My Lesson Packs and a curriculum list websites.

I am announcing the launch of my lesson pack shop. There are plenty of freebies that many of you may have seen before on That Resource Site. Please have a look if there’s stuff you missed last time or something you’d like to recommend on.

I am also going to sell some lesson packs. Some will be study packs associated with books we use on our curriculum. Click on the picture above to go and peruse. Please do pass on the link

 to anyone you think might be interested.

My Amazon shop continues as usual. Please feel free to give into any temptation to buy stuff from it.

Click on the picture to visit it.

Finally I have set up a blog called LEADING THEM OUT in which I am building an eclectic curriculum based on what we use or want to use. It is not prescriptive, as that is hardly home eddish is it? But I hope it will be useful.  If you have ideas for the curricula just add them in the comments box on the appropriate page and they’ll be there.

I do like looking over other curricula for ideas and so I hope this site with offer ideas in the same way. I am hoping to provide links to good free and downloadable resources to bypass postage and import tax.

I don’t know how well this will all go but I hope I can off set some costs while offering some good value to other families at the same time.

The signature at the foot of posts in the future will always link to the shop. So you can easily access it. So wish me luck and pass it on. Say a prayer and wish me luck.

Easter reading lesson packs reminder

Just a quickie to remind y’all I have a load of freebies to cover Easter.

The VIA DOLOROSA takes you through to the end of the Passion. Then there’s THE SEVEN LAST WORDS. To cover the Resurrection through to Pentecost there is the VIA GUADE and my most recent pack ST. PETER WITNESS TO THE RESURRECTION.

Please keep the work of Kalei and those of us who contribute in your prayers.

Home Education: Lent reading and soul scrubbing; and a Freebie

Lent is under way and we are plunging into the Lent term.

They will be listening to Glory Stories, which they love. I want Ronan to have a good saint book to read beside his Tom’s Midnight Garden. I think I’m going to get him to read Saint Ignatius and the Company of Jesus.

Avila will be reading some of the St Joseph books – we have a pile of them. (Some are better written than others)

There are also good LENTERN RESOURCES at That Resource Site. You might also like my new resource for the older ones and maybe even for you. THE SEVEN LAST WORDS. I am afraid it was a bit of a struggle to write, so please forgive me if there are bits in it that are a bit – how shall I put this? – fibro foggy. Perhaps you can offer up any irritation it gives you 🙂

Heleyna is still working through My First Bible Stories and she too will have some St Joseph Picture book stories and perhaps Amy Steedman stories such as In God’s Garden.

MY LENT READING

I am reading A Song For Nagasaki by Paul Glynn. It is the story of Dr Takashi Nagai, his journey from Shinto, through atheism to the Catholic faith, via Pascal and the beauty of Japanese poetry. But it is also the story of a man who risked so much and suffered so much to help the victims of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki at the end of the Second World War.

You can get a good overview of the amazing life of Dr Nagai from Fr. Serephim HERE and HERE.

Home education websites I have found recently.

Just come across Literactive which has some good stuff for pre-school to grade 1. I only found it today so I haven’t fully explored it, but so far it looked good.

We have also been using this free Montessori reading website now and then.

I have also just found Sylvan Dell Publishing which also looks pretty good. There’s a charge for full usage of around $49 a year with discounts for extra years and so on. Those in homeschool co-ops look like they can get discounts too. (Co-ops don’t seem to exist much here in the UK).

there are some nice little colouring and activity sheets at CRAYOLA

Learn some of the basics of British Sign Language here

This free science curriculum isn’t perfect but it has some good stuff and it’s free.

My Amazon store and Baldwin Project deal

I have made an Amazon store, which I suppose is anything but distributist of me, but then I suppose you could say it’s a bit like a corner store in cyber space.

Go and have a look at LIVING BOOKS, NO TWADDLE (Hopefully) To be honest I am not expecting to make much money from this, but as I am setting it out as a sort o curriculum I hope some one will find it useful. I’m still updating it so keep an eye on it.

I am presently setting up a separate blog with curriculum details that will include freebies and other stuff. It’s not ready to launch, and as things are busy right now, probably wont be for a while – but I’ll let you know when it’s done.

Meanwhile, if you want to spend your hard earned cash usefully, there is this lovely offer at the Baldwin Project where you get 200+ ebooks for under $100.

Enjoy.

Science Freebies and the chance for $50. Looks like a good deal to me.

