Books Worth Reading -- 2010: Mare's War (Win a book!)

If we didn't already have this book, I'd be entering in the next ten seconds. We love Tanita Davis. Fortunately for you, I already own it and so will remain here to blog about how you can get it. For free.

You can win a free copy of Mare's War  just by being one of the first 25 people to leave her a comment and drop her a note. And, if you miss the "first 25" deadline, you'll still have a chance to win through some additional random drawings.

Go to this post at Tanita's blog to get all the contest details.

And the other day she announced the new unit study she put together to accompany the book. I had the fun and privilege of getting a sneak peek at her ideas.

And what timing -- Just as I was thinking, "Anne and Betsy would love to do some of this stuff," Ramona approached me with her latest request. She was remembering some of the World War II books we read aloud a few years back. She doesn't remember them in detail, and wants to hear them again. She has already presented me with Snow Treasure and Twenty and Ten.  So, I know what period in history we're going to revisit. I'll be looking for some other suggestions, too, to add new stuff to my older girls' reading lists. 

Enough about me! Go enter the contest!

And, just for fun, and because I love this 31-second clip, you can go here to hear Tanita talking about her name.

John Paul the Great: The Notebooks

We're finishing these up this week, and I want to pull together a final list of all the resources we used. (Don't forget to check out the surprise resource at the end of this post!)

Resources used:

The Young Life of Pope John Paul II, by Claire Jordan Mohan (the girls read and narrated it)

The Jeweler's Shop , by Pope John Paul II (I read the play, and we included a page in our notebooks about JPII, the playwright)

The Poetry of Pope John Paul II , by Pope John Paul II (I read a couple of selections to the girls, and they did part of one poem as copywork)

From Pflaum Publishing Group:

A wealth of resources! These are all pdf files, so I won't put the links here, but they're easy to get to through Pflaum. We used their biography, Encyclical summaries, Fascinating Facts quiz, Pope's Crest coloring page, Spreading the Word and Teach All Nations pages (geography sheets), another printable quiz as well as the pop-up online quiz, an "FYI" sheet and some of their information about electing a new pope.

The Young Life of Faustina Kowalska by Claire Jordan Mohan (with discussions on John Paul the Great's involvement in spreading the devotion, officially establishing Divine Mercy Sunday and canonizing St. Faustina ... many thanks to the beautiful website, Marians of the Immaculate Conception)

We are praying the Divine Mercy Novena, which began on Good Friday and is prayed through Divine Mercy Sunday

Visited Divine Mercy Images to see a number of different renderings of the Divine Mercy image

Viewed a short video/photo compilation at The Daughters of St. Paul website

Read and clipped articles about Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, who has been healed of Parkinson's disease

Printed out this coloring sheet of the pope (and when I explained the Latin phrase "Totus Tuus" to the girls, Betsy said, "Oh! Totus Cool!")

Printed out pictures of Our Lady of Fatima, of the Holy Father meeting with Sister Lucia, and of Our Lady of Czestochowa, in order to include a page on special devotions of John Paul the Great. We also discussed, in the context of his devotion to Our Lady of Fatima, the 1981 assassination attempt.

We also looked through all the pictures in Witness to Hope, by George Weigel

And, finally, what study on a great pope would be complete without Marvel Comics? (H/T to Mary at Our Domestic Church)


Special thanks to Alice and her notebook ideas, and to Heart and Mind magazine (whose link I cannot seem to access right now) for the wonderful unit study by Cay Gibson, Maureen Wittmann and Nancy Brown.

(Postscript: to include this link -- it's a pdf file -- to the Heart and Mind unit study. Thank you, Ana! For some reason the bookmark I'd saved was not working earlier today. )

Remembering Pope John Paul II

We're taking a break from World War II (other than to discuss what Karol Wojtyla was doing at the time) in order to put together a scrapbook on Pope John Paul II. I have a number of pictures, articles and newspapers that I saved from 2005 (has it been two years already?)

And, for what's turning into a unit study, I'm pulling ideas from a number of other resources:

Alice's "John Paul II Memorial Notebooks" -- details can be found on this thread at 4Real

A wealth of links to ideas on this thread at 4Real ... you must check these out

Photographs in Witness to Hope, by George Weigel

Selections from The Poetry of John Paul II

And, I get to read The Jeweler's Shop (or, more accurately, I really, really hope to make time to read it. You know how that goes, fellow moms ....)

I'll also share with my girls this essay, which I wrote right after our beloved Papa left this earth.

Is this work?

Is this school?

Is this why I love the work of homeschooling?