Church History book for 8th graders

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mommyof4

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Greetings my fellow Catechists!

I am teaching 8th grade religion class this year, and we are focusing on Church History. I was wondering if any of you have recommendations for resources to teach a decent Church History class to 8th graders. I have a very bright group, and I think they are capable of some higher level books if available.
 
I wish I could give you the information you want, but I’m glad you care enough to find the right books for your class. 🙂
 
The Catholic Church through the Ages (by Fr John Vidmar) is a great short history on the Church. It weighs in at 340 pages and I think it may be more on a 10th-12th grade level but if you think they can handle it then I would recommend it. I utilize in teaching church history to adults so again Im not sure if 8th graders could handle it.

Fr John Vidmar is a Dominican Prist and has a doctorate from St Thomas University so its dependable.
 
I did a word search for: Catholic Church History Amazon:

amazon.com/Roman-Catholic-Church-Illustrated-History/dp/0520252519/ref=pd_sim_b_12

A nice thing about Amazon, is the ability to read through the reviews.

I was a public school reference librarian for a year. Public libraries have (or should have) an interlibrary loan program that allows books to be brought in from other libraries for a small fee.

You can’t keep the books for very long, but it would allow you the chance to preview the book and see if it fits your needs.

I’d suggest as well, emailing nationwide, Catholic school administrators and asking which books they are using.

catholichomeschool.org/curriculums.php
 
most textbook series cover church history in the 8th grade text. the one from Loyola press in the Christ our Life series is particularly good
 
puzzleannie said:
most textbook series cover church history in the 8th grade text. the one from Loyola press in the Christ our Life series is particularly good
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Yes, this is the one we already have. I was looking for some materials to supplement this with, too.

Even any good filmstrip recommendations (whoops, I’m showing my age- no more filmstrips), I mean DVDs, videos, etc. would be appreciated.
 
I’ve taught 8th grade Rel. Ed. (which is also prep for Confirmation) for many years. I have found that kids that age are extremely capable of handling adult level material. For all intents and purposes they are in adult bodies at that age, they just have the child-like behavior still popping up a lot. But I find that they are generally trying very hard to act like adults (with a few exceptions) and really want to be thought of and treated that way.

This being said, I would highly recommend that to supplement your material you use The Early Church Fathers by Jurgens. If you’re unfamiliar with it, it is a 3 volumn set, but you can ususally just get one volumn and they start with the earliest letters of the Christians and proceed through time. The back has a Doctrinal Index so if you just want to read to them about what the early church members wrote about certain things you can. (example: When was the word Catholic first used? or What did the early church say about abortions?) This works very well because these kids are going to public schools and often they hear that the term Catholic wasn’t used for centuries instead of by the followers of the apostles! Or they are taught that the early Christians never said anything about birth control or abortions, when in fact it was taught in the earliest of Catholic Christian churches in about 110 ad!) :doh2: They will also hear the letters written by the followers of the apostles and what they were taught on how to follow Christ and what Jesus spoke about (a lot of writing on the Eucharist and the true presence). Plus, they will hear first hand from a martyr on his way to the collosium to be eaten by the lions and read what extreme faith he had while he was writing to the churches asking them not to stop this from happening! I don’t think you could ask for a better witness to the youth of today then the first century Catholic Church!

If you ever wish to do a little apologetics with them (it is good to make sure that you clear up any misunderstandings of the faith before they are Confirmed) I would recommend reading some from the Beginning Apologetics series by (Chircon? I believe) they are a thin easy to read series of about 8 books. Very thorough and easy to understand for every age. They are inexpensive too; only about 5.95 per book. I found them to be like a reader’s digest version of more thorough apologetic books.

Whatever you do remember that at that age they want the meat and potatoes of the faith, but they also want to be skeptical and need to know why we believe it and exactly where we get the views we have as Catholics. They do get challenged by their evangelical friends and they need to be armed :knight2:with some good truths or they are ripe for the picking. :eek:

God Bless, I’ll be praying for you.

Bluemary
 
mommyof4 said:
Yes, this is the one we already have. I was looking for some materials to supplement this with, too.

Even any good filmstrip recommendations (whoops, I’m showing my age- no more filmstrips), I mean DVDs, videos, etc. would be appreciated.
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Ascension press (Great Bible Adventure) has a great series on church history but too expensive for a single family, meant for parishes.

it is old but it was very well done, but because the history of that era was rather grisley you should review before your child sees it, AD is still on video, it was the follow-up mini-series to Jesus of Nazareth

the only other videos I have seen are skewed and would be confusing rather than enlightening. if it comes from the history channel run the other way
 
Redbaron998 said:
The Catholic Church through the Ages (by Fr John Vidmar) is a great short history on the Church. It weighs in at 340 pages and I think it may be more on a 10th-12th grade level but if you think they can handle it then I would recommend it. I utilize in teaching church history to adults so again Im not sure if 8th graders could handle it.

Fr John Vidmar is a Dominican Prist and has a doctorate from St Thomas University so its dependable.
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I found Fr. Vidmar’s church history to be a great resource for my personal learning, use in the 8th grade may require a lot of summarization on the part of the instructor.

I have also gone through the EPIC program by Steve Weidenkopf and Allen Schreck; although Allen Schreck does not present. It was pretty good and comes in DVD or CD (audio only) formats. Student guides and an instructor’s guide are available. It is priced on the high side, I feel you would have to use it multiple years or with different classes to get cost per student to be reasonable.
 
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