We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. ~Isaiah 64:8



Saturday, September 13, 2008

The Liturgical Year - a shared plan

This year I am setting up a plan of sorts for the way our family will celebrate the Church Year. I've put together a calendar of special feast days and collected some ideas for activities or other learning experiences to accompany our celebration of the Liturgical Year.

As with many things in my homeschool adventure - there is WAY more here than we'll accomplish, but having a plan helps me accomplish more than I would with nothing.

If you are interested in something like this for your family, I'd love to share it with you...and if you have any ideas to add, I'd love to hear them! Just keep in mind this is for my family and you may want to tweak it to meet your family's needs and traditions. You'll notice some days do not have specific activities, for these, we just read about the Saint's life.

My current plan only goes through the beginning of Epiphany, but I'll add more plans later this Fall to continue through the rest of the year. (If you subscribe to my RSS, you won't miss out when I post the rest!)

If you download this, would you leave me a comment letting me know? This just helps me know if my plan is useful to others (if it is I'll continue posting things like this). And if you have any other ideas to add, I'd love to have them!!

To go along with this plan, I highly recommend getting simple kids' book about the saints. The ones I'm using are from a Catholic perspective, which is not a problem for our family eventhough we are not Catholic, but be advised you may want to do some editing if you are Protestant and reading the following books:

  • Saints for Young Readers for Every Day, Vol. 2: July-December - Vol 1 covers January- June, but is not available at Amazon. I've found it at Abebooks.com. This set of books has a saint for every day of the year. Even those saints not listed on my plan we read about from this book most days.
  • Loyola Kids Book of Saints (Loyola Kids) This is a great little book, although not in chronological order. You'll have to sift through it to find the saint you are looking for. I'm considering making a chart to use with this book. I'll post it if I get it done!
  • You can find other books I've recommended for various Liturgical Seasons. These are appropriate for Protestants.

(By the way, any books you buy via these links puts a little money in my Amazon account. I use the $$ to help fund our school books, which allows us more savings for our adoption. So, if you appreciate the plan I've put together and are considering purchasing books, please consider doing so through any of these links. You do not have to buy the books I recommend - any books purchased after following those links will count.)

Here is the link to a Google Documents page I've created with our family's plan. The first part is the calendar for the whole year, keep scrolling to get to the activity plan.

Liturgical Year - Family Activity Plan - 08-09

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3 comments:

Emily said...

This looks awesome Kerry! Thanks so much for sharing.

Dee Ann said...

Kerry,
This is such a blessing! Just a day earlier I had asked a friend of mine for suggestions on observing the liturgical year, something I've not really ever done but wanted to begin. She sent me a link to your site and it's exactly what I was looking for! Thank you for sharing your plan with everyone.
Dee (www.GracealaMaison.blogspot.com)

Kerry said...

Dee Ann - I'm so glad it will be of use to you. I didn't grow up with the liturgical year, so I'm learning as I go, too.

By the way - lovely blog!