It is often said that great minds think alike – and fools seldom differ, but there’s something telepathic about how Kalei and I have both been busy making science freebies this week!

Kalei offers this excellent resource to help children remember facts about many famous scientists.

Then I added to my History of Science worksets with one on Monsignor Georges-Henri Lemaitre who discovered what was named “The Big Bang” theory.

If that’s not enough Kalei has very generously put forward the chance to win a $50 Amazon.com voucher to spend on those extra bits for the busy homeschool. God and join the competition and see what happens 🙂

Frugal Friday freebies

I’ve been working on some freebies to offer you.

If you want to get the New Year under way with some planning get yourself a folder and here’s a set of planning sheets for January, I’ve made a prayer and Bible study add on There’s more months on the way and some other stuff too.

If anyone wants something specific as an add on just let me know.

That Resource Team family have kindly given me a page on their site for my worksheets and other stuff. So you can find it all easily

Frugal Friday: freebies.

I’m going to try and do some Frugal Friday posts- whether freebies or cheapies or some ideas for keeping the debt collectors at bay.

Today’s are Freebies. THIS WEBSITE offers quite a few free downloads and games for children learning Greek, Latin and Spanish using the books from Classical Acedemic Press. We haven’t any of their books yet, but I hope we can get some soon. Even so the free colouring books for Greek and Latin vocab are useful and I think fit in reasonably well with Linney’s Latin and his free MP3s and KidsGreek which is also free.

While we are on the subject of languages I recomment free British Sign Language Stories, which is just a lovely site.

Just as interest I noticed that Latin is to be part of the Baccalaureate . It must have mentioned in the White Paper. Latin and Greek are both classical languages that open up a whole world of linguistic understanding and history. Also it’s just fun for the children.

Home Education Freebies.

Check out That Reource blog on a regular basis.  I’ve done some litte Greek and Latin sheets to go with Linney’s Latin and KidsGreek. (NB. KidsGreek needs to be opened in Firefox and you’ll need to download the Greek lexicon to read the lessons properly. It’s all free).

You can download a pdf LATIN HERE and the GREEK HERE

Resources for your delectation.

I am listening to the lectures from the Institute of Catholic Culture. They aren’t too acedemic, which is good. There’s plenty of good history to be had which I am sure many of you can use with your children. In fact these lectures are straight forward enough for teens I would think.

There’s a great Science Narration set from That Resource Site

My history timeline set is there too.

I like this Headventure Land site too for Classical stuff. I found this via Classical Acedemic Press. I haven’t bought anything from them yet but I emailed asking about downloadable pdf books and they replied straight away, which I think it pretty impressive. They are working on downloadable books so keep an eye on them.

Also you can get your fables in Latin for learning and translation. We don’t use this yet as the children are nowhere near that level, but it does look very good.

free resource

There are a whole stack for freebies HERE including a lot of Montessori material.

Around the net for home education

Here are some of the websites we have been using this term.

We are back to Starfall for the girls and using their little songs as reminders of basic rules, such as “the silent e at the end of the word, makes the short sound. long.” It’s been a help with Yummy Spelling and other spelling times.

I’ve just started using Progessive Phonics with the girls. I am pretty impressed so far especially as, like Starfall, the whole thing is free.

We are working our way through Kids Greek and with the Getting Started With Latin Book we have the online pronounciation for Linney’s Latin.

We’ve just started using the Classic Science course of Mr Q which suits both Roni and Avila really well so far. The first book of units is all free so you can get a very good sense of whether this will suit your children. We like it so far and I am tempted, once we can afford it, to buy the next unit downloads.

We have watched a few Youtube videos such as skipcounting, lunar eclipse etc. Youtube can be quite useful as back-up info for all sorts of things.

For stories there’a Baldwin Classics which are pretty good on the whole, but need reading ahead sometimes, unless you know the author. Just becuase these are old books doesn’t automatically mean they are good. Remember Miss Mason was writing about avoiding twaddle back in the 1900’s soit did exist even then. Twaddle is not a post 1960 invention. Old twaddle just had better grammar.

Update I’ve removed Sparklebox from this post and my sidebar. A friend gave me a heads up about the site owner that is very concerning. I am very surprised that Probation Services have allowed this in the circumstances. Obviously this man needs to make a living while out of prison, but something completely removed from his crime would have been more sensible.

