Name: CHEC Rocky Mountain Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-06-12T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-06-14T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Denver, CO

Tagged: new religious education sacrements

This topic has 11 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 12 years, 2 months ago by Monica.

Viewing 12 posts - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)

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April 9, 2013 at 1:22 am
gmyengel
Member
I am having SO much trouble figuring this out. 4 of my children are homeschooled, I have curriculum that I love, my problem is the religion aspect. Can I use CM just for the religious ed portion? If so how do I find lesson plans and materials. My kids need to rcve. their sacrements but the only curriculum that our parish will observe is CM..and I cant figure it out..Any advice on where to begin would be helpfull..Thank you
April 9, 2013 at 2:11 am
Rachel White
Participant
Assuming you are Catholic or Orthodox based on your words, have you looked at these?
For Catholic: http://materamabilis.org/ma/
BLogger who wrote a CM Catholic book, Real Learning; she may have something of help to you: http://www.elizabethfoss.com/
For Orthodox: http://www.paideaclassics.org/index.php?sid=&cart_id=
That doesn’t really answer your question, but it’s all I got! I”m sure you’ll get some more help.
April 9, 2013 at 12:13 pm
Misty
Participant
gmyengel – please let us know what religion you are wanting to teach and one of us will help you. That would let us know what you are looking for. I would agree with Rachel if you are Catholic, which I am, I could let you know what I do, as would others.
April 9, 2013 at 2:27 pm
gmyengel
Member
We are catholic.

April 9, 2013 at 3:28 pm
Monica
Participant
gmyengel, we are Catholic too. I’ll share a little bit about what we do for religion, although each family approaches it very differently.
-we participate in a Classically Catholic Memory co-op, which emphasizes rote memorization from the Baltimore Catechism and passages of Scripture.
-at home, we do the Scripture Memory System. I choose a passage that will be read during the upcoming Sunday’s mass, and we learn it during the week. You can easily find upcoming readings by checking the calendar on http://www.usccb.org/.
-we make a point to observe and celebrate important times on the Liturgical Calendar. During Lent each of my school-aged kids made a lapbook that included their resolutions for Lent. As a part of that we also did a study of the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy. When Pope Francis was elected, we did the lapbook on http://www.catholicicing.com/. Catholic Icing is an AMAZING site for making your Catholic faith part of your everyday life.
-My boys have been doing studies of various saints with scouts. So far they’ve done St. Damien, St. Isaac Jogues, and St. Juan Diego.
-Finally, my kids do Faith and Life online, which I subscribe to on http://www.mycatholicfaithdelivered.com. I use it just to make sure they are getting a good foundation. It is the program that is used in our parish’s Faith Fromation, which my kids are not enrolled in. It is thorough, but dry. Honestly, though, I think I may drop it next year in favor of The Great Adventure for Kids, which we will be able to do as a family.

Hope some of those things help you. I don’t want to overwhelm you, but I think starting with 1-2 of those ideas would provide a nice foundation for your kids. My younger son is receiving his First Holy Communion next month, so this is an exciting time!
April 9, 2013 at 3:55 pm
Sue
Participant
I grew up Catholic, so I understand your mention of your parish wanting your children properly prepared to receive First Communion and other sacrements. I’m a little confused, though, about CM being an approved curriculum for that preparation. As I see it, CM (or Charlotte Mason) is a utilization of her methods of teaching and not a set curriculum.
However, I do know that many Catholic families here (like Misty & jawgee) use CM methods to homeschool their families, and as they’ve already mentioned, they choose study materials/curriculum materials that support their Catholic faith. So, it might be helpful to us if you could double-check with the parish priest or other staff member in charge of First Communion preparation to see if they would require your child to take the classes they offer to public school kids or if you can teach them at home. I would ask them specifically what needs to be covered. They might even show you some of the materials they use to teach their classes.
April 9, 2013 at 6:08 pm
Misty
Participant
I use a a lot of what jawgee use. I use the Faith and Life though as a summer reading – pre-reading if you will – for our kids up coming grade. Kind of a taste of what’s to come. then Through the school year we use Seton’s religion workbooks for daily, more in depth learning which does it in a 4 days (most of them) 36 week program. This is a good fit for us. I have really liked it and in the early years being there is only 3 questions daily most of the time they do them orally, as they get older they write then in a notebook so I can re-use the religion books.
We also use specific books for different sacraments that have been either handed down or highly recommended or just found personally. Be it for 1st Communion, Reconciliation, or Confirmation we teach it all at home.
Yes I think you need to find out more or be more specific as to what your parish expects.
April 9, 2013 at 6:12 pm
Misty
Participant
jawgee – the Adventure looks great and reasonable. the Teen ones intrest me also but are a bit more spendy do you know anything about them?
April 10, 2013 at 1:42 pm
gmyengel
Member
Thank you all so much!! This gives me a great starting point..I was seriously clueless as where to start. Thanks for taking the time to respond..
April 10, 2013 at 3:16 pm
Monica
Participant
jawgee – the Adventure looks great and reasonable. the Teen ones intrest me also but are a bit more spendy do you know anything about them?

I haven’t used the Adventure, but I did the Quick Journey Through the Bible, which is part of the same series by Jeff Cavins. It was very good. I’ve heard that the Adventure is good, and that kids esp seem to like the card game.
I’d love to see the teen one, too, but it is quite expensive for a family to purchase.
gmyengel, I also wanted to mention that the Pflaum Student Planners are just exellent for a Catholic homeschooling family! Our homeschool group gets together to buy them every year, so we only end up spending around $6/planner. Check the sample pages – it is an amazing resource at a very reasonable price.
April 11, 2013 at 12:22 pm
Misty
Participant
What ages did you use the Quick Journey Through the Bible with? And do you think The Great Adventures would be a better fit for the younger years?
April 11, 2013 at 4:36 pm
Monica
Participant
Misty, I did the Quick Journey as part of an adult religion class, but I have a friend who did it with her kids (mostly 8-12 age).