Category Archives: homeschooling

Gotta Share: Holy Heroes


I am totally in L-O-V-E with these coloring books and audio CDs by Holy Heroes! I can’t wait to get my hands on the Altar Gang CDs! This is the description of the Altar Gang series:

THE ALTAR GANG!® audio series takes a fresh look at the Mass. Each Sunday, AJ the Aspergillum and Skiff the Incense Boat, along with rest of the Gang, help the priest prepare for Mass and learn about the Readings and Gospel through stories and silly adventures. The rest of the Gang includes Pete the Chalice, Mary the Ciborium, Pablo the Paschal Candle, Maggie the Bells, Thomas the Thurible, Big John the Baptismal Font, Mo the Ambo, James and John the Altar Candles, Cecilia the Music Stand, Guido the Organ and Mimi the Altar Cloth. Fun, exciting, educational, THE ALTAR GANG!® will bring the Mass alive for your family and teach them about the Liturgy and the Catholic Faith.”

They also have Stations of the Cross Packs with audio CDs and matching coloring books! You can hear samples of all of their Holy Heroes series! Too cute! My eldest son’s first reaction was, “are they going to make a DVD out of it, too cool Mom!” Honestly, I like the idea that it is ONLY audio…like the good ol’ days! 🙂 Hope you like them as much as I did…can’t wait to actually try them this school year! Enjoy!

Pax Christi,

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Why Homeschool Preschool? Part 4

The Best Foundation is Love
By Contributing Mama Writer: Barbara Curtis

Barbara is a seasoned homeschooling mommy of 12 (yes, twelve blessings), now a grandmother of ten, and a happily married wife. Barbara is a “revert”, she was baptized Catholic then Evangelical for many years and has come back to our beautiful Faith! Barbara and her family are a ” Family-First kind of family.”


[This is the final installment in a four-part series: Why Your Preschooler Can Thrive at Home taken from a chapter in my book, Mommy, Teach Me! Read the first, The Best Teacher is Forever, the second, The Best Classroom Has No Walls, the third, The Best Lessons Don’t End at Noon, and Is Homeschool for Everyone?]


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The Best Foundation is Love

Remember when you fell in love with the man you’d one day wed? You couldn’t spend enough time with him. Memorizing every angle of his face, discovering every nuance of his personality – you thought you’d never grow tired of it.

And when your first child was born, didn’t it feel as though you could never grow tired of gazing on that precious baby – even when sound asleep?

Ah, but we are human and the daily grind of living 24/7 with those we love can become just that – a grind. How quickly we forget the miraculous power of love.

I’m asking you to remember for a reason. I’m asking you to remember because when it comes to the recipe for a perfect teacher the most important ingredient is love. And no preschool teacher – no matter how much she cares in the classroom – will ever love your child as dearly and selflessly as you.

But I’m asking you to remember for another reason. As you begin to prepare yourself to teach your child, the first step will be to open your heart, to tap into that great well of love you’ve experienced before – before it got a little murky from all the peanut butter smears and wayward permanent marker. Before the fatigue and frustration found on the flip side of motherhood.

And finally, I’m asking because as you continue on the journey to becoming the best possible teacher for your child, I want you to find inspiration and confidence in the recognition of where all of us teacher/mommies begin. We love our children. We want God’s best for them.
And clearly God’s best for your child involves your maximum involvement through these early years.

Remember: God doesn’t call the equipped; he equips the called. Before your baby was born, you were probably not quite ready for motherhood. Good thing you had nine months or so to devote yourself to immersing yourself in the things you’d need to know to make it through childbirth, nursing and beyond – not to mention gathering all the stuff you’d need to prepare the best environment for baby.

Learning to be a mommy never stops – take it from someone who after 36 years is still learning and growing. If you’re at a loss for what to do with your preschooler, is that really so strange? And isn’t the fact that you picked up this book assurance that God will lead you in the right direction? That he hasn’t just called you to teach your child, but that he will equip you?

Yes, some of us tremble before the things God calls us to do. But God did not give us a spirit of fear, only the assurance that love is greater than our insecurities – that in Him we find our strength.

You don’t need a rigid method or a handbook with a hundred lessons. What you need are the keys to unlock the tremendous learning potential of your child – as well as your own potential to teach. Once you begin to use them, you will see your child – as well as your relationship – transformed. Then you will both discover the joy God intended in these early years – a joy that will spill over into a lifelong love of learning for your child.

But it starts with the simplest, most basic foundation. Your willingness to invest in your child – to stretch and grow in whatever ways you must – because you want the best for both of you.

