Category Archives: home educating

Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

I am posting this a couple of days early of both feast days because St. Juan Diego is the 9th of December and Our Lady of Guadalupe is the 12th.


To honor Our Lady on her Feast day, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patroness of the Americas, we did a couple of  simple yet, beautiful activities to honor our Blessed Mother.  


This day was a special day with our six year old son.  As the second of five children, I got some rare special one-on-one time with him for this activity.  We started by reading Father Lovasik’s book on Our Lady of Guadalupe.  I read and pause between pages with this little man because he LOVES to ask questions or just give his input.  He is an excellent auditory learner (I wish I was like him) so he captures things by just listening to them once – amazing!


Then we started a couple of fun activities I found around the web (see the list at the bottom of this post):



Don’t you just love the tongue out in concentration mode?




He was very cautious and meticulous about coloring his picture of our lady.





These were all of the supplies we used for this lesson.
The only one missing from this picture is the little Father Lovasik book.

 


More coloring and a picture of the cutest little candle I got for $.99 at the local “hispanic supermarket”.




The wonderful DVD that we used to wrap up the lesson.




With supervision, Jojo was allowed to light his little candle. 
On his own, he then proceded to say a Hail Mary
and a special prayer for the Protection of our Blessed Mother
of unborn babies (it was so adorable!).




Explaining his color choices (he used the candle as a model).




Here he was coloring St. Juan Diego.




I got this prayer for St. Juan Diego’s intercession from another blog;
I just loved that it was in Spanish.




He colored the Tilma and wanted the picture of our Lady to match, just right!




These little candles are about half the size of the regular Saint ones..

If you have been following Raising {& Teaching}Little Saints, you know how much I totally love all the DVDs that we got from CCC of America for children last year.  One of the ones we received from them for our review was Juan Diego: Messenger of Guadalupe.  We finished our activities by watching this wonderful little movie on Our Lady and St. Juan Diego.


 Blessings to you all!
Items used:
Our Lady of Guadalupe candle, bought at a local Mexican grocery store
Our Lady of Guadalupe book by Father Lovasik
Blessings,
Mama Erika
This blog post is linked up:
Fiestas de Enlaces Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

CCC of America is passing along 3 DAYS OF SAVINGSto you, our Friends & Family.  This will be our only special this season, so here’s your chance to SAVE 25% OFF YOUR ENTIRE PURCHASE!  
Promo code: MERRY4ALL   Valid December 7th through the 9th, 2011
Promo code can be used online or with orders placed at 800.935.2222   
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Homeschoolers Need Socialization – SHAH!!


Recently, in my local newspaper, there was a nice article about a homeschooling family with five children. They quoted the home schooled children and the author spoke statistics…when I saw it laying on my kitchen table, I thought wow how exciting and went on, with much enthusiasm, to read the article. Later on I checked my e-mail and saw lots of messages from local home schoolers who were outraged by the comments being left on-line regarding the article. I skimmed through those messages (a bunch had already been blocked by the paper) and noticed the one prevailing topic: socialization (what a shocker, huh ladies?). People who don’t have a clue and have made generalizations about home schoolers think that we keep our kids in a closet (without windows) and don’t allow them to go out and be “socialized”. Which lead me to think about this a little further.


What you might not know is that I’ve been in the “formal” education world for the past 15 years, either as a teacher’s aide, student teacher, substitute teacher, a teacher trainer, and a regular teacher in the classroom. I’ve been in the Catholic schools (two of them), charter schools, and regular public schools (three of them) and I’ve had my share of what it’s like to teach and be in these settings. I’ve worked in pre-schools, elementary schools, K-8 centers, Middle Schools and even had my bouts with high school. So, let’s just say…I’ve been there and seen it from a teacher as well as a parent’s perspective (my eldest attended two different parochial schools from pre-k until 5th grade).

