Thursday, September 29, 2011

What We've Been Enjoying This Week..

The 39 Clues Series - I'm on book 8, the kids are all over. It's been tough covering an 11 book series from the library with 6 different readers/listeners with a crazy combo of audio and print!

Watching YouTube videos related to topics that came up in the 39 Clues, like Terra Cotta Army, Amber Room and Catacombs of Paris.

Discovering Music DVD series by Dr. Carol Reynolds (I love how she incorporates art, architecture, history, culture, politics, science, etc. along with LOTS of stories and excellent recordings). Already touched on a few topics from  The 39 Clues here too. :)

Good stuff! 

P.S. An extra motivation for me to finish the series is that the 1st book in the second series, (Cahills vs. Vespers: The Medusa Plot) is waiting for me to read from the Amazon Vine program. Terri's already cruised through that and eager for the next volume (which comes out in December!)

Sunday, September 25, 2011

New Digs Again

I am really liking the improvements to Blogger, though there are still some ups and downs to both Blogger and WordPress. In the end, having all of my archives and such in one place and a MUCH better tag-labeling system pushed Blogger ahead. I've already moved all of my favorite posts from the new blog over here, just have to tag a few of the untagged posts at some point.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Test Post

Blogger has made a lot of improvements, so I'm toying with the idea of moving my blogging operations back here.

Here's a test quote (partly testing the editor here) that I stumbled on today in YouCat:
My past no longer concerns me. It belongs to divine mercy. My future does not yet concern me. It belongs to divine providence. What concerns me and what challenges me is today, which belongs to God's grace and to the devotion of my heart and my good will. - St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622)

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Distribution of Artwork

I just stumbled upon some old pictures that I've neglected to post this month or more now. Before Ria left for college, she held an informal distribution of a bunch of her artwork to her siblings (ahem, mom and dad rescued a few too). This brought about both great delight, and not a little bit of angst in deciding what would go to whom. On the whole, it was amazing to see the enthusiasm with which each drawing or painting was greeted and, I guess I'll let a few photos tell the rest of the story...


Tuesday, September 20, 2011

A Homeschooling Meme!

Wow, I haven't been tagged for a meme in a very long time. So long that I almost forgot what a meme was! Thank you kindly to Kimberlee of Pondered in My Heart for the generous nudge to write. :)

One homeschooling book you have enjoyed.

Gotta pick at least two. I think my favorites still (partly because of the way they impacted me at the time I happened to read them) are For the Children's Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay and Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum by Laura Berquist. I think I'm really ready for a re-read of that first book especially. I'm also looking forward to reading A Little Way of Homeschooling and The School of the Family, both of which are waiting for me on my shelf!

One resource you wouldn't be without.


Honestly, truly, I would have to say our parish. Not only daily Mass, wonderful sermons and twice-weekly school Masses (today three children in one family were baptized during the school Mass - what a beautiful thing!), but also free musical opportunities (through various choirs my kids sing in), school sports and other school activities like Chess club (which all parish children are invited to participate in) and, on the whole, what has become for us an extension of our family and an essential aspect of our children's education - a loving group of people who have chosen to embrace us as we are (including things like our odd propensity for enjoying ancient music and Marian hymns, which they allow us to sing at Mass as a family on occasion) rather than consider us a threat to their way of doing things. I am so very grateful every day for this great blessing!

And... if you want a more bookish answer, I would say the old Catholic National Readers (basically Catholic versions of the McGuffey readers). They're written for a different era and a different educational system, which is always refreshingly compatible with what we do around here. We don't use them all the time, but when we do (which is generally for at least a few months of each year) I'm always reminded of a one room school house and an era that in some ways was simpler. The simplicity is evident in these books in the way reading, spelling, grammar, dictation and reading comprehension are combined and the students alternate between independent work and some simple feedback from the teacher.

One resource you wish you never bought.

It's really hard to pick on one book, but I have learned over time that I really can't stand scripted curriculum (though I understand that they are wonderful for those who like them) and that I am allergic to teacher's manuals. (Achoo!) I like to be able to sit down with something (like the Catholic National Readers mentioned above) and just start using them without having to read over 5 pages of material just to get started. That's one thing I've always liked about the MCP Math too.

