The War of the Vendee

Navis Pictures is the genius behind St. Bernadette of Lourdes, the film with a cast of all children, most of them homeschooled.  Our family is very excited about the new film with a similar cast coming this fall: The War of the Vendee.



You can read the Wikipedia article, War in the Vendee, to get a general overview of the event depicted in the film.  This would make an outstanding suppliment to a study of the French Revolution, but why wait to enjoy something this good?

I have put together a reading schedule for studying some Founding Fathers and the Revolutionary War.  You can access the pdf schedule here on Google Documents.
Of course you can substitute your favorites on your bookshelves or available through your library for anything that I have listed.  That's the beauty of a Charlotte Mason education.

US History--the Revolutionary War

We finished the colonization of the United States and now we are moving into the Revolutionary War.  I am focusing more on personalities rather than events, along with some great character formation.  I have not planned out this unit as well as the last yet, but here is what I have put together.

I am reading American Hero Stories by Eva March Tappan to Ds#3.  Eleven chapters cover inspiring people and events of the Revolution.  We are also reading the shorter Jean Fritz biographies in my home library, while ds#2 is reading the longer titles, Why Not, Lafayette?, Early Thunder, and Traitor: the Case of Benedict Arnold We're also using another favorite author of ours, F. N. Monjo (5 short books for Ds#1 and one long one for Ds#2 and Ds#3.)

We are continuing to use An Elementary History of the United States (for ds#1 and #2) by Eva March Tappan, but only 4 chapters relate to the time period we're covering.  This book will give the boys the basics of the events of the Revolutionary War.

Along with those chapters they will also continue reading The Catholic Pioneers of America by John O'Kane Murray.  Seven biographies are relevent to our time period, from Casimir Pulaski to Lafayette.  Included is the longest survivor of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Charles Carroll. Other signers accused him of having less courage than they did because so many other Maryland citizens had his same name, and so he added to his signature, "of Carrollton," to be sure the king knew which one.  This book continues to enrich our US History studies from which Catholic accomplishments are typically excluded.

Ds#3 has started the Treegate Series by Leonard Wibberley from Bethlehem Books, starting with John Treegate's Musket  Each of the three books in the series are available as a Kindle edition for only 3.95 each.  The other two books are Peter Treegate's War followed by Sea Captain from Salem (Treegate)



We own and enjoy many of William Bennett's books and so I pulled Our Country's Founders: A Book of Advice for Young People.  We'll skip the second chapter, "Love and Courtship," unless we have time at the end since the boys will be far more interested in the other topics at this point in their lives.

I was looking at what they needed to read for this week and I noticed at the end of Israel Putnam at Bunker Hill is the note, "Adapted from Eva March Tappan, American Hero Stories."

PandaMania Warning

Our Sunday Visitor (OSV) is a wonderful Catholic publishing company that is widely respected.  This year they release a Totally Catholic Summer Program (what our Protestant friends refer to as VBS) called PandaMania.  This is a Catholic rendering of the highly popular VBS programs put out by the Protestant company, Group.  What I am about to write does not apply to their version of the program.

Our parish decided to use OSV's PandaMania, and we were very excited initially, that is, until we started looking into the details.  The two most objectionable portions are the People of Faith cards and Connecting Kids to Justice.

The first of the People of Faith cards is Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.  Ever hear of him?  He's a Jesiut priest that has a lot of excellent scientific writings worth reading (the pope has said so); he is also in serious disagreement with the Church when it comes to his theology.  The Holy See has issued a Monitum regarding his work that includes the following:

"For this reason, the most eminent and most revered Fathers of the Holy Office exhort all Ordinaries as well as the superiors of Religious institutes, rectors of seminaries and presidents of universities, effectively to protect the minds, particularly of the youth, against the dangers presented by the works of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin and of his followers.” [Emphasis added]

Call me crazy, but an elementary summer school program does not seem like the place to introduce Teilhard.

As for Connecting Kids to Justice, it focuses on the Catholic Climate Covenant put together by the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change.  This coalition consists of 12 organizations affiliated with some of the most notorious Church dissenters.  Here is a sampling:

Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities.  This organization has failed to concern itself with the moral decline of “Catholic” colleges.  See here and here.

Carmelite NGO.  While the Carmelite Order is wonderful, the Carmelite NGO supports UN initiatives to advance abortion and birth control services.  The Carmelite NGO fully supports the UN Millennium Goals and lists them on their web site.  If you click on #5 Improve Maternal Health it brings you UN Millennium Goals website.  Article 5.6 lists an unmet need for family planning.  The Carmelite NGO was a co-sponsor of the standing room only side event titled Consumption and the Rights of Mother Earth held at the UN on May 11, 2010.  The website mentions nothing about the rights of the unborn child.

Catholic Health Association of the United States.  The president of this organization is Sister Carol Keehan, who supported ObamaCare in defiance of the USCCB, and supported St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix after Bishop Olmstead sanctioned it for performing abortions.

Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR).  This organization champions major dissidents of the Church, including Sr. Jeannine Gramick who spoke at their 2010 Leadership Conference.  This is the organization that led to several religious orders to ask for a different leadership organization be formed, The Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious.

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious and Conference of Major Superiors of Men (another coalition member) held a joint conference in 2004 in which the keynote speaker was abortion advocate Mary Robinson.

