A Year With God is simply THE purchase of the year! Completely original, inspiring, and unique, the abundance of fresh ideas and activities will re-energize your religion class and re-motivate you to make your homeschool a truly Catholic school in every sense of the word. Spanning the liturgical year, A Year With God contains hundreds of carefully detailed and illustrated projects and activities. Nearly all of these can be extended into several other projects, giving you many, many years of exciting projects to work on with your students.

The Table of Contents begins with "Celebrate Advent and Christmas", continues with "Celebrate Lent and Easter", and concludes with "Celebrate Ordinary Time". This overview will provide you with an easy-to-use reference to the book, but even more valuable is the "Index of Activities" in the back of the book. This Index is arranged by the calendar year and provides page and activity references to specific Feast Days of the Church. Have you ever considered celebrating The Feast of St. Nicholas? Or the Annunciation of the Lord? Or the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows? Now you have ready-to-go plans for these and hundreds of other special days.

Plays, craft projects, dramatic readings, games, drawings, hands-on learning, writing projects and much more employ all of the various styles of learning. Also included are the most popular longer-term projects from the CHC Lesson Plans. Many families have purchased the lesson plan sets just to have access to these enriching ideas. The wide range of projects and activities appeal to all age groups as well. I have a sixteen-year age-range between students in my own homeschool, and there are enjoyable activities for everyone, including me! The extensive artwork is professional, orthodox, and pleasing while remaining accessible and comprehensible to everyone. Produced with a variety of easily-read fonts on creamy, thick paper, the book is a joy to read while allowing both durability and excellent reproduction quality. CHC has permitted that activity pages may be copied for immediate family members, further extending the usefulness of the book. Arrangements can also be made for group copyright permissions; this is a terrific way to introduce these activities into homeschool cooperative groups, sacramental preparation classes, and other group situations.

Every other book that we have used as we have celebrated the liturgical year has been tied to the cultural traditions of different countries around the world. While we have enjoyed these experiences, there are plenty of books available to learn about them. A Year With God is different from these books; it does not include such popular and well-known traditions as the Christmas Tree or the baking of Hot Cross Buns. A Year With God is focused on the truly spiritual and universally Catholic in a way that develops and fosters growth in virtue and holiness. The richness and depth of our Faith comes alive in a way that is unforgettable, both to the student and the teacher. Take the time to really read through and use this book. It will be a blessing to your family!

This is a very nice, very inexpensive (about $10), large-size set of the Stations of the Cross (created especially for children) appropriate for homes and classrooms. The drawings are simple (they remind me a little of Tomie dePaola's drawings) and what my husband would describe as "sanitized". Our first inclination was to think these were too sanitized, but when we compared them to our more "traditional" set (which cost us $30 and are about half the size), we realized that the other set, too was without blood. As a matter, of fact, my 10 year old son noticed that one of the pictures in our "traditional" set was reversed and had the wound in Jesus' side - on the wrong side.

I think many families will find this to be a very nice set to hang on their walls during Lent as a very visual reminder (and even a visual catechism in the sense that religious art of old was intended to instruct) of Jesus' death and resurrection.

This is a rather unique resource for Lent. It's a quiz book written at three levels of difficulty with all sorts of questions and answers about the Catholic Church's celebration of Lent and Easter. It primarily focuses on Church liturgy, with a very significant focus on the process of Christian initiation, culminating with the Sacraments of Initiation at the Easter Vigil. These aren't the kind of questions and answers that you would expect your children to memorize in every particular. It's more of an informal format to discuss topics and potential questions relating to Lent and Easter. Here's a sample page focused on Good Friday:

Level 1: As at Mass, what prayer begins the Communion Rite on Good Friday? (a) The Nicene Creed (b) The Our Father (c) The closing prayer Answer (on back): (b) The Our Father Level 2: How can we have Holy Communion without having had a consecration in a Mass of the bread and wine? Answer (on back): Consecrated hosts from the Holy Thursday celebration are reserved for this Communion service. Level 3: This is the only day of the year that Mass is not celebrated. Why, then, does the Church invite us to receive Holy Communion? Answer (on back): The Church's invitation reminds us of the importance of the Eucharist and of our sharing in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ through our reception of His Body and Blood. This reception of Holy Communion provides a tremendous oppoortunity to express our love and gratitude to Jesus for all that He suffered for us during His passion and death.

This seems especially good as a conversation starter for families to use who are preparing to enter the Church, but could certainly be used for families or CCD classes to simply discuss and familiarize themselves with these Church practices.