One resource you enjoyed last year.

Our road trip! Traveling makes for wonderful educational opportunities I think partly because we parents are pulled away from the computer and the telephone and a lot of other worries. Our month-long road trip to California last year was fantastic.

One resource you will be using next year.

Next year is too soon, ahem, far away, maybe we'll talk about this year. Perhaps our favorite new educational resource this year is the fabulous Catholic liberal arts college that Ria is attending. She is completely smitten with TAC, and we really can't blame her. Just last weekend, for example, the "Theologian of the Papal Household" visited TAC, gave a lecture, said Mass and visited with students, etc. You can read more about Rev. Wojciech Giertych here.

One resource you would like to buy.

The new Catholicism DVD series from Fr. Robert Barron sounds fascinating, although we still have so many unwatched DVD resources around here at the moment that it would hardly seem reasonable. One DVD series we have very much enjoyed so far and need to get back to is Dr. Carol Reynold's Discovering Music Series.

One resource you wish existed.

Inexpensive add-on space to our house for more elbow room (and messy project space) especially in the winter. Oh yes, that and a self-cleaning floor (really a self-cleaning anything!). One other thing I have learned about our family over time is that we don't need any of those learning-to-be-creative-as-a-family-type-books. We exude creativity, or at least that's the positive spin I put on the trail of artwork and projects that is generally to be found all over every available surface and overflowing onto the floors.

One homeschool catalog you enjoy reading.

Honestly, I've reached the stage where I really don't enjoy reading homeschool catalogs anymore, though the one I used to enjoy reading the most was Michael Olaf's Montessori catalog, which were part catalog and part book. UPDATE: Upon further consideration, I realized that I do look forward to reading the catalogs from CHC and Ignatius Press when they arrive in the mail.

If you're reading this and haven't yet done the meme, please consider yourself tagged and let me know in the comments box! Thanks Kimberlee!

Saturday, September 17, 2011

This'n'That, 9/17/11

I recently discovered the Christian band, Future of Forestry (the name comes from a poem by C.S. Lewis) via a link to from Jennifer's Favorite Links. I found a lot of songs that I really like (and a few that just aren't my thing), including this one, called Close Your Eyes...



Another of my favorites is Slow Your Breath Down...



And speaking of slowing down, I've been working hard to slow down a bit - simplify my life and my commitments and it's not easy, but I can definitely see it making a difference in many ways and that it's something I've REALLY been needing to do.

I know I'm always saying that I'm getting rid of stuff, but I really did make an extra big dent in the last few weeks, especially with books, but other stuff too. Sometimes I just have to make myself pretend that I never happened to find it at a rummage sale or whatever because it looks really interesting, but I don't really need it and in the end it's just getting in the way.

We've also been busy with lots of painting projects - inside and out. There's nothing quite like paint to give your house a new outlook on life. ;)

Ria is doing very well at TAC and seems very happy. I can't believe that she's been gone a month already! It's funny how her departure made us start looking at everything in a new way again. It was definitely an impetus behind my simplifying of things around here, both because her departure reminded me of how quickly everything goes (it's not long, really, before other kids are ready to test their wings) and how much time I want to spend with my other kids right now both because of that and because of what we have left to do together before they're ready to go.

We eased our way into school a bit this year by giving ourselves a week and a half (or so) of part-time school before diving in more fully. On our first day of part-time school, I made a list of things for the kids to do, including "spend 15 minutes observing something outside". Well, this first day also happened to be our homeschool park day, so we decided to do our observing at the park. Late in the spring, at the same park, we got to watch a turtle laying eggs in a hole in the grass. We went home to look up when the eggs would hatch, but it was a wide range (9-18 weeks, I think), so we didn't hold up much hope for observing things on the other side. As it turned out, that first day of school, there were some new hatchlings nosing around in the hole and one that had escaped but had fallen down into the curb of the street where it was stuck on the wrong side from the river. Terri rescued it with a leaf and carried it down to the river. She set it down on the bank where we all got to watch it leap in (and it was a tiny thing!) and wriggle around happily in the water. So nice to spend time whenever we like in the greatest classroom in the world. :)