Now look here…

Dear reader, please do take a look at the advice for general betterment that dearest Gwen has on offer. HERE and HERE and how to roast a spud. If you like what you read, and feel generally bettermented because of it, do leave her a little comment. [Perhaps it is true that I spent far too much time teaching my older HEd children Oscar Wilde and Jane Austen.  🙂 ]

Check out my September worksheets and the lovely page the Resource Team have made me on their site.  Their blog updates frequently with new stuff, and then everything is neatly findable HERE

Caveat; Please be aware that everything offered on That Resource Site and their blog is free and made by one family with a few additions from me. This is not a business enterprise but merely a way of offering other families freebies that may be useful. Sometimes there may be typos or design flaws; please don’t mind these.

That Resource Site- updates

Check out That Resource Site for more freebies.

There is also a page for the worksheets I send which is very kind of them. I am honoured to have been made an honorary team member.

There are more updates to come I believe so keep an eye out.

There is always new stuff coming up on their blog too.

Science freebies.

Loads of science freebies.

I confess to watching CSI. Well it’s quite interesting really. Anyway after hearing the tale of medieval men bringing their shovels to the town square so that a murderer might be discovered,  I just had to find out the details. Hence the set on forensics. Go on, you  and yours want to know the real story; and there’s the life cycle of a blow fly to help it along 🙂

My resources are up

That Resource Blog have put up my “A Little Bit of Greek” sheets. Check it out and have a look at the other stuff they offer.

I hope I can offer a few things to them as we have done well as a family out of the free resources so many people are prepared to offer.

Their main website is HERE

Some Links of interest

I have just discovered SPARKLEBOX a website with loads of good worksheets, downloads and other stuff for KS1 and they have another site for KS2. A lot of the stuff is free and the the stuff you pay for is reasonably priced. I’ll stick in the sidebar in the WORKSHEET area.

I particularly liked the handwriting practice sheets with a grass, sky, ground motif to help children remember how letter shapes work. There’s some good Bible story sheets to print off so children can learn sequencing and tell the stories.

I have also added a link for Robert Louis Stevensons’s A Child’s Garden of Verses. I am going to work on a couple of them with Ronan so he can aim for the target on the CM achievement scale for a six year old.

You might also be interested in Donna Young’s pages for cursive handwriting and other stuff.

Then for Catholic stuff you might like CATHOLIC KIDS.

Finally; I promised to but up the links for the Eucharist MP3s I’ve been listening to. Take a good look at ST. MICHAEL’S MEDIA. The programmes are by Michael Voris-a straight talker who is very clear and doesn’t sugar coat anything. If you don’t want to hear some very difficult stuff don’t go there-but if you really want the unvarnished Truth; he’s the man.

Okay…more later.

 

Holy Week: Homeschool plans

 This is Holy Week. I have decided that we will suspend a lot of the normal homeschool activities and concentrate on the theme of the week.

Ronan is 5; Yr 0 (CM) or Reception (UK)- We have begun a time line that we will put along the wall of the dining room. I am using traditional art as much as I can for this. It will introduce him to some good paintings and their artists.

This is Christ’s entry into Jerusalem by Giotto, a fresco dating to around 1306. This will go up on the Palm Sunday part of the timeline. Ronan will get to look at the picture and we will see that Christ is riding a donkey (ass) as the prophecy said the Messiah would (Zec 9:9). He will see the palms and the people gathering them and laying their cloaks down and which part of the Mass this is. (Hosanna…)

Jesus and Peter are dressed in red-a symbol of royalty. Jesus is king and Peter has been made Steward-prince and given the keys of the Kingdom. Red is also the liturgical colour of martyrdom and is used on Palm/Passion Sunday as the whole Gospel of the Passion is read on that day.

Jesus enters Jerusalem through the Kings Gate on the kings ass-a sign that he is a king who comes in peace. (In war a king rode a horse).

HOLY MONDAY

I don’t know who painted this, but it is rather lovely. The alabaster jar is there which will be saved until the day of Jesus’ death and burial.

Ronan will be told that it was polite to offer a bowl of water and a towel to wash the feet.

This had not happened and then this woman, traditionally believed to be St Mary of Magdala came and washed his feet with her tears and anointed his feet with very expensive oil. She was so happy Jesus had forgiven her many sins and she loved Him very much. Judas was angry.

Candlemass

The Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord at the Temple and the Purification of the Blessed Mother.

Strictly speaking you know, this is the end of Christmas, rather than Epiphany-don’t you think?

