Announcements
11/19/08
Do not forget to check out all the other items this company offers, but for November especially for Catholics Senari has 2 Catholic Bingo games free for you to download (page down past the geography section):
- Titles of Our Lady Bingo is text based. There are 30 bingo cards for this game so it can be used with your family or church group. Use the Litany of Our Lady as a calling card.
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November-December Saints and Feast Days Bingo is also text based. There are 12 bingo cards for this game as well as a calling card. The calling card is a MS Word document which can be cut up and used as a manipulative.
11/19/08
The Saint Michael the Archangel Organization is pleased to announce the first annual 10,000 MASSES FOR UNBORN BABIES effort.
From January 13th through January 21st, it is hoped the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass will be offered at least 10,000 times for the following intention: For the protection of unborn human persons.
For details, please visit, SAINT MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL ORGANIZATION.
11/1/08
If you have a subscription to the Catholic homeschooling magazine, mater et magistra, you should be receiving the October issue soon. If you do not have a subscription, I hope that you might consider getting one now. Margot Davidson along with a team of writers has a beautiful, edifying, inspiring magazine for us. I love to support Catholic businesses, especially when they fill a need in our community. Browse through the site for free articles from past issues - it’s a treasure.
11/1/08
Catholic Online has set up way for us to have a Virtual vigil for our brothers and sisters
in Christ who are being persecuted unto death in India right now. Please take a moment to visit
and register your prayers.
9/1/08
WORLDWIDE ROSARY FOR UNBORN BABIES
9:00 a.m. * Saturday * October 18th, 2008
Circling the earth with multiple waves of Rosaries
The WORLDWIDE ROSARY FOR UNBORN BABIES prayer event is scheduled to take place on Saturday, October 18th, 2008. Participants will pray the Rosary during the 9:00 a.m.* hour for the following intention: For an end to the surgical and non-surgical killing of unborn babies. Because participants will be praying the Rosary during the 9:00 a.m. hour according to the particular time zone they are in, it is hoped that the earth will be circled with multiple waves of Rosaries within a 24-hour time period.
For more information visit the site,
Saint Michael the Archangel Organization. I had the privilege of helping Patrick create the website.
7/01/08 - I have started a new swap list, CHSSwap.
I hope the list will be a service to the homeschooling community.
This move is not to undermine the new cathswap board, but merely to fill a need for families
that are familiar with and desire an email based swap list.
06/10/08- I had the pleasure of meeting Tony Barone at our recent Catholic homeschool conference. He's a
parishioner at a local church, the father of 5 childre, a Major in the United States Air Force
and has worked as a prosecutor and defense attorney. Tony write Christian adventures stories
that have received positive reviews and now he has book 2 out. Please take a moment
to visit his website and view the
video.
06/02/08- Well, it's a bit late, but I compiled a list of Catholic Vacation Bible schools. I
tried to find programs that were developed by Catholic companies rather than protestant progams
that were "catholicized". Find the list here at my blog entry: 2008 Catholic Vacation Bible Schools
06/01/08 - A discussion came on a list I belong to about how to help her son understand the mass better
since he serves mass. So I thought I would compile a list of resources that were listed along with some of my favorites.
For a more in depth discussion, you can visit my blog.
For adults here are some suggestions:
4/30/08 - I had the privilege of working with Margot Davidson from
Hillside Education
on her newest endeavor -
mater et magistra magazine. She has taken over management of the old magazine,
Heart and Mind, and has renamed it and added new contributors while keeping
many favorite old ones including Laura Berquist from Mother of Divine Grace.
It's exciting to see the wonderful tradition being passed on - first issue will be
out in July.
A number of articles and a few unit studies from the old magazine are available for
free including one on Pope John Paul II and one on Catholic Missions.
3/19/08 - ONE MILLION ROSARIES FOR UNBORN BABIES prayer event on May 3rd.
Prayerfully consider visiting the site and registering as a participant. Then mark your calendar for May 3rd at 9:00 AM EST.
3/6/08 -
I cannot wait until this comes in - the reviews look good. I wanted an offline resource for preparing
the children for the liturgy and this has blackline masters and more for all three cycles of the readings. So,
it is a resource that we can use every year.
