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This course follows the liturgical year. It begins with Advent. There are a total of forty-four projects. Each one has an explanation.

***EXAMPLE OF LESSON*** For example the next one we are going to do is "The Grotto at Lourdes" on pg 12. It begins with "Celebrate - February 11, OUR LADY OF LOURDES. February 11 is the anniversary day of the first apparition of Our Day at Lourdes, France. The Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to a 14 yr old girl named Bernadette Soubirous eighteen times between Feb 11 and July 16, 1858. On March 25, 1858, Bernadette asked the beautiful lady to identify herself. Mary answered, "I am the Immaculate Conception." Mary also asked for penance and prayer. Bernadette was told by Our Lady to have a chapel built there and to have people come in precessions. A miraculous spring of fresh wat4er came forth from the ground and to this day, many people have been cured by the healing waters that come from the spring.

The lesson then has suggestions for the parent to find more info on the topic. Then the project is listed. In this case we need Pattern # 10, glue, scissors, green and red tissue paper, brown, green and yellow construction paper, crayons or markers and gold glitter. The instructions are giving in steps. 1. Color the picture of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Drape glue on the halo and roses at Mary's feet. Sprinkle with glitter.
2. Cut out patterns for the grotto, oval and vine.
3. Place grotto pattern on brown paper, trace and cut one.
4. Place oval pattern on yellow paper, trace and cut one.
5. Place vine pattern on green paper, trace and cut two.
6. Set grotto pieces aside. Glue oval in the center and glue the two vines along the sides.
7. Cut layers of green and read tissue paper into 1 1/2" X 1 1/2" squares. You will need more green than red.
8. Take each individual red square and roll into a loose ball. Glue them here and there on the vines to look like roses.
9. Take each individual green squares and slightly crumble it. Glue them to vine around roses to look like leaves.
10. Cut out figure of Mary and glue it in center of the oval.
11. Using a pen, carefully print OUR LADY OF LOURDES across the top of the grotto. Display your artwork.
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We are excited about this lesson because we just set up a table to use as a home altar and so far only have a few votive candles. We want to save for a nice stature of the Sacred Heart and Immaculate Hearts. So until then the Grotto the kids make will grace our little table.

The other lessons cover all twelve months. There are projects for Lent, Easter, St Pat's Day, Pentecost, Ascension Thursday, Trinity Sunday, Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Feast of All Saints and more. We have really enjoyed it. I have no artistic ability and this helps me to give my children art that looks like art ;-). I have also learned alot about the liturgical year from it. Also Cari and David have been able to do it together. I plan on using it again next year for projects for liturgical feasts. It really is a wonderful book.

What could be better than a well-planned and well-organized Catholic art textbook written by internationally-known Catholic artists who are also art historians and professors? This is the textbook! From the introduction by the authors: "The rules used here have been the time-tested tools used by artists for centuries and are based on natural law and common sense. Once acquired, these skills are not only transferable to other disciplines but also foster genuine appreciation and discernment in the field of art and of beauty in creation."

Seton's Art 4 for Young Catholics includes 36 weekly lessons for upper-elementary aged children. The lessons build upon one another, with a few lessons carrying over from one week to the next. Unlike some of the other books in the Seton art series, the lessons do not follow the liturgical year and could be used in an order other than the way they appear in the text. Each lesson plan includes the objective of the lesson, a detailed list of required materials that are easily and inexpensively available, and step-by-step instructions with many illustrations to show the student and teacher what is expected. Art history and appreciation topics are featured in several lessons with thirteen full-color plates and numerous black-and-white plates for careful study. Topics of instruction range from line, contour, texture, color, symbolism, contrast, dimension, symmetry, to balance and design.

Although the book is sold as the text for Seton's 4th grade, it is very appropriate for children up through the 6th grade for a multi-level homeschool class or co-op. I've been using this course this year very successfully with an art-talented 3rd grader and an art-challenged 6th grader, and I'm thrilled with it. Not only are my students developing basic art skills and basic art sense, they are also being introduced to traditional art works featuring Catholic subjects.

