This month's suggestions feel incomplete to me.  We had a crazy April and now are getting ready to go up to Boston for my oldest son's wedding!  I just haven't been able to focus on this blog as much lately.  I've been working on posts but I am having a hard time pulling them together and getting them published.  So here's the month of May's suggestions. Rabbit trail ideas for this month: Mary Flowers, plants and trees Gardening/farming Mary Learn hymns Make a Mary Garden May crowning of Mary Books: Mary Mother of Jesus by Tomi dePaolo Take It To the Queen Speak Lord I am Listening rosary for children Picture Book Read Alouds for Flowers, Plants, Trees: Ferdinand the Bull From Seed to Plant by Gail Gibbons Miss Rumphius The Giving Tree Magic School Bus Gets Planted Family Read Alouds: The Secret Garden The Little Prince Farmer Boy or any Little House series that features planting. For teens: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Flowers for A...

My basic premise for unschooling as a Catholic comes from the belief that we are made in the image and likeness of God. What flows from this belief? Well, to my mind, what flows from it is a trust in God's design. God designed the family.  He designed things so that a child should grow up with his own mother and father.   Anything short of this is a result of the fallen world.  Anything short of this is a tragedy of monumental importance to the child.  Yes, single parents can successfully raise children, but there is no getting around the fact that the child has a gaping hole in their life.  Yes, children can be adopted into a loving home.  That is certainly a wonderful thing but the very action stems from an existential tragedy for that child.  (And this tragedy is not to be exploited by those trying to validate their lifestyle choices but that's another topic!). God also designed how children learn.  Children learn in a way that ref...

This blog is a review of my homeschooling years.  Since I just got back from a program at the university that my 17 year old daughter is going to attend next fall and, also today, I just found out that my 20 year old son has been accepted as a transfer from the local community college to a 4 year state university, it seems appropriate to take stock of where all five adult (or nearly adult) children are right now.  This might be a really boring post! My oldest is 28, married and expecting her first child in August.  (So excited to be a grandma!!!) She attended the University of Dallas and got a degree in Politics.  She then came back to Virginia and lived at home while attending Marymount University where she earned a Master's in Education.  She married her college boyfriend.  She's a Civics teacher in a nearby public school.  She loves it.  She loves working with general ed and special ed students especially.  She and her husband bought a t...

Over the years, I grew to prefer resources rather than curriculum.  To me curriculum is grade based scope and sequence worksheets/books (with maybe some reading and some activities tacked on) that are designed to provide mostly busy work over the course of a school year in a particular subject.  Nine times out of ten curriculum fell flat for us.  We would only do something for a few weeks before it sort of fell by the wayside.  There was something so strained and artificial and deadening about that kind of forced learning for us.  We just didn't jive with it.  It always, always became a disciplinary issue of me forcing a kid to do so much (kind of like saying eat three bites of your veggie and then you can leave the table) which was the kiss of death in terms of actual learning (or learning to eat vegetables!).  It's just the wrong way to go about this sort of thing.  How do you get a kid to eat vegetables?  You let them pick out the vegg...

I am taking a blogging break (except Sundays) from now until Easter.  I may blog on Sundays if time and mood allow. May you have a blessed Lent!