Raising (& Teaching) Little Saints | Catholic Homeschooling & Traditional Catholic: 2013

Thursday, November 7, 2013

10 Steps to Creating a Monastery in your {Catholic} Homeschool

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; of which I had had the honor of working with and for at a Catholic School in Florida. Fortunately for me, I was assigned to work with Sister Maria Kolbe whom not only directed me and taught me her ways as a model teacher but, more importantly, she showed me the joy in following Our Lord Jesus in all we do. I wanted that joy she had SO BAD! But after years of praying, God told me He had other plans for me. Years later, I married a man whom also discerned at vocation to the priesthood (to the Fraternity of Saint Peter), we met, fell in love, got married and five children and ten years later, here I am homeschooling. I could not help but wonder what life would have been IF God had called me to become a Carmelite…you know, after all, the grass is always greener on the other side.

Since coming home to home educate our five precious blessings, I have struggled with many things and one of those was surrendering to THIS life, the life God had called me to. Always looking to feed the ego, I wanted to be either an amazing teacher (to other people’s children, because society thinks it is more prestigious than teaching my own) OR become a sister in full habit, like the Carmelites. But nooooooo….God had other plans and I was being rebellious and fighting Him about it. Now, I am not an expert at this at all, *even with* my teaching degree…homeschooling? staying home all the time? was He really serious??? So the whys and the tantrums that were going on in my head constantly were arguing with the shush I was yearning for in my heart. UNTIL that is, last Friday when I went to Confession. My Spiritual Director heard these words come out of my mouth, “I still struggle with being distracted, I yearn for the outside world, I miss my family, I want adult contact and I am so jealous of my husband who gets all of this!!! It is not fair!” Yes, my dear sisters, I was having a full blown toddler tantrum in the Confessional! Dear Father P was so sweet, he stopped me with his gentle fatherly manner and said, “Dear child, the Lord has gifted you with your own mini monastery at home with your children. He has entrusted you with five beautiful souls to form! He has taken you OUT of the world and asked you to look inside of yourself and to create a monastic life for your children. The spiritual life that will be ingrained in your children and will with them Heaven. After all, is not that what you want for them?” AND so it hit me, what I always wanted, to have a contemplative life like the Carmelites had been sitting in my lap all this time and I was fighting it! Dummy! {got hit by a 2×4 once again!} I wanted to be just like Saint Therese but God was calling me to be more like Blessed Zelie, her mother!

In the prologue of The Rule of Saint Benedict, the great saint states something that drew me even more towards craving this kind of life for my family, he said:

“The good of all concerned, however, may prompt us to a little strictness in order to amend faults and to safeguard love.” ~ Saint Benedict

Listen carefully, my child, to my instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart. This is advice from one who loves you; welcome it, and faithfully put it into practice. Let us open our eyes to the light that comes from God, and our ears to the voice from the heavens that every day calls out this charge: “If you hear God’s voice today, do not harden your hearts (Psalm 95:8).”

Therefore we intend to establish a school for God’s service. In drawing up its regulations, we hope to set down nothing harsh, nothing burdensome. The good of all concerned, however, may prompt us to a little strictness in order to amend faults and to safeguard love. … But as we progress in this way of live and in faith, we shall run on the path of God’s commandments, our hearts overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love.

Teaching Reading in you {Catholic} Homeschool

If you are teaching reading to your little one or have a child who is having trouble reading, then it is vital that they become proficient in sight words. Sight words are about 87% of all the words that children read in their trade books. Words like “the” “in”, “a”, “it”, and “is” are all part of this very important list. These words are phonetically irregular words, meaning you cannot use phonics to decode them so they must be learned by sight. Knowing sight words is one of the basic building blocks when learning how to read and one that should not be ignored.

What happens if the Reading or Phonics program you selected does not include the teaching of sight words? I suggest that you do it on your own and it is quite simple. Am I saying that you shouldn't teach Phonics? NO! Never! Phonics is important or just as important as teaching sight words. Many programs fail to integrate both of these in their reading programs, which is unfortunate but important for homeschooling moms to know. For the purpose of this post, I’m going to focus on sight words.