Jesus was born and then on the 8th day he was circumcised into the Covenant and then on the 40th day his parents took him to the Temple to make the sacrifices as per the Law (Lev 12). She and Jospeh were poor and made the offering of the pair of doves. Apparently the Temple had baths that the women would enter by walking down a flight of steps and here Mary would have received her cleansing.

There is some discussion among the rabbi’s and Hebrew Catholics about the reason for 40 days of impurity after a boy was born and 80 days after a girl. It has been suggested that the extra days of tuma after a girl was born was a way of protecting the new mother from a husband overly eager to try for a son. I have to say, that is not an explanation I think holds water. Mothers ecologically breastfed their babies back then; so it is highly unlikely there was much fear of such quick succession pregnancies.

Another view is that childbirth is a symbol (sacramental if you like) of life and in tuma a mother has time to bring on her milk and bond with her child. A boy will enter the community earlier than a girl. A girl needs longer bonding because she will learn from her mother as her brothers would learn from their father. Also it is double tuma for a girl because a girl herself is a symbol of life, having the hope of future motherhood.

I like that explanation; but if you find a better one- take it-and let me know!

Meanwhile Mary and Joseph were bringing Jesus to the Temple and there offer their first born son as per Exodos 13.2 In the Temple were Simeon an old man who had spent his life awaiting the fulfilment of the prophecy of the coming Messiah who would be the “consolation of Israel”.  It is thought that Simeon may have been the son of the great Rabbi Hillel, but that is not really known for sure.

There was also Anna the daughter of Phanuel (a name meaning ‘have seen the face of God) an old woman of the tribe of Ashur. Now Scott Hahn points out how significant the little bit of info about her tribe is. The people who are waiting for a Messiah are awaiting the new David who will save ALL ISRAEL, not just the Jews. After the exile only the tribes of Judah and Benjamin got to return; hence the land was called Judea and not Israel. The other ten tribes were still of the Diaspora. Luke is probably writing to the hellenist Jews of the diaspora saying; look here- a sign that Jesus did indeed come for all Israel as my mate Paul has been telling you.

Simeon takes the baby Jesus into his arms and knows Him. Then he says that beautiful prayer that is so much part of the Nighly office:

“Nunc dimittis servum tuum Domine secundum verbum tuum in pace

quia viderunt oculi mei salutare tuum quod parasti ante faciem omnium populorum

lumen ad revelationem gentium et glorium plebis tuae Isreal” (Luke 2:28-32)

At Mass tonight and tomorrow they will bless the new candles.

Big Tam, Angelic doctor-Dumb Ox

It’s the feast day of St Thomas Aquinas today; affectionately known as ‘Big Tam’ he was a man of genius intelligence and great holiness. I was told by a Dominican priest that the saint spent hours before the Tabernacle and would beg God to help him in his writing as he strove to find answers to questions raised about the Faith. It was Aquinas who lead the way in the philosophical understanding of faith and reason.

He loved Our Lord in the Eucharist very much and it was St Thomas who gave us the word ‘transubstantiation’ to explain the Presence that had been taught from the time of the apostles, through the Church Fathers and so on. When the new feast of Corpus Christie was added to the Calender in1264 it was St Thomas who wrote the liturgy for it.

He wrote a great deal-the most famous being the Summa Theologica which I was told was actually written for High School aged children; 14-17yrs old!  I love the Summa, but it could hardly be considered easy reading. It is very clearly set out though.

He was seen speaking with Christ in the crucifix in Church once, where Christ praised him for his writing and asked what he would like in return. “Only You Lord” Thomas replied.

There is a good children’s resource on St Thomas HERE at Domestic Church. As it says there just before he died St Thomas received a vision of heaven. Seeing the fullness of Truth there he said “All I have written is as straw” for no one can fully capture the reality of heaven and the wholeness of God.  Sadly I have seen these words misused by those who wish to attack the Catholic Faith. There is an irony there-the closer this simple Dominican got to God-and he got very close-the more he realised he didn’t know or understand; and yet his critics believe they know so much more than him and can twist his words to mean something they never did.

As a quiet youngster many people had assumed that Thomas was stupid and he had been taunted with the name ‘Dumb Ox’ but his professor in Paris  Albert the Great said of him “This dumb ox will fill the earth with his bellowing.”

