Anthony DeStefano has written a new book entitled Our Lady’s Picture Book through Sophia Institute Press. The book is illustrated by Juliana Kolesova. This is the sequel to his bestselling book Our Lady’s Wardrobe. A beautifully told and illustrated book, Anthony explains page by page the different title of Mary including: Our Lady of Sorrows; […]
Reading Laudato Si was like falling in love. For my husband and me, it brought back memories of the exciting early mornings of twelve years ago. Newly enraptured with Catholic teaching, we would rise early with a pot of coffee and our books – him with the Catechism of the Catholic Church and me with […]
The school year began in the local public schools last week. As I watched the bus drive down the street and saw all the back-to-school photos that my friends put up on Facebook, I couldn’t help but feel a little sad. My kids are homeschooled. There is no big yellow school bus for us. There’s […]
In Your School of Love (Tan Books, 2015), veteran homeschooler and mother of nine Agnes Penny hopes “to encourage homeschoolers to try a more relaxed, more natural, less stressful style of learning.” While maintaining that homeschooling is a natural outgrowth of our parenting, “another way to spend time and share experiences with our children,” she […]
You may be starting the new school year in mid to late August or not until after Labor Day weekend, but either way we have rounded the homestretch and the dig date is looming on the horizon. Whether this is your first time to homeschool or you have been schooling for a few years (or decades […]
Dear God, You Can’t Be Serious (Liguori Publications, 2014) is the sequel to Patti Maguire Armstrong’s Dear God, I Don’t Get It, but one need not have read the first one to enjoy the second. While the first book focused on older brother Aaron, a sixth grader who had to move to a new state […]
When I was in college, I prayed and discerned a vocation to become a sister or a nun. I was enthralled by the Carmelite Sisters of the Sacred Heart, since I had had the honor of working with and forthem at a Catholic School in Florida. Fortunately for me, I was assigned to work with […]
Every once in a while, educational fads turn toward “back to basics.” Schools emphasize necessary and useful subjects–meaning, useful for getting a job. Math, reading, and science take center stage. Other subjects get cut. In fact, one of the biggest criticisms of the new Common Core Standards is its utilitarian, vocational perspective on education. In […]
Have you decided to homeschool but are super scared to do so? Here are a few thoughts and tips to help you overcome your doubts and launch into the amazing, one-of-a-kind experience known as homeschooling: 1- You are doing the BEST thing ever for your family! If you feel called to homeschool, want to homeschool, […]
Suppose your son is a sixth grader and his male teacher just married another man. If it happens at a Catholic school, the teacher would be fired as has happened at schools in Ohio and California. If it is at a public school, it is likely a non-issue to administrators. In the latter case, you […]
I’ll admit it’s work, but I love it. I love camping…. the dust clouds and the cicadas’ rhythmic swell and the sun leaking into the thin tent nylon in the early morning, insistent. Our rusty old camp grill and the Coleman torch that scatters just a bit of an ethereal Hey-summer-we-survived-this-year’s-algebra-and-ancient-history-and-disappointments-and-triumphs-and-we’re-back-to-settle-in-your-scheduleless -rustic-August glow. The whispers […]
Selecting a curriculum can be a truly overwhelming task each year for homeschooling mothers. So many times I have said to myself, “if I could see that book, I’d know if I want it!” Right? Then you hop online look through blogs of perfect homes, with perfect mom teachers, that have the perfect school rooms, […]
Some families are already gearing up to start school on Monday. We don’t start back until September 8, just after our parish festival. But no matter when you begin, here are some ideas to take your religious education to the next level. If you are doing all this already, kudos to you. Pray every day […]
It’s daunting to think about schooling many children, all different age ranges, in a busy house. It takes a bit of creative thinking but it can be done. Each summer before the year starts, I start praying about our schedule, and I ask my husband to pray about it too. I have some tips and […]
“Why do we homeschool?” Often when we begin homeschooling there is something that prompted us to begin. It may have been a child struggling with school, a negative socializing experience, or any number of issues. Once the mom begins, she may feel conflicted that her children will miss out on some great academic experience. She […]
I have been hesitant to write about our first year of home schooling because I don’t know if my insights offer anything new, but nonetheless, we’ve done it and as anything else goes in life, it was a learning experience for us all. We are not home schooling zealots; we have public-schooled, parochial-schooled, and even […]
We homeschooled our two daughters for 8 years from kindergarten/2nd grade until 7/9th grade. They didn’t have a boatload of friends during those years, but the friends they did have were special, kindred spirits, and we got together as often as we could. When we took the kids out of the Catholic school to home-school […]
Forget diet secrets and extreme makeovers. Struggling homeschool moms have a more pressing question on the mind: Will a new curriculum solve my problems? Maybe I’ve been using the wrong book. Maybe, like the catalog promises, my kids really can learn the state capitals, speak fluent Spanish, and master organic chemistry, all for just $189.95. […]
For people of faith in America, the Obama administration’s birth control mandate represents an unprecedented assault on religious conscience. It seems that the President and his surrogates have little appreciation for the role that faith plays in the lives of many Americans, and even less respect for the Constitution’s protection of religious liberty. As if […]
Having been duly warned about the dangers of praying for patience, just before Lent I did something nearly as foolish: I prayed for self-discipline. Because I haven’t got much of it. Some people do, and if that’s you, please understand that we goof-offs and layabouts aren’t really trying to ruin your life, or our own, […]
There is an old adage in homeschooling that says not to make any life-altering educational decisions in February. This time of year is the homeschooler’s valley of tears. A little more than halfway through the school year, stuck in the house most of the time, feeling painfully inadequate to the task at hand, it is […]
I wasn’t going to write about Friday’s sad events, instead simply choosing to pray. My heart has been heavy, and I knew others would write about it with more eloquence. My words and thoughts weren’t necessarily needed. But then, I was drawn into the conversation and realized that there was indeed something I needed to […]
If you do an Internet search for “Catholic Fatherhood” how much data would you find in comparison to Panda Bears, Applied Linear Algebra, and Welding Theory? According to John Clark, author of Who’s Got You, Catholic Fatherhood comes in last. The results respectively were 1,914, 1,706, and 284. Catholic Fatherhood netted 270 results. Clark surmised […]
I don’t often reread books. As a book reviewer, I always seem to have more good books in my “to be read” pile than I could ever have time for. Therefore, for me to read a book twice, it really needs to be something extraordinary and helpful to my life. A Little Way of Homeschooling […]
