Double Review - Providence eLearning Digital Publications: Pride and Prejudice & Frankenstein

I'm behind in posting, but more importantly I am behind in my reviews. 

For the record, I am paid to review books from Providence eLearning.  However, I am under no obligation to review them here.  I do that for your benefit.  And, I think they are a valuable asset to the homeschool, high school teen. 

Being well-read means, to me, that you have read the Classics.  You know, those books that have been read over and over again, year in and year out - that's a classic. And, it you can tie technology into it, well then, I'm all in!

Last September, I had the privilege of reviewing Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.  I think this story has a bad rap, thanks to the movie industry. The only movie close to the story is from 1931.  And it missed the mark.  Frankenstein is a monster (in size) book and it took a while to review.  While I was not thrilled with their choice of having a woman narrate (in the audio narration) this amazing story of a man, writing about a man found, in search of a man made, running from humanity.  This is a masculine story, and I will be honest, this was my ONLY disappointment about this book.  I learned so much, from a literary perspective - about the author, the time period in which this classic was written and literature itself.  Professor Lasseter has a great way of tying old literature in with the modern world.  The video production work was very well done, too.  I highly recommend that all BOYS read this.  Girls could learn a thing or two, too, like this girl did.

Next, in March, I had the glorious pleasure of rereading and reviewing one of my very favorite books, Pride and Prejudice.  The audio narration was SPLENDID!!!  The narrator dramatized the reading, changing voices for the various characters and had an English accent, just as I would have expected.  It felt like Jane Austen was reading the book to me as she would have read it.  Again, Professor Lasseter did a most excellent job of bringing to the surface much of what is not spoken in the book.  Really, after reading this book as many times as I had in the past, you would think I had it all figured out.  He brought several things to bear I had missed in the past.  All I can say is Bravo!

I really wish there was more material available of this caliber.  I just finished reviewing Le Morte d'Arthur, my husband's very favorite book.  It was spectacular.  They abridged the book, in way very pleasing to this homeschool mom.  I will follow up later with a review of that...stay tuned.

CVBS 2013

It is finished.  It was great and I can't believe how much fun it was!

On Saturday,  April 13th, after obtaining the blessing of my husband, I approached our priest about Catholic Vacation Bible School. You see, Catholic Vacation Bible School is a big deal at our house.  My kids think it's cool to go to "school" at the Catholic school building for a week.  And, what's not to love about our Catholic Vacation Bible School?  Ours is so beautifully Catholic.  For as long as we've been parishioners, CVBS was run by a truly beautiful woman.  Jean became ill last year and went on permanent disability, much to everyone's sadness.  She.was.AMAZING!  A beautiful woman filled in for her managing the Religious Education program at church, but when I asked her, "What about CVBS?"  She said they would need to find someone else.  She wouldn't be able to do it...then she asked, "What about you?"

She said this within earshot of someone who knew I loved the program and she chimed in, "Yeah, Cathie, what about you?"  I said my husband would never let me...So, I went home.  I didn't ask. I simply said, "They have no one to run CVBS this year!"  His reply, "Why don't you do it?" 

I was floored.  I did not expect him to authorize it, let alone suggest it!  So, I asked Father if they had anyone to run it.  He said they did not and asked me to call the parish office and let them know and someone would be getting back to me.  Without Jean there was a big, big hole there, not just for CVBS, but for Religious Ed, Sacraments and Special Events. 

So, I called.  And I waited.  And waited. And waited.  Finally, I got a call back on April 25th from the principal of the Catholic school.  She had offered to manage the CVBS position, whomever filled it.  I went in for an interview on May 1st and on May 8th, I became a temporary employee of the church. 