At some point I would like to read THE DUMB OX by G.K.Chesterton  and of course I recommend you read it too, but if you happen to be a homeschooling mum with more than enough stuff you are supposed to be reading already, HERE’s a much shorter essay by the wonder Mr. Chesterton. I love the fact that Our Lady appeared to the good saint and reassured him that he would never become a bishop. LOL!

St Thomas Aquinas is our homeschool patron and therefore one of the family saints in our Litany.

Further reading: for those with older children I recommend Peter Kreeft’s Summa of the Summa

In Divine Office today the terce reading for his feast was:

“Brethren, be joyful. Try to grow perfect; help one another. Be united; live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.” (2 Cor 13:11)

Science resources

I’ve added Cosmos4kids into the science section on my side bar. It’s one of a group of resources covering chemistry, biology, physics, earth sciences and now even maths. Scroll down to the bottom and you can click on any of these areas. I used chem4kids quite a bit with Iona when we first started science.

Christmas Song Book

I’ve just added The Chistmas Song Book to my resources list. It gives the words and the music to many of the great Christmas carols including O Come All Ye Faithful which I’ve been after.

Thanks to Victoria at Solidarity for this link.

It goes well with THIS LIST of carols with their words from Ambuleside Online which includes Stille Nact and Veni Veni Emmanuel-the English and music of which are available at the Christmas Song Book site.

Here are the words to Adeste Fideles which are missing from both sites.

Adeste, fideles, laeti triumphantes;
Venite, venite in Bethlehem.
Natum videte Regem angelorum.

Refrain

Venite adoremus, venite adoremus,
Venite adoremus, Dominum.

Deum de Deo, lumen de lumine,
Parturit virgo mater,
Deum verum, genitum, non factum.

Refrain

En grege relicto, humiles ad cunas
Vocati pastores approperant:
Et nos ovanti gradu festinemus.

Refrain

Stella duce, Magi Christum adorantes,
Aurum, thus, et myrrham dant munera.
Jesu infanti corda praebeamus.

Refrain

Aeterni Parrentis splendorem aeternum
Velatum sub carne videbimus,
Deum infantem, pannis involutem.

Refrain

Pro nobis egenum et foeno cubantem
Piis foveamus amplexibus;
Sic nos amantem quis non redamaret?

Refrain

Maths for Kindegarten

Ronan is 4 so he is Reception Yr in the UK, Yr 0 for AmbulsideOnline and just pre-kindagarten in USA.

I have found this RAINFOREST MATHS site which he has taken to really well. It has plenty of things to do and covers all the areas he needs; numbers, shapes, addition, subtraction, measurement, volume and so on.

We have finished term today-although Iona has some outstanding bits to finish off.

I am hoping to get some curriculum planning done this afternoon and put up on the blog as I go.

Our Lady of Guadalupe

This is not the feast day that most UK Catholic families take much note of, but as she is patron of the unborn she is very important to those of us who have lost babies, and struggled through difficult pregnancies.

I have THIS book which is lovely, but Ronan used to be scared of because he didn’t like pop-up books. (It may be something to do with being blind in one eye and how that effects 3D vision) I recommend it though.

As it has been a very busy day I have not done any work with the children on this subject. The older ones know what happened in Mexico in 1531 and the massive number of converts that resulted. I will do this with the younger ones as they get older.

For those of you more on the ball this year I can only suggest a Mexican food night. Who doesn’t love tortillas? I could also suggest the traditional fold out tilma in which the children make a card that opens out and little paper roses fall out (held with cotton or string) revealing the image.

As it is Advent and coming up to Christmas you could make Poinsettias or just find out about how they grow in Mexico.

The older children are fascinated by the in depth meaning of the image and the science that has been used to look at it. As we have been looking at icon art and the level of meanings in so many of the grand master’s religious works this goes well alongside that.

Resources:.

Anne from Under Her Starry Mantle has THIS wonderful overview of the mantle and it’s stars.

Beautiful illustrations and simple story HERE.

Catholic Culture– and I love the painting they use on this page.

THIS is a useful overview of the image and the meanings of all the symbols

The science bit

The Spanish Armada and Lepanto resources

Here is the resource page for Iona’s work on the Spanish Armada.

We used Anne Carroll’s book ‘Christ the King, Lord of History’ published by TAN. You can get it from good Catholic bookstores and Amazon. It’s a useful overview of history but not a good book for in depth work. She makes some mistakes and the book, being one small volume misses out huge chunks of history that children need to learn. I found it a useful, easy to read book to dip into.