As part of the program, they won't recite the Creed but your children will take this evironmental pledge:

You can see the slides for all 5 days here (scroll to the bottom for the PowerPoints.)  There's a lot of coaching your kids to go home and tell you how to behave.  Could you imagine if we had a TCSP that told kids to go home at tell their parents that they are committing a mortal sin if they don't attend Mass on Sunday?  Well, I know that might seem like a good idea, but would it be received as charity the way this environmentalism push is?

It seems to me that these organizations worship at the altar of politics dressed in Catholic social teachings.  They take something that honest Catholics may be concerned about, like environmental stewardship, poverty, health care, or immigration and use it as a front to advance their political agenda that usually undermines Church teaching and authority.  If anyone is going to indoctrinate my kids, I will; that's why I homeschool.

This is not the only alternative. Cat. Chat VBS has three wonderful programs, one on the Sacraments, one on the Mass, and one on The Blessed Mother.  Catholic Heritage Curriculum offers 4 great Children's Retreats/VBS programs as well. 

Free Computer Resources

We homeschool together, all in one room.  When I am working with one son I shcedule something the other two can work on independently, which can be challenging with kids in 2nd, 4th, and 6th grades.  This time is split into 3 categories:  reading, writing, and computer time. While I have purchased some great computer-based learning programs, like ExploreLearning and Adaptive Curriculum, I found a couple of great free websites as well.

The first is The Head of the Class. This website has activities for grades K through 5th.  After I logged in I went to the control panel and clicked on "Customize Curricula" to set up the activities I wanted for Ds#2 and Ds#3.  I choose only the interactive activities and not the worksheets that have to be printed out, so this website has many more resources available than what I use.  They even have a book for each grade.

The second is Brain Nook. This one is more play than learning, but the kids really enjoy it.  They create basic characters and travel through different regions of the globe.  They can interact with other people but at the basic level they can only "say" what is on a list of responses (premium members can type whatever they want, which is one of many reason we are not premium members.)  Often my kids will call their friends and log on at the same time while talking together on the telephone.  To earn points they have to play math and language arts challenges.  Once a week you are emailed a progress report that tells you how many challenges they played, what level they played at, and the breakdown of math to language arts.

Enjoy!

UPDATE (6/14):  We dropped BrainNook because it turned out to be too much play and not enough skill building.

Year Round Homeschool

We have always followed, more or less, a traditional school year.  We take a break from our typical academics from Thanksgiving until New Year, though we do Advent studies.  We then plough through two terms from January until the beginning of June with only Holy Week off.  It's a long, hard stretch.

Now that I no longer work at the hospital, I now teach 3 more classes that I didn't before, for a total of 5, and 3 of them are online.  My time is consumed correcting assessments and assignments, and blogging has taken it on the chin.  At least I don't have to try to get to work in the midst of a bizzard; and I am no longer scheduled for nights, weekends, holidays, or summers!

The dilemma is that I am trying to cram in homeschooling during the same time that my demands are greatest teaching.  I've thought about year-round homeschooling for awhile but I didn't really know how to approach it.  If I didn't school in the winter would the boys be just running aroung the house bored anyway making it impossible for me to work?  Then it just so happened (that you, Lord) that a very brief discussion occurred on one of the Yahoo groups about this very subject.  Some people, I guess, school for 3 weeks and take one off while others school for 6 weeks and take 2 off.  I've decided to try the latter.  Those two weeks will be enough for me to get caught up and a little ahead in my teaching, as well as to plan the next section of homeschool, and maybe even to blog a little! It give my boys just enough time to relax before getting bored.

My biggest concern is if we will have the will and the discipline to sit down to school during those glorious summer days.  While math will run year round, our Religion and Language Arts are not a full 36 weeks, we can stop Rosetta Stone Italian in the summer, and we won't have co-op so Friday is always free.  I am dreaming of a relaxed and joyful time of learning.  I'll let you know what happens when reality sets in...

Colonial History

Our family will be studying Colonial History for the next eleven weeks and I put together our reading schedule based on Eva March Tappan books along with a few others.  Here are the spines linked to their full text at Google Books or Open Library:

An Elementary History of Our Country by Tappan
This is a straight-forward chronological history of the United States.  It's good for dates and facts.

Letters from Colonial Children by Tappan
As I mentioned in the last blog, this lovely historical fiction is a series of letters written by colonial children to their families and friends in the Old World.

American Hero Stories by Tappan
This is a book of biographical sketches that is great for younger children.

Builders of Our Country Vol. 1 by Gertrude Van Duyn Southwick.  I'm not sure where I found this, but I had it in my Google library.  It is also a series of biographical sketches, many of which are colony founders, so it filled in a lot of gaps I had.  This will be a read aloud.

The Catholic Pioneers of America by John O'Kane Murray
This is another series of biographical sketches dedicated to American Catholics.  It has over 80 biographies, written more as stories than a factual retelling, arranged by date of death.  I found sorting through this book fascinating.  This will also be a read aloud in preference to Builders when they both cover the same person.

I have two stories about South Carolina in Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans by Edward Eggleston.

You can download the entire 11-week schedule as a PDF.

Now to search through For the Love of Literature and Let the Authors Speak for some good historical fiction to go along with this reading schedule!