So what does the “socialized child” have over our supposed “unsocialized” home schooled children? Nothing if you ask me. From a teacher’s perspective, the home schooled child is taught to live and work with people of all ages (in their family) For starters, they are exposed to BAD habits from other children. Children from homes that the parents aren’t around most of the time because they are busy working. Children who see their parents about one hour in the morning and maybe both parents about three hours in the evening (that’s if they are on schedule and putting them in bed on time). Children whose parents are sometimes hard to reach to set up conferences for because of grades declining or behavior. Now don’t assume that I’m referring to the times I worked in the public or charter sectors, I haven’t even touched that category yet. Now lets talk about teachers…I’ve had the privileged of working for a Federal Program training teachers to teach Reading and Writing. It was like pulling teeth…they didn’t want to learn, I’d say about 15% of the teachers I worked with in those last nine years were open to learning something new, a better way to teach our children. A very sad number, if you ask me.

Next I looked up “socialization” in the dictionary, know what it says?  Here is the online version:

so·cial·i·za·tion    [soh-shuh-luh-zey-shuhn]
noun
1.  a continuing process whereby an individual acquires apersonal identity and learns the norms, values, behavior, and social skills appropriate to his or her social position.
2.  the act or process of making socialistic: the socialization of industry.

“A continuing process where by an individual acquires a personal identity”?  Really, well if anyone is going to help a child do this who best than his/her mother and father?  Next, “learn the norms, values, behavior, and social skills”…again mother and father, siblings, grandparents are the best teachers of this.

Let me be honest, I thought when I joined the home school community, I was coming with TONS of ideas and things to do…I was going to teach some moms some new things! Oh how wrong I was…lol!   I’ve only learned from these moms with high school degrees, some with college degrees, only some with teaching degrees…here’s what I’ve learned:

1. Children need to be taught to love learning and how they learn best (something very difficult to teach to 35 children in a 55 minute period, in only nine months of the year).

2. Children need to be taught how to learn on their own. “WHAT?” This was one of the hardest for me to understand…but I get it and it makes perfect sense….when you are in college and in life, you need the life skills to be motivated to learn something new each day.

3. Children need to interact with people of all ages and backgrounds. Home schooled children are the most polite and social kids I’ve ever been around. They say hello when you bump into them at the store. They offer to help without you having to bribe them, as it is often done in the classrooms.

4. Homeschooling is a lifestyle which, for the most part, teaches about time management, how to deal with situations you didn’t plan for, how to be ready for new things, how to lead a more stable life, how to follow a schedule (and have the responsibility of staying on that schedule).

So, this lead to the idea of having a week-long discussion on the socialization of our Catholic home schooled children. In speaking with my friends who have more experience than I, the topic was more about creating community and in turn you will socialize your children. In analyzing this, it was very clear to me that our children are part of all sorts of communities in which they have ample and healthy opportunities to be socialized. Some examples of communities which your children might be involved in are: at church, play groups, neighborhoods, Co-Ops, teams, scouts, sports, music classes, etc. My children have involved in more activities since being home schooled than ever before. They are happier as well, and they are definitely social beings.

Not convinced? Just ask my next door neighbor, who is an avid gardener, about my six year old son who has NEVER been formal school setting! My little guy has long conversations with her about her gardening, asking her tons of questions about what she is doing, why she is doing it, and what will be the future out come of her actions. Bless her heart, she is so patient with him. We think he might even have pushed her in her faith a little as he told her the other day that he prays for her and her garden to grow beautiful flowers…she, in turn, was spotted at daily Mass a couple of days later (our first reaction, “she’s Catholic?”). So yes, my six year old will not be “formally socialized” and miss the likes of knowing who Sponge Bob Square Pants, or High School Musical, or anything like that is from other kids his age. Instead, he is learning about Horticulture from my next door neighbor and walking around practicing words like “Gladiolas and Daffodils” instead of singing the obnoxious tune to some of the “supposed children’s cartoons or movies”.

So tell us, what do your children do to create community (AKA, be socialized little beings)???