This is an exciting and fun art supplement that kids are sure to love (makes a great gift for Christmas or a birthday). There are three main parts to the book. First is an introduction which explains a problem the art museum is having with forgeries. Several gangs of artists have copied original works, but made very slight changes to them. The object of the book is to identify who is responsible for the various forgeries by looking carefully for very specific clues.

The rest of the book is split into two books on top of each other. The upper part is composed of the forgeries - which look like real art until you look very closely (and thus the magnifying glass). A small symbol on the forgery will tell you how many changes the forger made to the original work. By studying the lower book - which is an art catalog with prints of the real paintings, the reader will discover the differences and solve the crime. The catalog includes information about the type of painting; the artist and when he lived; and a brief story about the painting and its subject. There are a total of thirty-four paintings and there is a complete answer key in the back of the book.

What a creative way to get kids interested in art and...fear not! You'll find no twaddle here. I was very pleased to see the practice in attention-to-detail that this book requires and encourages. It's enjoyable enough that my daughter has enjoyed working through it with friends on sleep-overs. There is one picture that jumps out at me as being a little on the shocking side. It's a picture of a very ugly old lady in a very low-cut dress. The book explains that it is a caricature of older women who try to dress younger but really make themselves look ridiculous. I don't really like the picture, but I don't think it really detracts from the book (it also offers the idea of additional purpose in art and an unusual way of making a point).

We enjoy CHC products a great deal because they fit naturally into our homeschool and family life. This little art appreciation course is no exception.

Arranged around the liturgical year, the package includes ten beautiful 8" x 10" full color, masterpiece reproductions featuring ten different artists (e.g. Michelangelo, Botticelli, Rembrandt, da Vinci) and a 25 page art appreciation guide. The guide provides excellent suggestions for teaching art appreciation in general (those who are familiar with the Charlotte Mason approach will be right at home) as well as specific suggestions for individual masterpiece focusing on content, line, color, pattern, and design. The information gleaned from this guide can easily be applied to other works of art you may already have in your home too.

In addition to the general use section, the guide devotes one page per month to the study of a particular masterpiece. A monthly theme is suggested along with ideas for integrating the study of the particular artwork into family life. Like other CHC products, this package has incorporated Catholic ideals into a program that is enlightening and edifying while remaining something that real families can easily work into their daily school and family life.

When we first received our package I immediately put all of the pictures into a frame, with the June masterpiece on top. I made a pocket on the cardboard backing to hold the booklet and we have weekly discussions about the picture that now hangs in our living room. Occasionally I take the booklet out of the pocket behind the picture and flip to some discussion prompts about line, form, etc. The children enjoy the looking at all the details in the picture while I ask questions and my husband is delighted to have a variety of religious pictures to brighten our room.

If you are looking for an easy to use art appreciation program that uses beautiful artwork, then you will want to check out the Art Masters Enhance Religion program.

Created by the Enhance Company, this is a unique art appreciation course that can be integrated with any religion program or stand by itself. In addition to their K-8 Grade School Curriculum, the Enhance Company also produces a Home School Series. There are four grade levels.

The Primary program (Gr. K-2) includes a parent’s booklet plus twelve 11” x 14” prints. The theme is Penance and Holy Eucharist.

The Intermediate level (Gr. 3-5) includes a parent’s booklet plus twelve 11” x 14” prints, eight 5” x 8” laminated prints, and rosary booklet. The theme is the Ten Commandments and the Sacraments.

The Junior High level (Gr. 6-8) includes a parent’s booklet plus ten 11” x 14” prints and ten 5” x 8” laminated prints. The theme is Confirmation.

The Junior High/Senior High level (Gr. 6-12) includes a parent’s booklet plus forty-six 5” x 8” laminated prints. The theme is the Old Testament and the New Testament.

Because the 11” x 14” prints are large, they are ideal for “classroom display.” If you have always wondered what to put on that easel gathering dust, now you know! The quality of the large prints is outstanding. They are frameable. Most of the prints are of famous artists such as Michelangelo’s Pieta. There are, however, some lesser known artists because of the message the authors want to convey. For example, Nuner-Segura’s The Breaking of the Bread is used for First Communion. Many, but not all, of the smaller laminated prints are black and white. The authors of this program are looking for another source for affordable, small color prints.

