Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Treasure of My Catholic Faith



The Treasure of My Catholic Faith is a consumable workbook available for Grades 1 through 6. The 4th grade book focuses on the life of Jesus with chapters on His birth, infancy, teachings, miracles, friends (ie: Martha, Mary, Zaccheus), the Last Supper, His Passion and Resurrection. Each chapter has four lessons ranging in length from six to ten pages. The workbook is done in full color with hand drawn illustrations and photographs - both are appealing to the intended audience.

Each lesson begins with a "Remember" (what the student already knows) and a "Now you're going to find out" (the objective of that lesson) followed by a Gospel reading. I was unable to find a reference to the translation used for the Gospel readings but they don't sound like a children's version (which is a positive in my opinion especially at the 4th grade level).
There are then numerous activities related to the lesson - fill in the blanks, questions that require complete sentences for answers, multiple choice answers, word searches, etc. I found the majority of them to be meaningful and not just activities to take up class time. For instance, one fill in the blank activity was completing the Magnificat - a prayer that is not commonly taught while another was underlining the correct meaning of Scripture passages such as "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord."
Each lesson concludes with a summary of "Don't forget" and "Knowing my faith" which reiterates key points of the lesson. It then ends with suggestions to the student for "Living my faith" or asks them how they can live out their faith.

I can't see this series being used in a weekly Religious Education program as there is far more here than can be covered in an hour long class. I think it would work better in a Catholic school or homeschool setting. I wish I could have reviewed the Teacher's Edition at the same time to see what else is available to further enhance this program. My son is enjoying this book and I'm finding it's solid Catholicism and easy to correct even without the TE.

You can purchase this book here.

I wrote this review of The Treasure of My Catholic Faith - Book 4 for the Tiber River Blogger Review program, created by Aquinas and More Catholic Goods. For more information and to purchase, please visit Aquinas and More Catholic Goods.

Tiber River is the first Catholic book review site, started in 2000 to help you make informed decisions about Catholic book purchases.

I receive free product samples as compensation for writing reviews for Tiber River.

4 comments:

Conny said...

RENEE - forgive me as my comment has nothing to do with your post - however, I wanted to contact you somehow! I am a fellow member of Mama Bzz ... and I am trying to browse other member's blogs as time goes by - and today I hit yours. AND your url sounded familiar (reneesuz) ... and I began to read some of your entries & your last name sounded familiar - and I remember why: you were the moderator of our AOL Military Wives (or Office Wives) group way back in 1999 or so!!! Do you remember? I'm still in touch w/ some of those women via email. ANyway, just wanted to say HI!! and ask if you remembered me (Conny, had a baby boy - and then a baby girl in 2000). Come visit my blog sometime & see what's new with us (like another BABY!). www.thehutchhaus.blogspot.com
The internet is a "small world"!

Renee said...

It is a small world. That was back in 99 or 2000, right before we left the States for our first tour in
Germany.... back when that was the way to get FREE internet through AOL. Ahhhhh... I miss those free days.
I do remember you... will be stopping by your blog

Conny said...

I saw you subscribed to my blog! Glad to be back in touch. I remember you all went on to Heidelberg ... we'd just come back to the States from Wuerzburg in early '99 - so that was definitely the time frame.

Renee said...

We were in Heidelberg 2000-2002, then Seoul for 2 yrs, then FLorida for 2 yrs,then Garmisch for 2 yrs....we've been in Alabama since 2008