Homeschooling Archives - Catholic Blogger Network

Adventure for Faith, Hope and Charity

Posted:November 9, 2015 by Virginia Lieto

Adventure it was for Faith, Hope and Charity Livingstone (my three main characters in my new book) as the girls made their debut visit at a book signing this past weekend. My husband and I had a blast meeting people from all walks of life at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church’s World Feast. The weather wasn’t very cooperative, (lots of rain) and thusly, attendance was down, but that didn’t stop the festivities. There was great food, games and entertainment for one and all – a true family entertainment experience. We had an open house for our new parish office building too! Lots going on.

I was so blessed to be… Read more…

Super Saints:Kid-magnet quizzing cards and a #Giveaway chock full of Saints!

Posted:August 15, 2015August 15, 2015 by Monica McConkey

Announcing the #SuperSaints #TinySaints #Giveaway! There is still time to enter for your chance to win $100 in SAINTS prizes! Check out the Giveaway over at Equipping Catholic Families

The #Giveaway ends August 20th at 11pm!

The #Giveaway celebrates the release of the Super Saints Cathletics Craft Kit available only at Equipping Catholic Families! It includes ALL 54 Saints cards featuring Kelly Saints and quick fun, quantifiable and comparable facts! Play Super Saints Showdown (Top Trumps), Super Saints Stats, Memory or Go Fish! with your own sets of cards, printable at home or at your friendly Staples.

Holding out for the Ready-to-Play printed decks?

Check out our Project: Super Saints and consider helping us get these printed in time for World Meeting of Families! We appreciate it!

Check out our own Super Saints Video with a Behind-the-Scenes look at the creation of these cards with the help of our own in-house artist, 16 year old Kelly!

Feast of St Patrick – A Liturgical Playdate

Posted:March 17, 2015 by Nicole Ernest

One thing that I LOVE about blogging is the community that it forms and the amazing resources that it provides! It is so easy to get almost intimidated when you enter the world of Catholic blogs or Pinterest, but the great thing that I have learned is that everyone is different and we do not need to do things the way other people do things. More than that, we may not even called to do those things! We are called to live our vocations to the best of our ability, and to do for our families what is best for their individual needs. Keeping that in mind I try to use this community to praise others for the amazing, inspiring things that they are doing, support them during times of need and take little pieces here and there that I can apply to my life and vocations.

A favorite blogger of mine has always been Kendra Tierney from Catholic All Year! She is a Catholic homeschooling momma of 7 children (soon to be 8) who in the most down to earth, realistic way talks about how they live their life and live the liturgical year. One thing that she recently talked about was creating Liturgical Playdates, calling it Liturgical Living for Beginners (Yup, that’s Me!!) If you know me in real life you would know that I am not much of the hostess, and I am really good at the basics. Either way, I decided to give it a go and throw a St Patrick’s Feast Day Liturgical Playdate. I invited 3 other homeschool moms who are dear friends of mine and with their children and mine there was a total of 11 children for a morning of fun and learning.

Head on over to Children of the Church Blog to see what we did!

Stations of the Cross with Children

Posted:March 12, 2015March 12, 2015 by Nicole Ernest

I know that during Lent and the Easter season that the main thing that I want our children to learn and understand is that God loves us so much that he sent his one and only son Jesus to live in this sinful world and that he then died on the cross for each and every one of us! In order to understand this, we choose to share the Passion of Jesus with our children (even at a young age) and answer honestly what questions they have.

Most Catholic Churches during Lent pray the Stations of the Cross every Friday remembering the Passion of Christ. Usually these services are held in the late evening which means we are not able to go as a family due to little ones bedtime. We think it is very important for our children to learn the Stations of the Cross and hear the story so we are making opportunities for our children to learn in other ways including:

Praying at Home
Teaching with Engaging Resources
Praying within the Community

Praying at Home

How can you learn about and pray the Stations of the Cross with your family even if you cannot go to the scheduled time at church? How can you make time and space for your family for this special meditation during Lent?

Continue Reading at Children of the Church Blog

Teaching Our Children to Pray

Posted:March 2, 2015March 2, 2015 by Nicole Ernest

During Lent we are taking time as a part of our homeschooling to focus on the three areas of Lenten focus: Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving. The first area that we have been focusing on is PRAYER!

First of all, at the beginning of Lent we all learned The Lent Song from Catholic Icing. We love it because it was easy to learn and explains the meaning of Lent in easy ways for kids to understand!

“Prayer, Fasting, and Alms Giving,

We are meant, to repent.

40 days of sacrifice,

Being super, extra nice,

This is Lent. This is Lent.”

(Sung to the tune of Frere Jacques)

Our Regular Prayer Schedule is woven within our homeschool and daily schedule. It usually looks like this:

Morning:
- Mom: Daily Readings, Spiritual Reading and Journaling (Usually about 30 minutes, hopefully before the kids wake up!)
- Family: Morning Offering and Learning about the Saint of the Day (usually at the breakfast table)
Afternoon:
- Angelus at Lunch Time
- Decade of the Rosary with Holy Heroes CD’s after Homeschool and Nap Time
Meal Times:
- Prayer Before and After meals
Evening/Bedtime:
- Our Father/Hail Mary/Glory Be
- Prayers of Intention
- We are also adding the Daily Examen and Learning the Act of Contrition

Continue reading more HERE!

Nicole Ernest is loving living out her vocations as a Catholic wife and mother. Nicole resides in Nebraska with her husband and their lovable, energy filled boys. Nicole shares about living the liturgical year, homeschooling and marriage/ family life at her blog Children of the Church. Nicole is thrilled to be a part of Catholic Blogger Network!