I suspect if someone had explained this to me when I was in 5th grade taking recorder to qualify for band I might not have flunked out! I never mastered how to blow that thing so it sounded even decent and the band director decided I hadn’t practiced. I blew and blew on that thing but I sure didn’t improve! Anyway, anyone wanting to learn an instrument should explore Youtube as a resource. Lots of fun stuff on there for learning an instrument. Here is one for the autoharp I love so much: This is from an instructional video available … Continue reading
Category Archives: Home Education
Someone asked if we celebrated Halloween and how: A WOMAN’S PLACE… This caused me to think about all the things I love about what the secular world calls Halloween and that we Catholics sometimes call All Hallows Eve. WHERE I AM COMING FROM Well, lets see… I’m a strongly orthodox Catholic and have a masters in theological studies from a nice orthodox school of theology whose professors were all approved by a rather strongly orthodox Bishop; I’ve studied ESCHATOLOGY which is a fancy way of saying I studied the stuff the Church teaches about death and what comes after and … Continue reading
Here is a really useful web page of advice for the beginning home school person: At home with the Gabois Family. I dislike music on a blog page because it slows down the loading speed and clashes with the music so often on in our home. Turning off the speakers on the computer solved that problem. She uses the same sort of mix of educational materials I use and a few that I plan to go look up since I suspect I will love those too. The great books approach is always sound, solid and worthy. There are books missing … Continue reading
Here are some do’s and don’ts for the new Home School Family on the topic of scheduling. DON’T be tied to the public school schedule in any way not required by law. As long as you cover the material needed you can do it according to a schedule set by YOUR family! DO decide as a family how you want to divvy up the days off from school. For example: you can take off special religious days even if the public schools ignore them. DO be creative in your decisions on how to schedule. For example: You can plan for … Continue reading
It was inevitable that my vocation would include home education but I did not begin there. It all began back in college. You see, I graduated and my first job was at a small private school. My task was to teach arts and crafts and to plan field trips. I loved the work and decided to go back to school and add a teaching degree to my BA. THAT was a major turning point for me. I enjoyed the classes. I was NOT impressed with my fellow students. This was my first time to doubt the quality of education given … Continue reading
Home School should be understood to be parent and child directed without interference from any outside authority. What Is Home School? The above article does a good job laying out the issues of the new ways the government run schools have been finding to make inroads in the direction of controlling the definition. Why? Because they seek to redefine home school enough to force it under the control of the government educational system, the same system most of us have fled because it is too broken to fix, too expensive and totally insensitive to the actual needs of our children! … Continue reading
If you feel that you should home school, and you want to home school, and you are willing to put in the time to home school, then you are a good candidate for home schooling your own children. For some of us, the call to home school is part of our personal vocations. I found it to be a particularly wonderful aspect of my own vocation. HOME SCHOOL IS WORK BUT NOT ROCKET SCIENCE! It is not rocket science! You teach your children to hold a fork and spoon correctly; you potty train them; you teach them to speak correctly; … Continue reading
We are delighted to announce that our blog has been accepted as an affiliate of Ignatius Press and when you go to their web site by way of one of the Ignatius icons on this blog and make a purchase you help to support this blog. Ignatius carries MANY excellent books. Following are a few examples: Didache series: If you look under Catechesis: Didache you will find an excellent series of exceptionally well done texts for teenage catechesis. I recommend these books because I’ve purchased them and found them colorful and filled with orthodoxy and plenty of it. Not light … Continue reading
Home Educators seek to teach the Faith to their children and do a superior job when free to choose their own materials and do the job given to them by God as part of their vocation. The superiority of home school is well documented (try links from the HSLDA site to read them for yourself). This carries over into teaching the Catholic Faith to our children. Home School children learn the faith very well but somehow this fact is missed by some of our Bishops. “Bishop Vasquez believes Catholic education, and in particular Catholic school education, is an essential part … Continue reading
I am a traditional home school mom with leanings toward unschooling and a highly independent streak. My reasons for home schooling are based on academic, educational philosophy, and religious foundations. I highly value the autonomy that is the hallmark of home schooling and when that autonomy is sacrificed then what you have is no longer home school. I chose home school to get AWAY from a teacher trained for government schools telling me when and what to teach my kids. I wanted autonomy and primacy in educational decisions. Day before yesterday, I read an article about the permutations of home … Continue reading