Catholic religion programs - Faith and Life or?

[ktgrok]

Pretty sure I've discussed this before...please humor me. I kind of thought the Faith Formation at our parish would be okay. And it's nice. But not um...rigorous, lol. My daughter did come home with a detailed description of how to play four corners though.

 

Anyway, Faith and Life seems to be the thing most commonly used, but looking at the workbook, it's too wordy. She's a beginning reader still, there is no way she can read well enough to do the fill in the blanks, etc. Can it be used without the workbook? Or is there a better choice? Seton maybe? Kolbe uses Faith and Life, as does CHC. 

 

[bensonduck]

Have you looked at Mother of Divine Grace? I think they use Faith and Life for a couple of years, but not all.

[barnwife]

Well, we are kind of in the same boat. Our oldest will be in 1st grade religious ed this year. He just turned 6. And our parish uses Faith and Life. While the program is fine for a textbook, DS really isn't ready for it. He doesn't read yet (at least, nowhere near well enough for this). He doesn't write yet. HS-wise, this is his official K year. So he's a year ahead in religious ed. But..he likes religious ed and doesn't want to not go this year. 

So on we press. 

At home, we are using a series I just discovered and so far love. It's called Our Holy Faith and it's by TAN books. Here is a link to the first one. (Disclaimer: It is old school.) It really is a religion book in picture format. I think it's going to be a good bridge for DS between the preschool and K classes and Faith and Life.

We are also reading through a life of Jesus book that has it divided into 36 lessons, each with a short story and a poem that summarizes it. (Edit: I found it! It is the file titled "The Life on Earth of Our Blessed Lord: For Little Children.)

I have another "LIfe of Jesus" book we'll read too. That will be followed by "Tell me the Story of Jesus," which I just encountered in our church library. This one might need editing, as I believe it is Protestant. 

We will use the God's Little Explorers ABC Bible theme each week for DS3. That gets another Bible story in there. Each child chooses a Bible story at bedtime. 

If you can't tell, my focus for this year is to really familiarize him with the life of Jesus in preparation for First Holy Communion next year. We also work on the basic prayers. Once those are mastered, we will start the 10 commandments and New St. Joseph First Communion Catechism.

That should set us up well to study the Mass next year.
 

Edited August 28, 2016 by barnwife

[ktgrok]

Barnwife, thank you!!!! The one from TAN looks perfect! I found it on Amazon Prime, and they had the "look inside" feature. It expressly is for kids who aren't reading much yet, and is simple but perfect. (although I'll have to explain an altar rail, or take her to the Latin mass in the next town over, lol!)

[RootAnn]

I used Faith & Life for awhile when I was in CCD eons ago. I greatly disliked it & vowed I wouldn't use it with my own kids. I believe I read they have an online version and perhaps that is something you want to look into?

 

We use the Baltimore Catechism, but not until 1st/2nd grade-ish. We use it in a 3-year rotation (as there are three sections in each level). One year, we do saint stories, another a 10 Commandment lapbook, and the third incorporates a children's bible (retelling) with narration/copywork/drawing so the child has their own abbreviated bible retelling book at the end of the year. These are not my ideas -- MODG has something like this scheduled into their lesson plans for the lower grades. (I don't have their plans. I modeled the original plan loosely off of Berquist's Designing Your Own Catholic Curriculum.)

 

I use a lot of saint stories & prayer learning when they are little. My kids have enjoyed the Saint Stories by Fr Fox & Glory Stories at the 4-8 year old ages. We also watch the Holy Heroes kids Mass Prep videos. It doesn't have to be complicated or tedious at a young age.

[carriede]

I've used Faith and Life for 1st and now for 2nd. Text only, no workbook. I read aloud with DS following along. We discuss as we go. I thought I might have him memorize the catechism questions at the end of the chapters, but I let that go.

 

ETA, we also read one section from the New Catholic Picture Bible every week, concentrating on the works of Jesus. We'll do a Jesse Tree (Old Testament focus) in Advent and Stations of the Cross in Lent. He also does still go to RE at our parish.

Edited August 28, 2016 by carriede

[ktgrok]

Ok, I ordered the book mentioned above, the 1950s picture book one, and I think we'll do that once a week, a saint story once a week, a bible story once a week, and then she'll go to faith formation once a week. That should do it. Plus we'll work on memorizing prayers, of course. 

[J&JMom]

I taught Religious Ed (third grade) at my parish, and they used Faith in Life. I always made up my own lessons, lectures, games, videos, activities to teach the concepts because I found the book boring and tedious.   At home, I used Baltimore Catechism and tried out MyCatholicFaithDelivered which used the F&L series with extras like songs, prayers, quizzes and videos such online.  Very reasonable for $30 a year. Both boys worked at the level between them.  Since I started homeschooling, I didn't have the time and energy to plan EVERYTHING, so I gladly outsourced this to save the drive to the parish since I quit teaching RE once I started homeschooling 3 years ago.. This year we are reading the Story of the Bible from TAN so that should do it. 

Edited August 28, 2016 by J&JMom

[Ariston]

I was a catechist for a while and we used Faith and Life.  I really liked the teachers guide, with the lessons and discussion questions, but I did not care for the student books.  It was lots of fill in the blank, word search, and other activities that weren't very engaging.   The readings were long but we did them as read alouds.

