of life.
1. We attend Mass weekly. We decided not to sign them up for religious education at our parish this year because the Kindergarten and Preschool classes are held during the Mass we normally attend. We think it's more important at this point for them to attend Mass with us and learn how to behave in Mass.
2. We do have a homeschool religious education textbook program that we use, but I'm not thrilled with it. It is the one recommended by Catholic Heritage Curriculum. It's called "Who Am I." I follow their chapters and we read the scripture readings and do the worksheets. I pull that out a few times a week. Beginning next year we plan to use the Faith and Life program at home.
3. The boys attend a Catechesis of the Good Shepherd program one morning a week. Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is a Montessori approach to religious education. It is being offered in more and more parishes. It is very hands-on and child-directed. The boys love it and I would highly recommend it.
4. The MOST IMPORTANT thing we are doing for religious education is CELEBRATING THE LITURGICAL YEAR IN OUR HOME. The liturgical year is the center of all that we do here. We have a prayer table in our living room which is decorated according to the liturgical year. Every morning we pray as a family before Daddy leaves for work. We talk about each day's liturgical season/color and each feast day and/or saint of the day. We often continue that discussion with a book, coloring page, or other project during our school time. We have a section about the liturgical year in our portfolio binders where we collect all of these pages/projects.
I recently created a little nook next to our kitchen table where I am also putting the liturgical color, any appropriate statues or symbols, and a piece of artwork for us to look at and discuss each month. (The artwork is from Catholic Heritage Curriculum's "Art Masterpieces" packet.)
During some special months, we have devotions we read/post near the kitchen table (usually at dinner time). We do a Lenten Journey poster, Easter Garden poster, November Thanksgiving poster, and an Advent calendar and wreath in December. Here's a picture of this year's Thanksgiving poster:Each evening we each tell something for which we are thankful. We write those things on the fruit/vegetable papers and hang them on the poster. Obviously, this could be done on a much smaller / less elementary-schoolish scale. (You can take the teacher out of the school, but you can't take the school out of the teacher I guess!)
We pray together again at bedtime, usually reciting rote prayers and then offering special intentions. We also have some special things we do on a monthly basis. We pray a decade of the Rosary each night during May and October. During November we read about a saint each night. During December we are going to do Jesse Tree readings and ornaments. During Lent we read Bible stories each night.
And then there are the big Feast days. We have gradually been building up traditions surrounding the big Feasts. I have posted some of them here already. This week we commemorated All Souls Day by planting some tulip bulbs. (We usually also visit the cemetery, but that didn't happen this year.) The tulip bulbs are symbols representing our bodies. When we die our our bodies go into the ground, but Jesus promises New Life for us at the end of time. The transformation from bulb to beautiful flower represents the passage from death to new life. As we planted each bulb we prayed for someone we know who has died.
All of these things are relatively simple. I know many of you already do these things and more. Please share any suggestions/ideas you can add!
It is by LIVING the faith that we best teach it to our children. It's amazing how much they notice and absorb and how simple it can be to plant the seeds of faith in our youngest family members. There will be lots of time for learning doctrine and studying the Catechism, but for now I want my children to love God and to experience Catholicism as our way of life.
Such a nice post! We do many of the same things. I also did not like Who Am I for Kindergarten. So we stopped doing it and instead we started creating our own bible. We read a story and the kids narrate and draw in a sketchpad. When we are done they will have their own "bible." They seem to really enjoy. I agree about living the liturgical year being so important! Love the poster for Thanksgiving. We have done a Thankful tree with leaves before but normally don't add to it everyday-- love that idea!
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