There are two lists but most of the words overlap; Dolch Sight Words and Fry Sight Words are the two lists you can work from. In the 1940s, Dr. Edward William Dolch used 220 phonetically irregular words and 95 common nouns to create his Dolch Sight Word List. He chose words that were most often used in children’s reading books during the 1920s and 30s. In the 1990s, Dr. Edward Fry took the Dolch researched list and created 1,000 most frequently used words and put them in order of frequency. Children should be repeatedly exposed to these words so that they learn them quickly. This bolsters their reading self-esteem, which in turn makes them want to read more. You would be so surprised how your little Joseph or little Mary is going to want to start reading and selecting books at the library!

Friday, September 6, 2013

Teaching the Love of Writing in {Catholic} Homeschooling

Writing has always been a priority in our Catholic Homeschool from when we first started, I’ve always

provided our children with papers and writing utensils of all kinds. I have basically been very informal about it. Always making sure that the children from the moment they can grasp a spoon that they are given ample opportunities to explore with writing. Yes, I do start them out very early. It is a very natural approach to teaching the love of writing to my children, even if at the beginning the writing utensils spends most of its life drowned in drool. At first, this is a messy task but eventually my children learn that putting marker, pen, chalk, crayon, or colored pencil to paper, chalk board, dry erase board, notebook, or construction paper means we write letters and then words which together turn into sentences which eventually will make paragraphs with wonderful stories. Equally important is matching these words with pictures, beautiful colorful ones and even simple pencil drawn ones. We are constantly writing and my children don’t even notice that I am sneaking in some very important future writing skills in to them from early on.

As we started day two of this, our fifth homeschooling year, I am able to see how much this has helped my children be comfortable with writing. This year I am formalizing our writing a little more as my eldest little is in the third grade. I do realize when I was a school teacher children in the first and second grade were composing paragraphs, which is fine but I wanted to try a different approach. In my way of teaching I wanted the children always exposed to writing and drawing. As a Reading Specialist I thought it would be a great way to help children with reading comprehension in the future. I have noticed that when I read to my children they are constantly examining the pictures on the page as I read the lovely little stories they have been exposed to. This, in turn, helps them create images in their minds as they are reading to better understand and remember what was read. It is a known fact that children who write before they read become better readers than those who do not. So, to me, providing so much writing so early is a win-win situation. (This does not mean I am not providing reading opportunities either, reading to my children is equally important for both reading and writing.)

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Personalized Composition Book Covers

I've always wanted to create covers for the children's composition books. We love composition books, I always buy them when they are $.50 a piece and love how sturdy they are. The ones that are fancier are more expensive and with five children buying those are not possible and keeping within our budget. So I decided I'd create some for my children instead. Of course, I want to share them with others. I've already shared them with Facebook friends.

I printed two per page, cut them, and used simple school glue to glue them down. I might put a line of tape all around the edges if I see them start to turn up but I don't think it will be much of a problem. Here is what they look like:

The children are very excited to have pretty covers over their composition books and finding the right book will be a simple task. If you are interested in downloading them here they are:

Composition Book Personalized Covers.

Enjoy,

Mama Erika

10 Steps to Selecting a {Catholic} Homeschool Curriculum

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, and then there is Pinterest…then you are headed to Confession, jealousy is a lousy sin. No seriously, is it not just frustrating? :D How do these women just *KNOW* that’s the right Math book? Why did it not work for *MY* child? :) Well, here’s why: There IS NOT one set curriculum that is perfect for everyone. There I said it. So here’s another secret that lady that introduced you to homeschool forgot to mention, the beauty of homeschooling is that you are able to create a custom curriculum that is beneficial to *YOUR* family. What works for another family may not be the best fit for another, or *gasp* what works for one of your children may not work for another. Okay, so now lets take a deep breath and investigate how these ladies on their blogs look so with it. I confess many times I have said, “when I grow up I want to be just like Jessica from Shower of Roses.” Don’t laugh, I have said it..even to her.

