The month of September is dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows. It might seem a strange dedication for a month that contains both Our Lady’s birthday and the feast of her Holy Name. It is so easy to spend time contemplating the joy of Our Lady at the Nativity. But contemplating her sufferings? That is…
Labor Day honors the American worker and his effort to build the beautiful country that we enjoy now. I have gone through my library and selected a dozen or so picture books that are a beautiful testimony to the American worker. I tried to include a little bit of everything, from anonymous workers to better…
In honor of the approaching 250th anniversary of the foundation of our country I am highlighting picture books relevant to our national identity and history. National Parks are a tremendous part of our identity. People around the world can recognize Old Faithful, El Capitan and many of our other landmarks. In truth, it was part…
This year with my preschooler we will be using the Catholic Children’s Treasure Box magazines for a gentle catechesis. I love using the Catholic Children Treasure Box books with my pre-schoolers and kindergartners. These books are, like many older books, beautifully illustrated and written in graceful language. True living books. They are gentle but to…
This new home education year has a lot of novelty for us, which is exciting as it is also my 19th year of homeschooling!! The biggest change is that I will not always be home and that my schedule is somewhat all over the place. Therefore I have had to streamline as well as reinforce…
“Chose promise, chose due”. Or: a promise is a promise. Our first week of home education is under our belt, the plans have been tweaked, and we are on our way. This year is very different for us than our previous years. First, I only have three students, gasp! That has not happened in about…
I recently had a conversation with a friend that has made me think a lot over the last couple of weeks. My friend was one of the participants on a discussion panel at our local homeschool conference. She was to talk about homeschooling the elementary school age, I believe. She was addressing how each of…
The month of August is dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Just as we prepare to resume our flurries of activities, the Church invites us to pause and recenter our lives close to the heart of our Mother Mary. The heart of a mother is a refuge to all of her children. A mother…
Guess what? I ended up having a whole evening with no one in the house! It never, ever happens. And it was wonderful! I was able to make quite a bit of progress in my school planning and now, let’s look at the more detailed process together. (This is Part II of a series, find…
I have a secret… The two real, honest to goodness reasons I homeschool is so that I can collect books and so that I can plan all kinds of fun learning experiences for my children. So at the end of the day it’s all pretty selfish, lol! But it is my favorite time of the…
