St. Francis of Assisi in History, Current Events, Literature, Writing, Art & Music
Dear friends, You know by now how I love to integrate English with history! The 5th-6th graders in our home school co-op are using the Mystery of History Volume 2 text (by Linda Hobar) on the time period of the early church up through the Middle Ages for their history class. One of the lessons this past week was about St. Francis of Assisi. I decided to shape my literature and writing assignments around that. In class on Monday, I read the picture book Saint Francis of Assissi: A Life of Joy by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. There are many pictures books about St. Francis, but this is my favorite, and the author (son of Bobby Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy) has had a keen personal connection with his subject since childhood. Charlotte Mason would say that's the best kind of author to read! Our main literature resource this year is The Book of Virtues edited by Dr. William Bennett, so I assigned "The Sermon to the Birds." Francis is...