The bottom line is love.

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Love,

For more neat ideas by this Blogging Mama, please visit her Homeschooling journey: Mommy Life,

You can also get an autographed copy of her book Mommy, Teach Me!

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“Mommy, Teach Me! gives parents the tools to help them bring out the best in their child and the best in themselves. This book will help you discover your God-given abilities so that you can help your child better discover hers or his.”

Drs. William and Martha Sears

Hope you have enjoyed Barbara’s four part series on “Why Homeschool Preschool?” as much as I have!
Pax Christi,

Thank you for following Raising (& Teaching) Little Saints! Visit us again soon!

Why homeschool preschool? Part 3

The Best Lessons Don’t End at Noon
By Contributing Mama Writer: Barbara Curtis

Barbara is a seasoned homeschooling mommy of 12 (yes, twelve blessings), now a grandmother of ten, and a happily married wife. Barbara is a “revert”, she was baptized Catholic then Evangelical for many years and has come back to our beautiful Faith! Barbara and her family are a ” Family-First kind of family.”


[This is third in a four-part series: Why Your Preschooler Can Thrive at Home taken from a chapter in my book, Mommy, Teach Me! Read the first, The Best Teacher is Forever and second, The Best Classroom Has No Walls.]

Some of my best teaching moments with my kids have taken place spontaneously. They simply weren’t the kind of lessons I could plan in advance. They were sparked by questions that children asked me in the laundry room or in the car, at the grocery store or the park.

Isn’t it an honor the way your child looks to you as the one with all the answers? A privilege to be the one who guides him through the early years – the ones filled with so many questions and so much eagerness to learn? And even when we don’t know the answers, to set an example of humble curiosity as we model using resources (books and computers) until we find the knowledge that we seek.

As mothers of preschoolers, the special significance of such moments can get lost in the other things that tug at our attention: laundry to be folded, groceries to be put away, lunch to be made. You may not truly appreciate how much your child is learning or could be learning from you as you go about your daily routine.

When you think outside the box in which our society currently defines where and how and by whom education is delivered, you will begin to understand that education is not something that begins at one certain hour and ends at another. It is taking place continuously as the child – whom Maria Montessori characterized as having an “absorbent mind” – soaks up knowledge like a sponge.

Our current dominant model of education treats the child as an empty vessel whom professional teachers in buildings called schools can fill up with knowledge at scheduled times. But this model shows no regard for how God designed human beings.

If you’re the mother of a preschooler – no matter what educational option you plan for your child in the future – why settle for this stunted educational model so early on? For during these preschool years you have so a tremendous opportunity – and all the time in the world (well, in between laundry and groceries and lunches) – to begin your child’s education with much more sensitivity to the way in which God created his mind and learning capacities.

Here, one particular word has a story to tell. The word education is derived from the Latin root educare which means “to rear or to bring up.” Educare can be traced to the Latin root words, e and ducere which together mean “to pull out” or “to lead forth.” A true education is less about drilling information into the child, and more about leading. Which sounds a lot like the process God had in mind from the beginning.

Perhaps you’re just beginning to catch a glimmer of that part of the special role God intended for you as a mother. As you grow in confidence, you will find that you are much more of a teacher than you might have ever imagined and that you can fulfill that role for your preschooler not only with the specific ideas in this book, but also by the lessons you teach throughout the day – from housework and meal preparation to the songs you sing and the words you speak while driving the car.

You will prob
ably find, as I have, that there’s nothing like having an eager learner – or better yet, a whole bunch of them! – to bring out the teacher in me. As Florence Littauer says, her kids knew that “Where two or more were gathered, there Mother would give a sermon.”
And that goes 24/7! Love,


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Why Homeschool Preschool? Part 2

The Best Classroom Has No Walls
By Contributing Mama Writer: Barbara Curtis
Barbara is a seasoned homeschooling mommy of 12 (yes, twelve blessings), now a grandmother of ten, and a happily married wife. Barbara is a “revert”, she was baptized Catholic then Evangelical for many years and has come back to our beautiful Faith! Barbara and her family are a ” Family-First kind of family.”

[This is the second in a four-part series: Why Your Preschooler Can Thrive at Home taken from a chapter from my book, Mommy, Teach Me! The first part is The Best Teacher is Forever.]