2/14/08 - Latin Anyone? Latin in Our Homeschools and
Online Latin Resources
1/14/08 - Catholic Homeschool Support Blog - I found that I was in need of a different format in order
to provide readers with homeschool suggestions and reviews. So, I created a new blog. I hope that you will
visit and leave your comments on things that are useful on such timely topics like burnout
and resources for Lent, to home management with a large family, to suggestions for homeschooling an only child.
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Resource Review
Apostles and Markets: Catholic High School Economics Program Review
The program is provided in a very large 3 ring binder that permits the teacher to pull out the
reproducibles quite easily. The quality of the paper is quite nice, and while the majority of
the pages are black and white, there is enough color to give your eyes a treat. The program is
comprised of 12 chapters - each one named after an apostle covering topics like prices, valuation,
trade, pollution and corruption.
The program uses many quotes from the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Bible to teach and
is a faithful representation of Catholic teachings. It fills a needed niche. While it was designed
to be used is a Catholic school, a parent who is motivated to keep ahead of the material could
teach a co-op to a group of high school students. It does not lend itself as easily to a self study
program. Here is a complete review.
Faith Database - Over 1500 Writings - Over 75,000,000 Words - Over 80,000 Pages
Faith Database Website
In one place, you have an absolutely mind boggling amount of information compiled (from the website):
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2000 Years of Christian History
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Some of the Over 1500 Featured Writings Classics
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Early Church Fathers
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Papal Writings / Encyclicals
Ok, so now as a homeschooling parent - what do we do with this? How can we it assist us in our job as teachers? I believe it's a given that it it is a fantastic apologetic tool for all adults as well as way for us to grow in our faith. With ten translations of the Holy Bible, we can do in depth Bible studies.
But, this review is focused on how we might use the database with our children.
So, my first delve into the database - my two oldest children had to write a paper for 8th grade
about Infallibility. Once I correctly spelled infallibility, I discovered one
entry for the topic and many entries when I searched the text - both searches returned a huge
amount of information. Everything I might possibly want to know about infallibilty
was in the topic and my children were able to understand the concept better.
The Mass section is another little treasure. Each part of the mass is written out, and then a "references" link is provided on the right. After clicking it, you find a list of Bible passages giving reference to where the words came from. You could also use this section for a detailed study of the Creed since each section is referenced.
The saints section is searchable. I love the History Section. It has as categories, 100 year increments, and within each period such as 501-600AD, a number of topics like Irish monasteries flourish. The text on the right is brief, but there are images to view, an encyclopedia entry about the history of Ireland, and a map image. As my
children study medieval history, I can totally image how we can use this section.
For the complete version of my review, please visit my
blog post.
7/26/08 - My daughter, a somewhat reluctant reader, just inhaled a level 2 saint story from a
series that has been reprinted by www.marys-books.com
. You can read my complete review of these reprints of 2 saint book series aimed at the
early reader at the blog.
Faith Facts for Young Catholics
I wrote a very long review of this resource that I became aware of and wanted to pass along to you.
First of all is a set of 400 "Faith Facts Now Cards". They are divided into sets of 100 cards each.
Each set is printed on a different color of card stock, each card is numbered and the cards are in
alphabetical order. What the cards provide are words and their definitions - a "vocabulary" of the Church.
These could be a stand alone resource, valuable in and of itself.
But they also are designed to work with
two other books, "Faith Facts for Young Catholics" and "more Faith Facts for Young Catholics". The first
book offers 25 different activities that use the above mentioned Faith Fact cards, and black line
masters for a number of other games and activities like Gospel Trivia and Scripture Passage Cards.
The second book, "more Faith Facts for Young Catholics" carries on with the theme, but also
provides some unique items like a time line activity. 16 pages of content are provided include 4 pages
of material to create a timeline, and 40 timeline cards.
For a complete description of the resources, please visit my blog site.
01/13/08 -
Character-Based Writing Lessons is a theme-based writing program that follows the
Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) program. I noted in a post on my
blog about how IEW was
such a blessing to find after five years of avoiding teaching writing to my students. So, I wanted to take
a moment and introduce this little gem. If you like IEW, and you need some affordable lesson plans
either to teach writing in a co-op or to get you off to a stronger start with IEW, or to practice the
models and stylistic techniques, this might be a winner. One of the characters that is written about
in at least 5 units is Mother Teresa. St. Francis of Assisi is another "character" of focus in the program in
addition to Abraham Lincoln. I plan on beginning a writing co-op for my local Catholic homeschool group
using this program.
Archives visit to find past reviews
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