Alongside this we read Hugh Benson’s story ‘Come Rack, Come Rope’ which is a great tale of trying to stay Catholic in England under the horror of the Elizabethan persecution. He covers the many martyrdoms including St Edmund Campion and the murder of Mary Queen of Scots-which of course was one of the reasons King Philip II sent the Armada.

We discovered some facts which Iona has included in her work;

Santa Cruz who died before the Armada was deployed had been a hero of the Battle of Lepanto. This is an imortant historical event – links to resources are included below.

We also learned that Queen Elizabeth I was supposed to be eating goose on Michaelmas when she received the news of the demise of the Armada. It seems somewhat far fetched to think it took from July to Michaelmas (Oct) to get the news to the Queen-but it is a legend that has strangely persisted.

King Philip II of Spain accepted the storm that crushed his great Armada as God’s will-although God could not be blamed for Philip’s slowness to act nor his poor choice of Admiral when Santa Cruz died. Neither could God be blamed for the cunning and dishonesty of the pirate Francis Drake.

Sadly for England she never recovered the beauty of the Faith and many many people suffered and died because of the anti-Catholic laws.

http://www.ewtn.com/vondemand/audio/dload1.asp?rafile=dof08.ra&source=frmselectseries.asp&seriesID=&T1=England

link to audio about St Edmund Champion. You will need RealAudio to listen to it unless you have Switch or other form of audio conversion software.

  

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01727c.htm

on the Armada.

http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=synge&book=awakening&story=armada&PHPSESSID=7e8bd0088285c0edfebaddadb5586bd2

a link from a Baldwin project book.

http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=morris&book=spanish&story=armada

This too is a Baldwin book chapter

The Baldwin project books are old but that does not mean they are good historical accounts. Treat them with care as there is a lot of anti-Catholic polemic and inaccurate assertions in some of these books. Perhaps they are better as the obvious bias and historical revisionism can hardly be missed-but tread carefully.

http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=church&book=stories2&story=armada

This is a short overview and less polemical than others. Church actually seems to know his history well and is a bit fairer in his analysis

     

http://marymagdalen.blogspot.com/2007/11/philip-ii.html

Fr Ray’s short post on King Philip II

This article appeared on a Catholic blog in response to the grossly anti-Catholic and an-historical film about Elizabeth. 

   The rewriting of history from an “English” perspective is creaking again under the weight of criticism which has come in response to the film “Elizabeth; the Golden Age”. I haven’t seen the film, but I have seen so much stuff in the media about it. This is the first time that I have witnessed the Elizabethan Settlement getting a public thrabbering. In Britain we are brought up to understand that the Elizabethan Settlement (a new political order in England in which the Monarch created her own church and in which law could be created independently of truth) was the main righteous player in creating a fairer world at the beginning of the modern age. In order to go with this theory you have to trash the spiritual past of England, claim that the trashing and attempted trashing of so many other States by the English was righteously undertaken (Ireland, Scotland, Netherlands and Spain) and that so much that has taken place since because of this is good. The thing is – we haven’t yet recovered from the violence which our State used in the sixteenth century in order to separate ourselves from the great movement of grace. The ‘creakiness’ of this new film, in its obvious deformation of history and historical characters, seems to be a sign of this. Sukdev Sandu concludes his review in the ‘Telegraph’ saying “The pity of this botched follow-up is that it never once touches us.” The real history of the English will be written one day when we have a clear conscience to do it.Incidentally, the political intentions of Spain towards England which prompted the Armada, were contained in a letter from Philip II to the Duke of Parma, which he was to open when he landed in England. The letter spelled out three directives for the Spanish invading army: 1. That in England the free use and exercise of our holy Catholic faith shall be permitted to all Catholics, native and foreign, and that the exiles shall return.2. That all places in my Netherlands which the English hold shall be restored to me.3. That the English shall recompense me for the injury they have done to me, my dominions, and my subjects; which will amount to an exceedingly great sum. (This third point may be dropped; you may use it as a lever to obtain the other two.)It’s very unclear how things would have turned out had the Armada been successful.

h/t to Friends with Christ www.friendswithchrist.blogspot.com

  

http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/lepanto.html

G K Chesterton Lepanto

http://marymagdalen.blogspot.com/2006/10/rosary-and-lepanto.html

Fr Ray’s post on Lepanto

 

The Armada is recommended on Ambulside Online for Yr 8 (13-14yr olds)