Catholic Homeschool Support

I have a week long free trial to GoTrybe. It costs $30 / year and you could have a membership for each child, but the representative at the booth said one per family is enough.

Now, I have to say on one of the banners last week, they talked about STDs – not graphic, but it was a bit disconcerting.

Anyway, what is so unique is you get to build a workout – you have a 3 minute warm up section and 38 different video clips to choose from, then you have 3 cardio sections to fill for 10 minutes total, then there is a strength section (8-12 minutes), and finally a flexibility section (3 minutes). The warm up and cardio video clips include just basic cardio, cardio groove, hiphop, kickboxing, and sports drills. The strength training section has some videos that include basic weight training, and finally the flexibility has basic flexibility and about 10 yoga clips – none seem inappropriate or spiritual.

When you complete the workout, you get points that are redeemable for online javascript games (kind of a funny connection) but you have to have loads of points before you can “buy” a game. There are also motivation videos (some baseball team members give short talks about eating and training), nutrition tips with a one or two question quiz, and wellness video clips.

The people on the video range from young adults who lead the moves, to gawky teens that don’t do the moves perfectly – so my guys all fit.

Downside – the video clips don’t have any information about what the workout is other than the title such as Cardio Groove- so you don’t know if the strength training clip needs weights until you start it. I am just keeping a log of what clips we like. Next downside, you can’t “save” your preferred workout – so every day you have to go rebuild it again.

How to make it work better? Well, my laptop has an S-Video out plug, so I was able to route the video out to the TV screen. There was  a bit of a learning curve to figure out how to make the TV display the laptop screen’s content. Basically, for my graphic card, I had to make a clone, but each card’s software is a bit different. That enabled us to do the videos in the living room with enough room for everyone to have a spot. I also connected up a set of USB speakers to the laptop to have the sound louder since my laptop does not have a sound out to 5.1 audio. I do not know if there is a cable to take the headphones out jack to the sound input for my TV.

You should see my crew in the morning doing kickboxing – my 4th grade loves the aggressive nature and I think it moves out some of the pent up energy. We do one workout as a family, but as long as you don’t care who gets the points, each child could design and do their own workout.

I think this would be an easy way to add physical education to our daily program and I joined last week.

So, I am swamped with getting kids back in the routine of school. We are completing our third week using Mother of Divine Grace and we even enrolled this year. I am still waiting to see how that will all work out. But, I did want to give you a heads up of what items I am in the process of reviewing.

First up is a high school economics program – Reclaiming Social Justice: Teaching the Catholic Way of Economic Thinking. I apologize, but I do not have the website link at this moment.

Next up is a review of www.faithdatabase.com. I heard a commercial about the database on EWTN and was intrigued by the idea, so I am thrilled to actually get to review it. I think this will be a great resource for apologetics, bible studies and to enhance our catechetical programs.

Finally, I am working on a review of the catechetical materials from The Apostolate for Family Consecration (also refered to as Catholic Familyland). I am very impressed with the chapters I have done so far with my school age children. The authors use visual imagery that makes the discussions very accessible and tangible to children. I am not sure I can use the program totally as designed, but the discussions we have had so far are deep. It definitely is not a program that you can send your child off to work on. In fact, I returned the student texts because they were merely worksheets to complete after a teacher presented the lesson. A fantastic, economical feature is that you can download and burn a DVD of Cardinal Arinze discussing each of the catechism questions and answers and that is keyed to the catechetical material. And, you can also download the 2 volume, “Apostolate’s Family Catechism” for free too.

At mass this evening, the Gospel reading was Mt 14:13-21:

When Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist,
he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself.
The crowds heard of this and followed him on foot from their towns.
When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd,
his heart was moved with pity for them, and he cured their sick.
When it was evening, the disciples approached him and said,
“This is a deserted place and it is already late;
dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages
and buy food for themselves.”
Jesus said to them, “There is no need for them to go away;
give them some food yourselves.”
But they said to him,
“Five loaves and two fish are all we have here.”
Then he said, “Bring them here to me, ”
and he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass.
Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven,
he said the blessing, broke the loaves,
and gave them to the disciples,
who in turn gave them to the crowds.
They all ate and were satisfied,
and they picked up the fragments left over—
twelve wicker baskets full.
Those who ate were about five thousand men,
not counting women and children.

During our pastor’s homily, he began discussing how God can take our efforts and multiply the effects through grace. Now, I have to say it was quite amazing that I even heard that line and even more amazing that I was able to remember it!

I was struck by the fact that as a homeschooling parent, I want very much to believe that God will take my desire and my hard work to educate and catechize my children and greatly multiply the effect. Often at the end of the day as I reflect, I realize that I let a ball or two drop – not realizing it at the time.

Sometimes, if I am being quite honest, we do not get through all the religion lessons, and we are sorely behind in Baltimore Catechism memorization. I wonder what they can possibly get from Mass when what they see is a stressed and harried mother shepherding her gaggle of children and paying more attention to a little one who is nearly tearing pages out of the missal or climbing under the pew.

But, I am somewhat reassured – not complacent though – that God must be filling in some of the more gaping holes that I leave behind. I have children that say their prayers each evening even when I am not with them (and that is most evenings). They seem to have a close relationship with Mary and their guardian angels – not because I have been a stellar teacher or example, but – perhaps because God has multiplied my meager efforts. I can only hope that He does the same with grammar lessons and math.

I am in a conflicted place right now – excited about the upcoming year – new books, new subjects – and – fearful with high school one year off. I see the deficits in their education – some because I a few children have some issues with dyslexia, but most of the deficits are due to my inability to juggle all the balls. So, my prayer this year is that God takes my sincere desire and my intent to work hard and helps me educate them, multiplying my efforts like Jesus did with the loaves of bread and fish.

God bless you and keep you as you begin this new school year.