Non Nobis Domine

Our entire family is enjoying the children's Latin choir, even though John is the only official participant (the choir director preferring children be seven years old before starting).

Reasons I find this activity to be excellent for homeschooling families:

1. we meet only one morning per week and only during the summer; 
2. practice lasts only half hour per age group;
3. the meeting facility (a private home with a large, safe back yard) is very friendly to those with many children in tow;
4. the activity is open to participation by children ages 7 through high-school: homeschoolers look for activities that are done by the entire family, not activities that split everyone apart on different schedules;
5. all children are welcome to participate, which fosters inclusion, but there is a sub-set of the choir open by try-outs only, which fosters excellence;
6. the fee is all of $5 for materials, yet we are being taught by a professional singer who is now a homeschooling mother;
7. the children are being exposed to refined culture--hard to come by in this day and age!
8. and the participants are expected to exhibit good behavior and self-control.

The year will end with the children giving three performances: at a Mass, at a performance at the cathedral, and at the Eucharistic Congress.

Meanwhile, Latin hymns abound in our home! How endearing is to have a two-year-old singing Veni Amor Jesu all the time? The only "discipline" problem we are having is that the children are belting out these songs so often during the day, including when they shouldn't be singing (like at the dinner table or when the baby is napping). That's my kind of "problem"!

The other day we were driving somewhere and the three children spontaneously began singing Non Nobis Domine together--three voices, singing in unison, being cooperative, and praising God. Frankly, it brought tears to my eyes. (Good tears, not those dreadful tears of frustration that are all-too familiar to a homeschooling mother.)

So, I captured a couple of video clips of one of their songs . . . Too bad I can't film them truly singing with abandon, which they do only when they aren't being observed.



They start kneeling in the above video only because I knelt to get a better angle and they thought they were supposed to copy me.