That is when the ball got rolling.  I had 6 1/2 weeks to put together a curriculum (using a curriculum that really didn't have a workbook or full teacher's manual), plan art, music, snacks, and well, the entire program based on the fact that Father had arranged for a traveling relics exposition to be shown to the children at 1pm on the last day of CVBS.  Someone else had decorations, which was a blessing, considering I'm not a highly visual person.  However, I had details Jean had never had to deal with before, like serving lunch and going past noon on Friday.  So, I picked a curriculum that was based on the martyrs and persecution in the early Church (I had two from which to choose).  It seemed fitting, considering what our country is doing right now and how our religious freedoms are being taken away left and right.

So, fast forward five weeks...the curriculum and workbook are done, the teacher's manual is done, all the supplies for art had arrived.  However, my decorating person wasn't able to help, so I ended up taking that, too, but in the end it ended alright.  We managed to make it look festive, but not too campy.  I did teacher training, I had no less than 50 people help me set up classrooms, stuff confirmation letters, assemble manuals, put together art kits, assemble teacher's supplies and decorate.  Did I mention I have the very best friends in the whole wide world????  One of them blogged about CVBS the week it happened because I was a little busy.

This is Margaret's beautiful bunch of kids in front of our "Communion of Saints."  She ran my nursery, which meant she took care of my beloved 4 year old who wasn't quite ready for the 4 year old class.  By the way, her eldest two took on the 4 year old class and lived to tell about it!  See, they are even smiling? And this was toward the end!

I had the time of my life.  It was truly a wonderful experience, filled with graces I never expected and some difficulties I never expected.  But the blessings and graces outweighed the difficulties easily 2 to 1...

I may post more details as the week goes on, but I wanted to let you all know I survived and loved to tell about it!!! (Spelling error totally intended there...)

Live Blogging at the MN Catholic Home Educators Conference

We are  at the blogger's chat at Minnesota Catholic Home Educator's Conference.  What a great turn out!

In Praise of the Blogger Mobile App and iOS 6.x

I wanted to take just a few minutes to tell you how impressed I am with the Blogger Mobile App and iOS 6.X using my iPhone.  I created the last blog post in about two minutes using the camera on my iPhone, Siri and the Blogger Mobile App.  This is a great opportunity for people that have special needs to use technology to be able to communicate to the rest of the world.  So easy, so powerful!
And I dictated both blog posts, then edited with the keyboard.

Games For Learning

My daughter and I took a trip to the Dollar Store to see what we could get inexpensively to make games. We love making games at our house and my daughter is the chief maker. Enjoy our little video visit.

Here is our local store. We found almost every supply we needed from poster board to stickers, page protectors to markers!  They also had flash cards, workbooks to use for designs and coloring books.

So if you come to my workshop expect to here the praises of the Dollar Store and I will show some more pictures. I promise!

Short Blog Vacation

Folks, pray for me.  I volunteered to take on our church's Catholic Vacation Bible School program which usually has 200+ participants and 40+ volunteers.  It takes place in less than two months and I need to get things organized.

And, I am preparing for the Minnesota Catholic Home Educator's Conference where I will be giving my Beginning Homeschool talk and my Games for Learning talk.  I will also be facilitating the Special Needs discussion.

My dance card is full at the moment, so I will have to declare a blog vacation for a short time.  I will be back when I can come up for air!

God bless you all!

Catholic Readers

Brand new - Old books!

Folks, it has come to my attention that I have been disappointing my audiences with a lack of good CATHOLIC material.  I intend to correct that situation immediately!

I have been pouring over the free books at books.google.com and have found a wealth of Catholic school books!  I think one of the most exciting finds is that there are ENTIRE series of readers available from Primer level to Fifth level (middle school).  They are FREE.  They are Catholic.  What more could you ask?  Because they are public domain, you can download them and then print them (have you ever seen FinePrint?) OR read them on your tablet or PC. 

The three I recommend are:
Young Catholic's Illustrated Readers by the Catholic Publication Society
The Ideal Catholic Readers by Sister Mary Domitilla
Standard Catholic Readers by Mary E. Doyle

They are filled with virtue stories, biographies of Bishops, Saints and Martyrs, science and history.  Enjoy!