books and materials for Christian schools and homeschools
I happened upon this blog a few days ago–by Dr. Jay Wile, a PhD in nuclear chemistry and a Christian. I loved what he had to share about his first time speaking on worldviews at a homeschooling convention. He started off saying that he’d never been around homeschoolers much before and then continued– Continue reading
Halloween: Spunky Monks, Vampires, and the ReformationI post this article each year for my online students. Here it is again. Hope you enjoy!
To understand Halloween, first you need to know about a Catholic holiday–or holy day–that is still celebrated today by Catholics (and some other churches) around the world. It is called All Saints Day. At one time, almost all Christians were members of a single church, the Catholic Church, which was the only Christian Church in all of western Europe for over one thousand years. Continue reading
Read Baktar for Halloween!One of my books is a kind of crazy story within a story about a black cat called Tar who actually turns out to be more than just a cat. And it’s also about Baktar, ancestor of Tar, who lived among the ancient Incas. Baktar, A Tale From the Andes makes an excellent early chapter book for young children, say 7 or 8 and up, and it’s especially suited to Halloween. You’ve got the black cat first of all, and the mystery about Tar and who or what he really is, then a mystery in the Inca story as well, a suspicious character, attempted murder, and cloud-shrouded Machu Picchu. Continue reading
I have recently been reading one or two of the original Grimm brothers’ fairy tales every morning with my coffee. A friend loaned me a beautiful hardback edition to which Maurice Sendak contributed his always imaginative and delightful illustrations. The book is called The Juniper Tree and Other Tales From Grimm. But you can find the Grimms’ stories for free now online as well (see below). Continue reading
This You Tube video deals with the effect of certain kinds of praise on kids. Is it best to praise a child’s effort or his intelligence–and does it even matter? In the book Nurture Shock: New Thinking about Children, the authors report on a very similar experiment Continue reading