I mentioned how the modern approach to education – compartmentalization – has produced the idea that only professionals are qualified to teach.
A second mistaken notion is that education is something that happens in a building designated for that purpose.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. From the get go, a baby is learning from everything around him. From the time he first grips a rattle and brings it to his mouth to explore with all his senses the size and shape and sound and texture – to his first steps, first torn picture book, first scribble on the wall – your child is expressing his potential for learning in everything he does. The first torn picture book and scribbles on the walls are like beginning science experiments: What are the properties of paper? What is cause and effect? Which is why, though we train children not to repeat destructive behavior, the first time it happens there is no basis for punishment. Until the child knows what is right and wrong, he is conducting research like any good scientist.
So God has given us this setup: A child who loves to learn and a mother who has the potential to be the best teacher her particular child will ever know – two perfect partners in a world perhaps best described by Robert Louis Stevenson:
“The world is so full of a number of things,
I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings”
And what is their classroom?
Quite simply, The World: Whirligig seeds fluttering down from maple branches. Bees buzzing in a thicket of lavender. A salamander slithering from under a rock. A bobwhite’s nest built in the middle of the action. A mother kitten and her babies. Lightning and thunder and sunshine and snow. So many different clouds. Produce aisles. The sights and sounds and smells and textures in the kitchen. The order of a place setting at the table. The mail box and the person who comes each day to fill it. The plumbing problem and the person who visits occasionally to fix it. The grief-stricken family for whom you made dinner.
t seems ridiculous to think we have relegated education to a big building with a bunch of rooms – each room filled with same-age children and one grown-up whose specialty is teaching one grade. And even more absurd that we allow the distraction of TV and video games to undermine the child’s natural sense of wonder at all that reality has to offer.
Do I know that kids gravitate toward the distractions? Well, since I have kids, I certainly do. And something inside us allows it because we ourselves are jaded. How else to explain parents allowing kids to watch a DVD in the backseat rather than looking out the window at the world around them? We’ve forgotten our own innocent delight at the world around us.
If you have young children, now is the time not only to keep pointing your child toward the wonder of the world around him, but to rekindle your own sense of awe.
Later we will discuss how to prepare your home environment to better teach your child. But don’t get stuck in the idea that any particular place you set aside is your child’s classroom.

With you as teacher, the whole world will be his to learn from.
For more information, see my website Mommy, Teach Me! or click on Categories, then Montessori, Preschoolers or Homeschool above. Come back tomorrow for Part Three.
Love,

Photo credit: Lisa (Stretch Mark Mama)’s son decorating the table with nature’s beauty. And below, Lisa’s sons cleaning up a public park.

Once again, Barbara has helped me focus on what is important for my own four children. I’ve been a little stressed thinking that my kids NEED a specific room for homeschooling and after reading this article I realize how wrong I am. With all the rooms in my home and the most important location is our back and side yards! AKA, our newly favorite classroom without walls. This brings back joyous memories of Literature at a Catholic school in Florida. My favorite days (and that of my almost 35 sixth graders) were when we would move our lesson outdoors under the canopy of this wonderful tree. We would “jump-in-read” the next chapter of our favorite book and enjoy the outdoors. What a concept! It was the times when my students paid the most attention, can you believe it?

Although Barbara is referring to preschoolers in this article, I learned through experience in teaching middle schoolers for seven years that they too enjoy the things we normally label as “for smaller children”. One prime example, they love to be read to. Reading under the natural shelter provided by that wonderful tree God created were the happiest and most delightful of my teaching days. I’ve always said that middle schoolers are just little kids in big kids’ bodies. For more neat ideas by this Blogging Mama, please visit her Homeschooling journey: Mommy Life.

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Why homeschool preschool? Part 1

The Best Teacher is Forever

By Contributing Mama Writer: Barbara Curtis

Barbara is a seasoned homeschooling mommy of 12 (yes, twelve blessings), now a grandmother of ten, and a happily married wife. Barbara is a “revert”, she was baptized Catholic then Evangelical for many years and has come back to our beautiful Faith! Barbara and her family are a ” Family-First kind of family.”

It’s that time of year when some of you may be wondering about preschool. There’s so much cultural hype and social pressure – with many states actually considering mandatory preschool – that even moms who love having their kids at home wonder if they’re doing the right thing.

Mothers who could be encouraged to find fulfillment in a very fulfilling calling – after all, isn’t that why people go into teaching?- are instead made to feel inadequate and second-best. It’s disappointing to see a nation denigrate the role of motherhood and to see individual mothers lose confidence in themselves.

Helping to restore that confidence is what my writing is all about. I believe in the power of mothers to launch their children into a lifetime love of learning – as well as good character and strong values. By translating practices from my Montessori teacher training into a philosophy along with specific strategies and activities for the home, I hope to encourage, equip and empower moms so you never feel that you “have” to send your children to preschool for them to have the best.