Over the years our family has tried a variety of things – ranging from being an eclectic homeschooler, to using a complete curriculum package to creating things to use, and it has morphed into a combination of pieces that we now use together as a family and components that we use individually to round out the various subject areas. So how do you decide what is the right fit for your family/homeschool?

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Getting Over the Free Range Chicken Syndrome in Catholic Homeschooling {OR How to Find Order in Your Homeschool}

For me, homeschooling was about pride for a long time. We were going to do everything differently from schooled children, every day, and all the time. There was no way I was going to teach my children like school systems teach or keep such a tight schedule. We will school in our pajamas and we will wake up when our body is ready to wake up! We will go on field trips at least once a week! We will do arts and crafts every day! Free range chickens vs. those chickens in those super crowded, mega sized coups. We are free range chickens!!! At least we were… until I realized that we are not.

I realized that my family has needs that free range chickens do not have. By my family, I mean the mother hen (the rooster kinda goes with the flow most of the time when it comes to homeschooling issues. He mostly steps in to discipline when called upon by a frantic mother hen). Two years ago I gave in and took another look at my Free-Range Chicken Philosophy. Even though we were getting all our schoolwork done, there was an overall feeling of chaos throughout the day. From meal planning to lesson planning to crisis management, it was all improvised. Day in, and day out…free range chickens!

So what was not working with this free range chicken philosophy?

Teaching Religion in the {Catholic} Homeschool

Quite often I am asked about how I deal with teaching religion in our homeschool. My thoughts on this have evolved over our 15+ years of homeschooling, mainly because I have evolved over that same time. When we first began homeschooling I was still in the learning phase of my faith; although I guess a more accurate term would be the “re-learning” phase because supposedly I had learned about my faith during my 10 years in CCD. What a joy it was to go through religion books with my oldest children when they were first starting out and learn right along with them. I think back in those early days we used almost every religion program out there: Seton, Faith and Life, Image of God, The Baltimore Catechism.

As our knowledge and our children grew, we began to venture out into the world of activities more often. We happen to belong to a homeschool group that is very focused on activities that revolve around the faith. It was after a few years of being involved in processions, Masses, field trips to religious places, talks given by priests and lay faithful, religious ceremonies, reading saint stories etc. that I realized that this was our religion class. Yes we still needed to read about the specifics and learn the ins and outs of our faith, but living it is what made it all come to life.

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Raising Heaven-Bound Children: Dumb Saints Instead of Brilliant Sinners

That’s right, I would rather raise a dumb saint than a brilliant sinner. Why? Because I am raising my children to be heaven-bound. Obviously there were many great saints who were brilliant, and intelligence and holiness are not mutually exclusive. As parents we should certainly help our children strive for excellence in education. However, the salvation of their immortal souls should be our PRIMARY aim. I will do whatever is in my power (through God’s grace, of course), to be certain that my children will thrive in this secular world. So how? How is it possible to raise children to be heaven-bound you ask?

When my first born was placed in my arms for the first time, fifteen years ago, it was both the happiest and the scariest moment of my entire life. No other joy in this world compared to the joy I felt at that very moment. At that moment, it dawned on me that I was personally responsible for taking care of this brand-new life. No other fear in this world compared to the fear I felt at that very moment. Forty-eight hours later, as I sat in the wheelchair and the nurse placed my little bundle of joy in my arms and waved good-bye, my heart sank for a second and I thought, “How on earth am I going to do this?” As I walked in the doors of our home, my concern turned to prayer and I said, “Help Lord, I don’t know what to do!” I felt the ginormous responsibility. My prayer was not necessarily for the physical needs of that tiny infant; my worry was more for the spiritual needs of my son. How was I, a sinner, going to do this incredible task of raising a child… a heaven-bound child?

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