[SarahW]

I know this has already been figured out - but just throwing in my $0.02 about F&L in case anyone is interested.

 

The workbook (activity book?) for the lower levels are pretty .... uninspiring. We're going through the 3rd book right now with Crazypants and I just have him read the chapter, then we talk about it (rather DH talks about it with him, he's much better at bringing theology down to the basic-explanation-level) and then we do only 1 or 2 pages in the workbook for that chapter. The page with the list of questions about the chapter we do orally, and then if there's a page which focuses on important vocab or something particular I want him to remember I'll have him write that. Though I should hurry on to say that DH and I both have seminary degrees, so we feel confident "messing" with the books.

 

There also exists quizzes for each chapter for the books. I think for the next level we'll just have him read the book and then use the quiz page to cover vocab and discuss main points. That seems like it would be more than enough to "cover" the chapter.

 

I've looked at the Teacher's Manual, and it is pretty good. But I wasn't interested in spreading a chapter out over a whole week, and, yeah, we feel confident with our background knowledge and discussion skill here, so when we moved I left it behind.

[ktgrok]

Good information, thank you! If we do end up with Faith and Life later on, we'll just get the book, not the workbook, and use it for discussion. 

 

Now, to google this adventure catechism thing, lol!

[hgreenm]

We have enjoyed the "Truth in the Heart" series from EWTN. The nuns are so sweet and gently cover topics. I think it is $15 for a dvd season or $40 for the complete grade level. You can find it on the EWTN catalog website.

 

We got the complete grade level and it was fantastic. You can also check the EWTN schedule and preview which ever grade they are currently running.

[RootAnn]

 "St. patrick's Summer: an Adventure catechism" by Marigold Hunt and various Fr. Lovasik books.

 

We did this for part of our read aloud two years ago. The kids (ages 4-12ish) all enjoyed it. We did it in sections & talked about things a lot as we went through. I'd save it for when your kid is a little older as it really does have some weighty topics. I'll probably re-read it with the youngers again in a few years as it is one of those books you get more out of each time.

[SevenDaisies]

Good information, thank you! If we do end up with Faith and Life later on, we'll just get the book, not the workbook, and use it for discussion.

 

Now, to google this adventure catechism thing, lol!

If you plan to use F&L daily, the teachers guide is good. We use it once weekly and have found the parent's guide works better for us. They are much cheaper and cover multiple grades. Each chapter is a single lesson in the parents guide where it is a 4 part lesson in the TG.

 

We skip the activity books. We read the chapter and then the kids memorize selected questions from the BC that go along with the chapter. We also use MP Christian Studies and read saint stories.

[midori]

Just chiming in to say that although I've got a Baltimore Catechism for further along, and we try to do a chapter from the Knox Bible several nights a week, we've also been doing Truth in the Heart for Pre-K through 2nd Grade. We'd bought the complete 1st and 2nd grade DVD sets, with 30 eps per grade, and watch it through two or three times in a year. Then we talk about one or two things they learned from the episode. The first grade disks deal with a sort of faith worldview/overview-- "Creation & Fall", "God Makes His Presence Known", "Communion Among Holy Persons", "The Beatitudes". They do a nice spotlight on a particular saint or Blessed many episodes-- popular ones like Paul, or Francis, or Martin of Tours, but also modern ones, like Pier Giorgio and Teresa of Calcutta. The second grade disk focuses on sacraments and starts getting into meat and potatoes-- "How to Make a Good Confession", "How to Go to Confession", "History and Symbols of Holy Week", "The Primacy of Peter", "The Four Marks", "Te Deum", etc. In our parish, we don't do any sacraments until the 3rd grade, and then we do Reconciliation and Eucharist in the same year. 

[ktgrok]

Ok...I think you convinced me. Going to go check out the DVDs :)

 

We do sacraments in 2nd here, confession in november I think, then Eucharist in may. 

[Meadowlark]

Thought I'd chime in because we are doing Faith and Life online via Mycatholicfaithdelivered. I chose it for a few reasons. Our church offers two options for religious education-neither of which settle well with me. One is during the summer for 2 weeks which we tried for one year. Not enough retention, all worksheets, etc. The other is a school year program which didn't appeal to me for a lot of reasons.

 

Last year we kind of dropped the ball with religion which I wasn't happy about. I mean, we prayed and talked about God but nothing formal. After sending them to Totus Tuus in the summer, I realized we need to keep up or they will be totally lost in the future. Now, having said that, I totally believe the heart is what we're aiming for here. So while I want to "cover the bases", I also want to be sure I'm reaching their hearts.

 

All of that said, we chose this option because I feel like they can get the meat and potatoes of it. The text is pretty wordy and I love that it reads it to them instead of ME reading it to them. I just cannot read everything anymore. I'm already practically hoarse by about 2:00 as it is. I also like that it reviews the prayers with them, incorporates music, and overall just covers the bases. Plus, it's reasonable as someone mentioned. Here, it takes about 30-40 minutes to complete the lesson so I put them on the computer once or twice a week. .Then, daily, we cover Saints, prayer, etc. It seems to be working for us so far.

[ktgrok]

Meadowlark, do they need to be able to read to use it? I'm wondering as so many programs seem to assume the child is reading well and she's still sounding out words slowly. Still learning to read, not reading to learn.