Handing on the Faith: The Plan and the Planner

2009 Note: The link in this post was for last year's planner planner. It no longer works. This year's planner is equally good. You can find a description of it here.

I've gotten a couple of emails taking me to task for neglecting to plan "religion" when I planned for the year. Silly me, I knew something was missing;-)! Seriously, I didn't neglect handing on the faith. I don't neglect handing on the faith. And if you download and read the PDF file with the weekly plan posted in the planning post, you will see that there are several blocks scheduled for directly teaching "religion." That's in addition to the infusion of faith that we pray comes from living a life of faith. There, now I've finished my indignant rant.
I didn't give you details in the planning post because I wanted to dedicate a whole space to tell you all about the best investment I've made in something "school" related in a long, long time. Talk about bang for your buck! These planners are the best bargain going.
In the individual elementary planners, each child will have:
~Daily Exercises to help students learn more about Jesus through the Gospels
~Spaces to keep track of their daily classroom work and assignments
~Pages designed with liturgical colors to help students become more aware of the seasons and feasts of the Church Year
~UNIQUE symbols alert students to follow Jesus from city to city in the Gospels. Turn to the back cover for a map of the Holy Land in the Time of Jesus!
~Imprimatur, Most Reverend Robert J. Hermann, V.G. Auxiliary Bishop of St. Louis, Missouri
~Official NAB Lectionary text
~A colorful two page liturgical calendar wheel
~Traditional prayers printed on the inside cover in the front
~Seven sacraments and their symbols printed on the back inside cover
~A full color page on how to pray the rosary
~ A page listing all the books of the Bible
~A page on how to read the Bible
~A two page color map of the US with all the state flags
~A two page map of the world
~A page with a multiplication table and English to Metric Conversions
~Math symbols
~A page of homonyms
~Cheat Sheet for parts of speech, punctuation, capitalization
~How to make an outline
~How to write a research report
~the periodic table
~A cheat sheet for literature genres
~Some student pages related to the year-long study of the doctors of the Church that is outlined in the Teacher's Planner

Each 2-page "planning" spread highlights:
~the coming Sunday's Gospel story and a Word of the Week from that story
~the current season of the Church Year
~who and what we remember this week in Church and secular history
~Daily Exercises that explore the Gospel, Word of the Week, and special holidays. (Primary and Elementary only)
PLUS (in Elementary Planners):
- 6 subject columns and Spelling words
- Parent / teacher comment spaces
- Parent / student check-off boxes
- Prayer list space
- Reminder space
- Weekly Goals/Values space
Hall Pass (I'm thinking of something creative to do with this ;-)

The primary and high school planners are just as wonderful.

The Teacher's planners contain:
Most of what is in the children's planners, plus
~biographies of dozens of saints
~A full section on the Doctors of Church and the Influence of the Catholic Church in the History of the World. This will become our Monday morning focus. We will study one Doctor of the Church each week throughout the year.
~A reproducible section on the O Antiphons
~A section on the Fruits of the Spirit which I will tie into our teatime study of Our 24 Family Ways
~The planner provides a review of the Gospel from the previous Sunday (we'll touch on that briefly on Monday) and then an introduction of the following week's gospel. This will be our focused study on Tuesday, followed by a re-reading every day for the rest of the week.
~There are notes for the teacher for the each week which include several feast days and thoughts on Sunday's reading.We'll discuss the saints for the week during our focused time on Wednesdays.There are lots of puzzles and such to support these studies which can be reproduced for each of my children.
~Finally, Fridays are reserved for a Catholic Mosaic meditation. This will be a simple time, using the Adoremus Hymnal CD, and Finestrae Fidae, and the Catholic Mosaic books. . This focused study was a brainstorm that Colleen and I had a few weeks a go and it takes a little more explaining. We'll get a full post going soon.

So, that's the morning faith time. On Monday afternoons, there is a block reserved for First
Communion notebooks, Confirmation notebooks and advanced saint studies.
So, there you have it--or at least some of it. I didn't leave out faith education. But thanks for reminding me;-)