Catholic Home School Conference 2010

This weekend we went to the fourth annual Catholic Homeschooling Conference in Georgia. I forgot my camera, so you will just have to trust me that there were many lovely moments when the kids were playing with their aunt, uncle, cousins, and grandparents--including a marshmallow cookout and making of s'mores in the back yard. And you'll miss photographic evidence that Mary got one heck of a shiner (first purple, then black, now green) when she tripped and fell into the metal bed frame.

The conference was informative, inspiring, and invigorating for me. I came away feeling full of idealism and pragmatic ideas, ready to take on the world--or at least the little patch of the world that is our home! I got to see friends and friendly acquaintances, plus meet educators and mothers whom I admire. There were at least three sessions about which I thought that if I went to nothing other than that session, it would have been worthwhile to travel to the event.

Upon arriving home, I reorganized my school shelves in the kitchen. The books from right to left are general home schooling books for the parent (reasons to home school, schools of philosophy, methods, domestic liturgy), curriculum books for preschoolers and kindergartners (poetry, easy readers, books of saints), and books of music (lyrics of traditional hymns, patriotic songs of Americana, and folk music). After I read through the stack of my newly acquired books from the conference weekend, I will incorporate them into my bookshelf!

Now I am left with the delightful but brain-twisting task to try to decide which curriculum I want to try when John starts school officially in two or three years (age 4-3/4 or age 5-3/4). I am deeply attracted to the Classical Method, which would make me lean toward using Mother of Divine Grace or Kolbe (the latter of which has an Ignatian bent, which I like). However, I am also very drawn toward the traditional Catholicism embodied by Our Lady of Victory School, which is a traditional program. (In fact, as I was looking over the curriculum for OLVS, I realized that unintentionally I have already purchased over the last year or two half of the books required for Kindergarten! My heart is really drawn to the culture of the program.) As Chris said to me, and what most parents do, "why don't you just mix and match for a few years?"