Believe me, the best is you – especially when you understand a few basic principles that will revolutionize your motherhood and help you find the joy in each day with your children.


Over the next four days, I’m going to run four parts from my book Mommy, Teach Me!: Preparing Your Preschool Child for a Lifetime of Learning. Taken from an introductory chapter “Why Your Preschooler Can Thrive at Home,” these show why learning at home in the preschool years is the best choice of all:

The Best Teacher is Forever

For several years, we’ve enjoyed the special gift of a family of sparrows each spring. In spite of the hustle and bustle and comings and goings of our larger-than-life family, two birds have prepared to welcome the next generation by building a nest right over a lamppost hanging from our garage.

The cycle is fascinating as the eggs are laid and hatched and then Mama and Papa Bird feed their babies until they’re strong enough to fly. The process almost seems over before it’s begun.

And that’s true throughout the animal kingdom, as relatively little time is required for babies to reach adulthood. Animals are born with drives which compel them toward the behavior appropriate to their species: how to hide from enemies, build nests, protect, feed, and care for their young, finally to teach them to run or to fly.

Compare human infants, who take almost a year to walk independently to horses that walk and run within minutes of birth. In the world of animals, the young are helpless for only the briefest period and their own development is governed by instinct. All their instinctual behaviors would be released even if they were kept in a solitary condition.

Not so with humans. We don’t have many instincts. We have potentials which can only be released if certain requirements are met within our environment. Unlike animals, human infants are completely dependent on their parents for many, many years.

Could it be that God had a plan in mind?

I believe so. Throughout centuries and over a wide range of cultures, parents have been their children’s primary teachers in the early years and sometimes longer. Which leads me to believe that since every child has the potential to learn, every parent has the potential to teach.

If this sounds like a radical idea today, it’s only because we’ve established a very compartmentalized model of education which includes the idea that only professionals truly know how to teach.

On the contrary, I believe that any parent with a desire to teach can learn to do it and do it well. So while the not-so-new “news” that the first six years hold the greatest learning potential may cause some parents to send their kids to preschool, there is another, far better alternative – and that is to learn how to be a good teacher yourself.

Just as we moms learned how to care for and feed our babies, we can learn how to care for and feed the developmental needs of our young children. Once you know these “secrets” you will be confident that you are the best teacher your child will ever have.

Because you are, you know. You are the one God created to be fully tuned into your children, to understand their strengths and weaknesses, to love them unconditionally and to be there forever.

No preschool teacher can lay claim to that. A preschool teacher will have numerous other kids to concern herself with. Her time with your child is limited to a certain number of hours per day – how deeply can she understand each individual then? And when the preschool years are over, your child will have to say goodbye and move on. All that part of your child’s life invested in relationship with another temporary stand-in for you.

Many readers of my blog have asked me about preschool. The bottom line for me – as a former teacher who enjoyed the adoration of numerous preschoolers year after year – is this: Why send your child off to fall in love with his teacher when he can learn at home and continue focusing his love and building his trust in you?

The longer the time you share and the greater your investment in these years, the stronger the bond will be when your children are grown. Take it from a 36-year veteran mother who’s launched half her children into adulthood: In a world where teens are facing such great challenges , this bond can make a world of difference in your child’s future.

Notes on the pictures: As I was writing Mommy, Teach Me! and Mommy, Teach Me to Read! I asked readers who’d used my ideas to submit pictures for the books. The picture below is from Aggie, who’d read my very first book Small Beginnings when it was published in 1997 and had incorporated many of my ideas into her three daughters’ preschool years. Here she is, showing her daughter an exercise I described in both Small Beginnings and Mommy, Teach Me! which encourages order, eye-hand coordination, pincer grasp, and concentration.

And here is her daughter, showing the results of her mom’s efforts:

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For more information, see my website Mommy, Teach Me! or click on Categories, then Montessori, Preschoolers or Homeschool above. Come back tomorrow for Part Two.

Love,

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I’ve been following Barbara’s blog for the past couple of weeks and she has brought some perspective to my homeschooling journey. It has been a breath of fresh air for me in moments when I felt so overwhelmed with decisions for my children. To quote her, “that’s what readers can look for from me – something simple, something real, and something with hope in it.” For more neat ideas by this Blogging Mama, please visit her Homeschooling journey: Mommy Life.

Thank you for following Raising (& Teaching) Little Saints! Visit us again soon!

