Keeping It Catholic - Review of Our Lady of the Rosary

Catholic Homeschool Review

Our Lady of the Rosary

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+Our Lady of the Rosary Home School

116 1/2 N. Third Street

Bardstown, KY 40004

Phone: 502-348-1338

Fax: 888-FAX-OLRS

Email: information@olrs.com

Website: http://www.olrs.com

Financial Aid: Available to families who qualify

Special Needs Services: Yes, for both gifted and learning disabled students

Payment Plans Available: Yes, inquire about specific plans.

Our Lady of the Rosary offers curriculum ranging from grades Pre-K - 12. They also have a paper and online catalog from which to purchase materials for families not enrolled with the school.

Our Lady of the Rosary programs come under two types: curriculum and consumable.

The curriculum program includes all texts, teachers' manuals, lesson plans (which are considered leased and must be returned at the end of the school year), workbooks, and exams, as well as complete teacher services, report cards, correction of quarterly exams and creative work submitted, honor roll certificates, and diplomas awarded for completion of kindergarten, eighth grade and high school. As an additional service to those enrolled with their curriculum program, OLRS includes online tutoring available at their website. Their newest online course, Ecclesiastical Latin, is based on the Roman Missal. Enrolled families will also receive an OLRS newsletter.

The consumable program was designed for families with multiple children who will be coming into the same grades. Parents who qualify for this program must have enrolled with the school in the previous year and plan to re-enroll in the following year. For those families who will be re-enrolling in OLRS with successive children, parents may retain the leased books and purchase consumable workbooks at a discount.

OLRS also offers other online services via the net, including: "real-time" homework status including direct access to the assigned teacher; Instant Report Cards, including teacher notations, 24 hour direct access to Teacher/Counselor via email; payment on account, online 6 months Account Review, tracking and review of shipping invoices, an online support group for OLRS families, electronic pen pals for OLRS students, and online standardized testing.

OLRS says, "Our students, fortified in their Faith, have gone on to many of the most prestigious Universities and colleges as well as many fine religious institutions."

Our Lady of the Rosary's curriculum includes (but is not limited to) the following:

Religion: Kindergarten for Catholics, My Jesus and I, the Our Holy Faith Series (religion for grades 1-8), and Our Quest for Happiness (religion series for grades 9-12), Faith and Freedom Readers, and various lives of the saints.

History/Social Studies starts in third grade with Working Together (a Catholic American history/social studies text, supplemented by supporting secular books), followed in successive years with Regions Near and Far (a Catholic geography/history text, also accompanied by secular texts), Our Country (Catholic, American history), Old World Heritage (Catholic), Frontier Nation (Catholic, history), North and South America (secular, geography), and New Frontiers of Freedom (Catholic). Beginning at the ninth grade level, materials include The Advent of Christ, Vol. 2 of Divine Providence and Human Progress Series (Catholic, comb-bound text), Christian Culture and World Civilization One (used as a reference), The Human Achievement (used for a two year World History course in grades 9-10, this Catholic comb-bound text is to be retained by the student for part 2 of the course), and History of a Free People (secular).

Literature includes the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Guy De Maupassant, Rudyard Kipling, Edgar Allan Poe, Carl Sandburg, William Shakespeare, G. K. Chesterton, Willa Cather, Robert Frost, and Charles Dickens, to name a few.

Language Arts at OLRS includes Professor Phonics and Modern Curriculum Press for phonics (grades K-6); Rosary's own Adventures in English (for grades 1 and 2, soft-bound consumable workbooks), Voyages in English (grades 3-8), the 1953 Loyola high school series - Correct Writing, Adult Writing, Effective Writing, and Planned Writing (Catholic comb-bound main text for grades 9-12, written by Jesuit priests in the 1950's), Writing Handbook (a softbound handbook used as a reference book, this text is used throughout the four years of high school and corresponds to the high school English texts), and Adventures in Reading - Cardinal Newman Edition. The school uses their own Catholic materials for penmanship. OLRS does not have a separate spelling text or workbook; spelling words are selected from the student's other materials.

For Math, OLRS offers MCP arithmetic (K-1); ID Digital for arithmetic (secular, grades 1-3), Developmental Math (secular, grade 4), Saxon for higher math and algebra (grades 5-11).

Music - The OLRS program does not include the study of music.

Science includes Scott Foresmen or Modern Curriculum Press science (secular, grades 1-8), Physical Science (secular), Life Science (secular), Catholic Scientists (a supplement which introduces students to Catholic scientists and their contributions in the field of physical and life science), Humanae Vitae and Humani Generis.

Electives available through OLRS are Latin, French, Spanish, Home Economics, Chemistry, Physics, Calculus, Bible Study, Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 Desktop Publishing.