 I’d love to hear from you regarding this topic…and go ahead share this with all people that question you about homeschooling and “worry” about your children’s socialization!  😉  I dare you, lol!

Blessings,
Erika

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Timberdoodle Review: Primary Science Set {Learning Resources Kit}

We just simply LOVE science experiments in our Homeschool!  Science is really an area that we truly enjoy but we were lacking a lot of the necessary tools and equipment to adequetely create some fun and educational experiments for our kids.  This is why I was so excited to have the great opportunity to work with Timberdoodle, Co. and review their product Primary Science Set by Learning Resources, winner of the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio 2010 Gold Seal Award!  🙂


My first reaction when I opened the kit was “WOW!” because it contained everything you need for some fun experiments, including the safety goggles!  I love how the 12 lab items are bigger than normal and “chunky” for little preschool and toddler hands.  The items included in the kit are an eye dropper, protective goggles, tweezers, plastic beakers, and test tubes.
Here’s an overview of the kit from Timberdoodle’s YouTube Channel:


Our Science Lab ready to go!
Another great feature this product has is the 10 Experiment Cards that come with it. The cards are big and they have pictures to help with the beginning reader be a great scientist! 🙂 You still need to read the instructions on the back but at least my little ones felt so grown up looking at the card and checking to make sure that they had all of the equipment they would need for their experiments.  I worked with the three middle children ages six, four, and two.  The box does state that this set is for ages 4+, but I wanted to test and see if you could use it with a toddler, especially since he is almost three.  I actually had him do most of the mixing colors experiment since we’ve done this in the past with the other two kids.  Above is a picture of all Lab set up {yes I used the word Lab with them}.



The kit comes with these 10 experiment cards.

 

You do need to provide the different items for the actual experiments as this is a kit to be reused with other ones besides the 10 cards contained. Most of the items (besides the bugs) are everyday household/kitchen items, so I didn’t think it was a big deal to round them up. We went ahead and tried all 10 experiments. But for the purpose of this review I will focus on two:  1.  The Volcano Exploding and 2. Mixing Colors.

I had the children double check that we had all the items we needed (all they had to do is look at the cards) and I called out the items as I lifted them {this exposes them to Lab vocabulary}.  Another thing I did was talk about the importance of protecting your eyes in a Lab and how to have fun but be safe.



Jojo pouring the baking powder.



Everyone got a turn doing something.
  
Even the little guy got to shake and mix colors!
He felt like such a big boy!
“Shake, shake, shake” he sang as he mixed the colors.

I definitely would recommend this product as a great asset to your Science Curriculum…it makes it fun and hands on.  It is great for anyone with young children, it will help them get interested in science at an early age and expose them to lab vocabulary.  I am already looking for more experiments we can do using this fabulous little kit!


But do you want to know what I love best about this product?  That it came from Timberdoodle a company that began in 1985 by homeschoolers and now serves second-generation Timberdoodle customers!   “What began as a back porch venture has now grown to include two warehouses and an office, and the children have grown to become customer service reps, web technicians, warehouse workers, order processors, and more. Timberdoodle is still run by the original owners, the Deffinbaughs; they and their five children form the bulk of the work crew.”
While visiting their site, I found that Timberdoodle has a program for loyal and return customers, they call it Doodle Dollars.  Basically, you get points every time you shop with them and can use those points to buy new homeshool items!  🙂  It’s a win, win situation, go check it out:

Want to know more about Timberdoodle, Co.?


Hope you enjoyed this review. 
Blessings,

Learning Resources is a leading manufacturer of learning toys and innovative hands-on educational materials  for classrooms worldwide. For 25 years, Learning Resources has been a trusted source for teachers and parents for quality, award-winning educational products in math, science, social studies, language, language arts, literacy, reading, early childhood, and more.


DISCLOSURE:  I was provided this product from Timberdoodle in exchange for my honest review of it.  This is my opinion about the product and its use with my own children.  In no way shape or form is my receiving this product for free a factor in my HONEST review of this item.

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