What makes this program so wonderful is the background information and discussion questions. In the parent’s booklet, every print includes an easy to use, concise, one page write up that includes the theme, e.g. The Flight into Egypt; information about the artist, Giotto, when he lived, biographical information and other pertinent facts, such as the style of the painting or the school of art; the title of the painting and description of the painting; questions related to the aesthetics, e.g. Who does the Christ Child seem to be looking at in the picture?; Art Criticism Questions, e.g. How did the artist show movement?; and Projects. Read the Bible message (Matt. 2: 13-15). Discuss.

There is also an overview of the program in each parent booklet that explains general terms such as Art History, Aesthetics, Art Production, etc.

For many of us, we look at a painting or a work of art and we are at a loss as to what to discuss with our children. We know that we like a painting, yet we find it difficult to articulate our reasons why.

With the Art Masters Enhance Religion program, we are given the tools to begin a greater appreciation and deeper understanding of art through beautiful artwork, thoughtful discussion questions and related projects.

This religion program offers an integrated approach to religion and art, making life a little easier for mom. Although each grade level is geared to a particular grade level because of the typical religious topic at that age, this program could easily be adapted by any grade level. You don’t need to be an art critic to use this program. The material is all laid out for you. Except for the discussion questions, which work best with another adult, although the student could write out the answers, an older child could easily do this program independently.

Even if your school year becomes hectic and overwhelming with too many activities, too much curriculum, and too little time, you can still display these beautiful works of art and enjoy them as a whole family. Art doesn’t have to be something extra that never gets done. Art can also be appreciating fine works of art displayed in your own home.

Reading Level: Ages 9-12

The Art of Construction (originally published in 1979 under the title Building: The Fight Against Gravity) is one of the finest examples of books that help children understand principles of science as applied to real life situations - in particular buildings and making sure that they stay up in spite of gravity and natural disasters.

Children are introduced to important concepts like "tension" and "compression" with simple hands on exercises to help understand and remember them. Most chapters include a somewhat-more-involved construction project to teach these principles (and have a lot of fun in the process). Numerous illustrations make concepts and clearer and aid in understanding the building projects.

The text is very engaging and easy-to-understand. We've found it ideal as a read-aloud with a group. Our co-op has been using it somewhere in the 2nd to 4th grade range, although it could certainly used by much older students (all the way through high school would be reasonable). The engineer dads in our co-op have been very impressed with the book and the concepts the children study.

The chapter titles are as follows (and give you a little glimpse of the content and style):

• From Cave to Skyscraper
• Building a Tent
• What is a Beam?
• What do We Build Structures With?
• The Floor of Your Room
• A Steel Frame...Made Out of Paper
• The Part of the Building You Don't See
• What Tornadoes, Earthquakes and Changes in Temperature Can Do
• How to Fight Tornadoes and Earthquakes
• Ropes and Cables
• Sticks and Stones
• Strings and Sticks
• Shape and Strength
• Barrels, Dishes, Butterflies, Bicycles Wheels and Eggs
• Balloons...and Back to the Tent

Here are a few random sample paragraphs to give you a sense of the style and substance:

"If you had one of your friends put your hands on each other's shoulders and move your feet away from each other, you will become a full arch and feel compressed by each other's weight. But if your shoes slip on the floor and you begin to slide apart, the arch will collapse. Its ends must be firmly anchored to prevent it from spreading apart." (pg. 15)

"The best way to understand how the frame of a building works is to build one. A good model of a steel frame can be built with paper, provided we first build the separate elements of the frame: the columns, the beams, and the floors. A column should not take too much floor room, but must be strong enough to carry the compressive loads without buckling under them. A column buckles, that is, bends under compression along its axis, if it is too thin. Take a plastic ruler, stand it up, and push downward on it: there comes a point when the ruler will bend out." (page 39)

"The purpose of a building's structure is to guarantee that the building will stand up under all the loads and forces acting on it: the weights, the pressure of the wind, the forces due to temperature changes, and, possibly, the shaking caused by earthquakes. The builders want to make sure that the building will not collapse, and they hope it will not even be damaged, since in the first case it may kill people and in the second it may be costly to repair. They also want to make sure that the building will not move around. If a house were to slide down the slope of the hill it is built on, or if a skyscraper were to be toppled by the wind, the buildings would have failed their purpose, even if their structures might sometimes ed up undamaged." (page 57)

This is one of the books that I want to be sure each of my children have a chance to study sometime during their school years. Highly recommended!

