Catholic Homeschoolers

I'm loving it!

Well, last week when my two other kids started school, we officially began homeschooling and I can honestly say it's been great. Yes, ups and downs, but great overall. I love the fact that we can move at our own relaxed pace. I love that we can change the way we are doing something if it doesn't work. I love being able to bring out his strengths in a way that give him confidence in his abilities. I could go on and on . . . But I'll just say again - I love it! :-)

Starting the year

Here's how Rachel Watkins starts her school year.

I was glad to find that this article made its way onto the net. It addresses (refutes!) the idea, recently presented by Fr Peter Stravinskas and others, that Catholic families may have an obligation to utilize the formal Catholic school system instead of homeschooling.

Math Fact Computer Program

Hi all, I just thought I'd mention that after reading a positive review in Hearts and Minds Magazine, I purhcased this software called Math Facts NOW!. From what I read it sounded worth the try and at $12.95, it is pretty reasonable. Shipping is free if you get it delivered via email.

Anyway, so far it seems really cool. It is simple, but effective. You can define what facts you want to work on and if the child misses one, he has to retype it three times to move on to the next question. This combined with the fact that it is displayed in bold type on the screen makes me think it will be a good fit for my child w/visual processing issues.

I'll post again if I run into any snags, but so far so good.

Johnna

Math Help Needed

Just curious if anyone has any ideas for Math curriculm for Visual Spatial learners. These children do not learn well by rote so the typical repetitive drills do not work well for them. I think most of the Laura Berquist recommendations will be fine for my son, but I'm not so sure about Saxon Math. Any other curriculum to recommend??

FYI, my son is 9yo and going into fourth grade.

Scriptural adaptation

Elena at the My Domestic Church blog has done a little rework of 1 Corinthians 13 to make it specific to homeschooling parents. Makes a good little examination of conscience.

Are we really teaching religion?

Here you'll find a transcript of a talk given by Frank Sheed to teaching nuns in Ireland. In it, he asks these four questions, the answers to which should serve as a barometer measuring the effectiveness of the religious instruction that has been provided:

(i) Are Catholics, by and large, so equipped with knowledge of the doctrines of the Church, that if some outsider came along and wanted enlightenment, the first educated Catholic he came to would give it to him, would really expound the Church's main doctrines in such a way that the enquirer would think the matter worth pursuing with a priest? Would he, by the time he reached the priest, already have learnt a great deal?

(ii) Do Catholics really want to go to Heaven? I don't mean, do they want to go at once. I mean have they, with all their love of life, the life of here and now, a real desire to go to Heaven — not simply a desire to avoid hell, but an actual desire, knowing what Heaven is, to embrace it? Would that be a normal state of the Catholics who have been to our schools?

(iii) Take a third quite different sort of test. Supposing one of our Catholics were to find upon the table in his bedroom a religious book, say by Dr. Leen or Monsignor Ronald Knox, and a novel — which would he pick up? I realize that there are moods in which every one of us, even you, would rather have the novel. All I mean is: are those the only moods that Catholics have? If so, it means they have no very vivid interest in God, in Christ, our Lord, in our Lady, in all the major facts of reality.

(iv) One further test: A Catholic receives the gifts of truth and life that the Church has to give him, through Christ our Lord. Is he in a kind of anguish at the thought that there are others who know nothing of these gifts and are not receiving them? Can he take it quietly, can he go about his business and only occasionally say: "Poor fellows, they are unlucky"? Or is it a matter of anguish that fellow human beings should be starved of the gifts of truth and life that Christ wanted them to have? Is he as much concerned at that fact and conscious that he ought to be doing something about it, as he would be if he heard that fellow creatures lacked bread? If he is not, then it means that bread has a more real value for him than the truth and the Sacraments.

Coloring books

We recently bought Audubon’s Birds of America Coloring Book published by Dover Publications - magnificent stuff! Looks like someone took Audubon's paintings and reduced them to line art for coloring, and they did a great job.

One problem - once it's colored, it's done. So I've brought this book and others in the series to work and made 4 copies of each page so the kids can color the things til they're drunk on crayon fumes. The nice thing about Dover products is that they're no longer under copyright.

Amoung the craziness of our weekend...

I got the new Catholic Heritage Curricula catalog. Nothing like getting a curricula catalog in the mail and not being able to find a highlighter so you can go through it.

This brings a question to my mind. Where do you order curriculum from? Any websites you want to share?

A boatload of homeschooling blogs

The Well-Trained Mind website lists a large number of links to homeschooling blogs. Not all Catholic, not all classical.