Organizing the Liturgical Year

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By Guest Blogging Mama: Liz

Liz is a homeschooling mommy to four lovely children ages one to eight and a happily married wife. She and her husband have a little baby boy expected to arrive in August of this year. Liz and her family “find daily inspiration in the Holy Family and look to Jesus, Mary and Joseph for guidance.”

One thing I never have done, is organize all the wonderful things you can do throughout the liturgical year. The main problem is that by the time I realize a feast day is coming up, I don’t have enough time to look for celebratory ideas, gather craft supplies, and have everything ready for the kids to do. After realizing that celebrating the liturgical year is very important to me and my family, I’ve decided to do something that will hopefully simplify my life in this aspect as well as make it easy for me to do activities.

My first step in creating a system was to GOOGLE!! If you look up “organizing the liturgical year,” I guarantee that you won’t get a lot of good sites. But I did stumble upon some excellent ideas from other Catholic bloggers, like myself!

My first visit was to By Sun and Candlelight. She has a great file folder system set up for all her homeschool, household, and liturgical needs. I like that she uses a crate because of the openness of it…easy to put stuff in and take stuff out. I tend to ignore our filing cabinet and only keep things in there that I don’t really use frequently (think copies of birth certificates and old tax returns).

Another great post to check out for organizational ideas is Catholic Mom’s Journey. She was also inspired by the file folder system (above) and tweaked it so that it worked for her. I like that she divides her system into 12 folders, one for each month of the year. She further divides each monthly folder into 5 separate folders, one for each week of the month.

Finally I visited Wildflowers and Marbles where Jen not only has FABULOUS pictures of her school room, but she also briefly mentions her liturgical organization. She divides each month into two. Each monthly folder holds two separate folders: one for liturgical plans and the other for seasonal plans.

After trying to decide what was going to work for me, I decided that Jen has the most simple and user friendly system. So in order to get my own act together, I went out and got supplies to start organizing my own liturgical year. Here is what I did.

1. Purchase a file box for the files (I need something with a lid in order to keep little hands out!).
2. Label 12 hanging files, one for each month.
3. Label 2 folders for each month. One for seasonal plans and the other for liturgical plans.
4. Label 3 additional hanging files for the liturgical seasons of Advent/Christmas, Lent, and Easter.

To clarify what I would put in the folders:

  • The seasonal folders would include things not associated with the liturgical calendar. Holidays such as 4th of July, MLK Day, Father’s Day, etc.
  • The folder holding liturgical plans might include holy cards for that month’s feast days, instructions to crafts, prayers, coloring pages, book lists, etc.
  • Liturgical season folders would also hold things that just mesh from one month to another, like Advent activities.

I hope this sheds some light on organizing your own faith filled year!! It took me about 20 minutes to put this simple system together once I had all my supplies ready. It was mostly using my label machine that took me longest.

For more neat ideas by this Blogging Mama, please visit her Homeschooling journey: Holy Family Classical Academy.

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Looking for a Few Good Blogging Catholic Mamas


We thank the Lord that we are rapidly getting this blog going (with the help of my “tech guy” AKA my DH). In the meantime, we are in need of, and are looking for, a few good blogging Catholic mamas who would be interested in posting great ideas on any of the Menu topics above. If you have already posted something on your own blog or wish to write about something new and innovative you have tried and tested at home with your children, please contact us at raisinglittlesaints@gmail.com. Your blog will also be listed on our homepage as well as part of your article submission! (You help us, we help you!)

We welcome all Catholic Mamas (seasoned and new) that homeschool. Happy blogging!


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Curriculum: Catholic, Christian, or Secular? Which Route to take?

There are so many programs or texts to choose from out there: Secular, Christian, Catholic, which to choose? Many Catholic authors (and experienced homeschooling moms) believe that if you are Catholic and homeschooling, you should NOT use Christian material as they sometimes have text that directly attacks the Catholic Church and it’s history. I’ve seen it first hand in a History book for 6th grade published by A Beka (a Christian publisher). The problem with secular books (of which MANY Catholic Parochial schools use these days) is that they bring in too many outside world views. Many times VERY contradictory to the teachings of the Bible and Jesus Christ as well as the Catholic Church (one in the same). The BEST route is to use a Catholic text. Unfortunately, there are slim pickings when it comes to this because of the decline in Catholic Publishers for children.

This author suggests that if you can’t find Catholic books to use, you should use Christian books and then supplement the Catholic perspective/component instead of using a Protestant text. What are your views on this? Do you think it is safe to use secular books? Do you think it is better to go secular than to go Christian? Also, do you recommend a Catholic Publisher which you have had a good experience with (price, quality, etc.). Give us your two cents! In Christ,

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