Children’s Garden of the Theotokos

We are supplementing our Oak Meadow curriculum with Children’s Garden of the Theotokos this year.  The reason being, is I wanted my children to learn more about the church.  We are an Orthodox family and while I adore Waldorf teachings, I want my kids focused on their spiritual needs throughout the day as well as their educational needs.  Something that Children’s Garden of the Theotokos does so well is daily rhythms.  They implement their curriculum very similarly to Waldorf so it ties in perfectly.

Each day we start our school day with morning prayers which brings the children around the icon table with a sense of importance and reverence for the day ahead.  We then move on to circle time and do a few poems out of Oak Meadow’s books as well as those provided in the Children’s Garden of the Theotokos.  Then we learn about the Saint celebrated for that day.  (This is an amazing recourse for this.)  Then we read a lesson in the main lesson book and do a craft (usually coloring icon pages from this resource.)   From there we move on to the more in depth schooling using Oak Meadow for my third grader.

Children’s Garden of the Theotokos is geared mostly toward younger kids around ages 4-10 but it’s been easy to make it work for a 3 year old and an 8 year old.  I also think it would be easy to gear it toward older children.

This is the curriculum that keeps our rhythm throughout the day.  The Book of Hours is essential to keeping our daily routine–we use it in the morning before school, at lunch and after school.  This curriculum has been very informative for my 3rd grader but I’ve been amazed at how it has influenced my preschooler.  She is asking questions about God and grasping on to the seasons of the church, the saints and prayers.

I absolutely love how it is tied in with the church year.  We learn about a saint or a feast every day and then the kids know what is going on in church that week!  Very similarly to Waldorf schooling, it brings a sense of excitement and anticipation around each holiday or season that is celebrated in the church year.  It brings the church calendar alive and makes it personal.

I would recommend this program to those that are homeschooling or not.  It is used as a Sunday school program and could easily be used at home to teach the entire family about the church.

4 thoughts on “Children’s Garden of the Theotokos

  1. Pingback: Curriculum Reviews | Emotherhood

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  3. I am so happy to see someone else already doing what i hope to do this fall! If you don’t mind, it’s been a few months since your initial post. Are things still going as well?

    • We got behind during Lent but I still think it is a very good program. We use the circle time rhymes a lot and the lessons are easy to just pick up when we need a change of pace. The kids ask for it! I would still recommend it 🙂

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