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Teaching Resources

This page was started many years ago, before I had children of my own. I have another page which I started when considering Home Education. There is overlap between the two and now I will try to resolve and reorganise to make it clearer. Bear with me for now, I hope something here will interest you.

Penance

In 2001 I gave a catechism class based on the St. Joseph Baltimore Catechism No. 2 and the Green Catechism on Penance. I thought someone might find it useful too so here it is:

penance.doc in Word 6.0 for Windows format

Free Handwriting downloads

Have you ever bought a handwriting book and found it lacking? The script not quite right, or the passages for copying aren't what you would choose. Catholics might like to have a copybook using quotes without a Protestant slant. Here is my free alternative.

You can make your own worksheets using a handwriting font. Mac Rhino has a Montessori font available as a free download. Maria Montessori was an Italian doctor who did much work teaching disabled children then went on to work with children in poor areas whose parents had to work. She stressed observing the children, helping them make their own discoveries by providing attractive and well-made materials. The Montessori script font is a simple script of letters that lends itself to an easy transition to running writing - rather like the foundation handwriting I was taught at school, but Montessori's is a bit more rounded and more pleasant.

The tricky thing with a running writing font is getting all the letters to join up. A running writing font needs lots of ligatures, which in turn needs a sophisticated type setting program to handle the complexities. I use TeX for all my books, bulletins, and letters. There are many, many, many packages available for TeX via the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network (CTAN including a rather humble looking font called Lateinische Ausgangsschrift or la for short. Search for la14.mf and you'll find it. French Cursive is another running writing font available from CTAN. It's a little fancier, but see what you think.

And for those who don't have time for all that fiddling, here are the worksheets I've made so far:

Religious Education

Advent Wreath Each year its fun to try new ideas for celebrating the Church's liturgical cycle. In 2006 we tried an advent wreath using a florist's foam wreath base and filled with assorted cuttings from the garden including pine needle clumps, rosemary, mint, lavender and twigs from the other fir tree that might be spruce. The mint wilted quite a bit, but the others stayed better. The wreath lived on our dining table, giving us extra incentive to try to avoid the clutter that usually accumulates there. It also smelt beautiful. The wreath needed watering about once a week. The base came with a plastic tray to sit in snugly, but the water tended to spill over the sides when you poured water on the foam. Watering it over the sink then taking it back to the table when the water had had a chance to soak in helped keep the table dry.

Lent Calendar In 2007 on the morning of Ash Wednesday I woke up before the children and wondered how to mark the beginning of Lent. In Joanna Bogle's book, A Book of Feasts and Seasons, she describes a lent calendar from her school days. Her calendar was a simple count down of 40 squares leading up to a big cross. But to my mind the Cross goes on Good Friday. So in the picture you see 40 purple squares - the squares for Ash Wednesday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday are a little bigger than the rest - interspersed with yellow squares to mark the sundays. There's a St. Patrick's medal on St. Patrick's day, a picture of St. Joseph for St. Joseph's day and a picture of the Annunciation for the feast of the Annunciation. There's also a little metal crucifix tacked to Good Friday. The children have been marking the passing days with little coloured dots.

In 2008 I looked back on last year's lenten calendar which didn't survive the year. What to do this year? Using xfig, poster and pstops I have a basic template to print and decorate and you can have it too: lentcal.pdf. Four pages with cut marks to make a long strip 8 A4 pages long and half a page high. I've just assembled mine and marked the feast days and birthdays ready for the season.

Book Reviews

Ever wonder about what books could help feed the spark of Faith in your children? Here're a few true stories that I found good.

  1. Fabiola: A Tale of the Catacombs, Cardinal Wiseman - brings to life some of the early roman martyrs, Agnes, Sebastian, Pancratius, Erementiana, Cassius to name a few. The first few chapters are online here.
  2. The Secret of the Cure D'Ars, Henri Gheon - The life of St. John Vianney written for children by a top writer.
  3. Flame of White, William Hunermann - a life of Pope St. Pius X. My copy is translated from the German by M. Ida Adler, Ursuline of the Roman Union. Its a beautiful book about a boy called Beppo.
  4. The Saga of Citeaux, M. Raymond O.C.S.O. - the beginnings of the Trappists, in the Cistercian order. I have just the first two volumes: Three Religious Rebels and the Family that Overtook Christ. The first tells the story of St. Robert of Molesmes, St. Alberic and St. Stephen Harding. The second tells the story of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, his mother, Blessed Alice, his father, Venerable Tescelin, sister, Blessed Humbeline and his five brothers, Blessed Guy, Blessed Gerard, Blessed Andrew, Blessed Bartholomew and Blessed Nivard. I haven't found any further volumes in the series.
  5. Story of a Soul, St. Therese of the Infant Jesus - I hope everyone knows this one already, a beautiful and deep book. Well worth rereading.
  6. The Trapp Family Singers, Maria Augusta von Trapp - This may seem a little out of place at first sight for those of you accustomed to the famous musical, the Sound of Music. The von Trapps were a devoutly Catholic family and they ended up homeschooling too.
    There's another book written by Maria von Trapp that looks very interesting from a homeschooling viewpoint - Around the Year with the Trapp Family. It's all about keeping a family together through traditions and especially music (music included). Its available from Trinity Communications or online text version or zipped version through the EWTN library.
  7. Another book by Maria von Trapp - When the Carpenter was King. A book describing Jesus' childhood. It's a difficult topic to find good things on because of all the protestant junk against Mary's perpetual virginity. This is really faithful to the Church and really well researched with a bibliography in the back including Bp. Alban Goodier's Life of Our Lord, Frank Sheed's To Know Christ Jesus, so you can see she's drawing on the best. Lots of interesting things about home life at the time - should make you appreciate washing machines and fridges.
There are also the famous Narnia Chronicles. I was reading the Silmarillion bu J.R.R. Tolkein and I thought that excerpts from the first chapters might be good for older children learning about Angels and the Fall.

J. R. R. Tolkien wrote another children's book - Roverandom. It wasn't published until after he died. A story about a dog turned toy by a sorceror.

Wondering where on earth to find out of print books? Have you tried ABEbooks? They have the biggest range of second hand books I've ever come across. Amazon also has a used books section. Failing that you might try ebay, but their auction system can be frustrating. Some places have books you can download and print yourself. The first was Project Gutenberg. There are lots of others.

Go To Project Gutenberg

veronica@brandt.id.au