This Catholic Art text, intended for the eighth grade, offers thirty-six weeks of lessons in art appreciation, with an emphasis on religious art. The text presents 152 images (in full-color on glossy paper) which cover many of the basic schools and famous artists (in chronological order). Descriptions offer biographical sketches of famous artists, explanations of various art forms (such as icons, mosaics, statuary, church architecture, etc.) Although the focus is on religious art, there are a few non-religious subjects as well, such as the cave paintings from Lauscaux, France and The School of Athens by Raphael.

Although the book is intended for eighth grade, it is the sort of book that could be used for a family-wide art study. My five year old son, who is quite the art afficianado, enjoys paging through the book. When asked for a quote about the book, he had this to say: "The pictures are really colorful. It has a Michelangelo picture in it. There's a picture by Leonardo da Vinci in it. There's one by Raphael called The School of Athens. I like it."

Tom was an ordinary boy who loved being outdoors and drawing whatever he saw. Although Tom found school distasteful, his teacher, Sister Aquinas, saw artistic talent in him and encouraged him and lent him books on religious art. He discovered that his favorite artist was Fra Angelico. He attended a high school seminary and discovered that he wanted to be a monk. There he becomes Brother Joseph and finds that his artistic talents are put to good use. "He knows that he is busy about the right things, happy that as an artist he is able to give so much joy and peace to others with his icons."

This is a nice story about art, vocation and using one's talents for God and others. My children especially enjoyed the charming verses that run through the monk's head - "My brush will up and downward go, I'll paint like Fra Angelico!"

This set of five DVDs by artist/architect David Macaulay provides many hours of insightful entertainment and a great introduction to science and technology on a practical level. Each themed film - Bridges, Skyscrapers, Tunnels, Domes and Dams - provides an in-depth historical treatment of the particular structure, interesting stories and overviews from famous structures, and basic scientific principles involved in each project.

The set features lots of great location shoots with David Macaulay narrating interesting stories and pointing out details of each site.

To give you an idea, "Tunnels" covers aqueducts and water-carrying tunnels of Ancient Rome, early canal and train tunnels of the 19th century (particularly in England and the U.S.), archaic and modern methods of tunnel digging (particularly under rivers), issues involving tunnel safety (both during the project and during use afterwards) with a special emphasis (in all areas) on the building of the Channel Tunnel in the 1990s between England and France. Each video also includes a "Building Small" segment and pamphlet so that families can tackle simple science projects at home that demonstrate principles of architecture.

Our family has really enjoyed these movies - from the four year old all the way up to Mom and Dad. The material is substantial, but easy to understand (particularly with the excellent use of computer graphics and artistic sketches).

I would recommend parental supervision with young children, at least for the first viewing. There are a few things that might be scary for little ones, such as a spooky introduction to the Tunnel show and some photos from an airplane crash in to the Empire State Building that might be a little disturbing. There are also some points in other movies that would be worthy of discussion, such as the environmental issues that come up in the Dams movie. Those are all the "sticky" parts I can remember at this point. I am hoping to view them again soon and will add to this list as needed. Overall, I consider the series to be very worthwhile and enjoyable.

The Catholic Bookmark Kit includes 15 ready-to-color 3” by 8” durable card stock bookmarks with 5 different designs, including a Psalm verse, several clever sayings, such as Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth (BIBLE), or a Catholic quote (“The worst prison is a closed heart” by Pope John Paul II), all reminding children of the spiritual values of their faith. The artwork is bold, dramatic, fun, and professional looking. To make them last even longer, you may want to laminate them.