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Religious home school curriculum?

My oldest boy is three and my husband and I are pretty sure he will be going to public school. We want our children to get a good, solid Catholic education along with their 'regular' studies and were wondering if anyone could make a suggestion for us?

We have something like a workbook program of some sort in mind that can follow all of our children through their school years. I don't know much about home schooling materials and how to come by them so I feel a little lost. I will be the one instructing.

We would also like to make a decision on what curriculum we will be using so as to start saving/purchasing slowly. Thank you so much! Any and all help means a lot to us.

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Permalink Reply by Lindsey Day on July 17, 2009 at 11:15am

Catholic Heritage Curricula has a series "Faith and Life" that has a text and workbook for grades 1-8. http://www.chcweb.com/catalog/FaithandLifeSeriesGrade1/product_info...

HTH!

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Permalink Reply by Rebecca L on July 19, 2009 at 8:11am

There are many good religious education programs out there but do not count on your parish's RE program to be one of them unfortunately. OTOH if you are blessed with a good, solid, Catholic RE program at your parish make use of it!

With my children we did the Faith & Life series one year and I liked it well enough but the curriculum we do now uses the old Baltimore Catechism and I love it. It gives them a solid foundation in catechesis and plenty of jumping off points for discussion. (This is not really for kids under grade 2 though).

We also LOVE Catholic Mosaic. Which is a great resource for ALL ages. It uses beautiful picture books as its foundation and provides parents with discussion questions and activities to extend the books. It is very gentle and the books often become favorites over time. It also helps the children get in tune with the liturgical seasons rather than just the "school seasons".

Another good resource is Seton's "Art for Young Catholics" series. You can discuss the faith while working on simple art projects together. My kids love hanging up their very own Catholic art around the house. :-)

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Permalink Reply by Patricia on July 19, 2009 at 3:29pm

Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory to Him forever!
I second the Baltimore Catechism & the religion texts from Seton. For the most part, Seton bases their religion texts on the Baltimore Catechism, so they provide your child with a solid basis on which to build their knowledge of the Faith & their relationship with Christ. Check out Seton Homeschool, Kolbe Academy & Catholic Heritage Curricula online to see what style/content of "book learning" you think might appeal to you, as teacher, and to your son. You will be richly blessed by taking an active role in the Faith formation of your child! I was raised Catholic, but have learned SO MUCH about our beautiful Catholic Faith since we began homeschooling 9 years ago.
God bless!

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Permalink Reply by Marie V. on July 22, 2009 at 10:34pm

Thank you for the suggestions! We think we are going to go with the Catholic Heritage Curricula and add some of the books we found from the Seton program as well. We might purchase more materials from other sources as well to see what we think of their feel. Thank you very much for your suggestions. A lot!

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Permalink Reply by Michelle Reitemeyer on August 10, 2009 at 9:39pm

I really like the Faith and Life books. I do not think you need the teacher's manual, just the student text and workbook.

I LOVE the Baltimore Catechism and strongly recommend having your child memorize the answers. Just spend 5 minutes a day/4 times per week.

And also there are many excellent children's books to supplement the faith, especially stories of saints.

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Permalink Reply by Amylisa C on March 2, 2011 at 11:13am

I am very late coming in on this topic! How do you like the Catholic Heritage Curricula....I am thinking of using it for my 7th grader next fall. (excuse my lack of punctuation, my son got at my keyboard and not all the keys are working!

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Permalink Reply by angie wolfe on March 6, 2011 at 9:00pm

We use just about everything from CHC. My kids have always enjoyed it. The spelling and language books are really good. Their science and history though, depends on your child. Some of the history textbooks are actually for several grades higher than what the catalog offers. I am using the 5th and 6th grade history texts for my 4th, 6th and 8th graders together, using them as a jumping off point, adding in regular chapter books to enhance our learning of each time periods. The science has been ok for our son, but I don't think our daughter will do well with the "Universe in my Hands". Maybe next year I will try "Life Science" for her, s-l-o-w-l-y!!! I don't know what their new lesson plan for 7th will look like though. A few years back they had a "middle school lesson plan" for 5-8th. It's so-so. HTH