Visitors from Long Island This Summer

Harvey, me, Sona, Andrea, and Ash Noah

Andrea Noah riding Piney

Sona Noah making us an authentic Indian meal of chicken curry and Rajmah with chapatti.

Flattening out the chapatti

Posted in About Our Family | 2 Comments »

My Mommy

Rebekah Joan Masloske reading one of her favorite books.

Posted in Traveling Books | 1 Comment »

The Trivium Helps Troubled Children

My husband and I were providentially brought to your website about 4 years ago, when our daughter was three years old, and we have been happily classically/eclectically educating our daughter since then. Teaching the Trivium and Hand That Rocks the Cradle have probably been our best and most enjoyable resources to date.

About 1 1/2 years ago, we became a foster family for two little girls, ages 6 and 3. Briefly, they came to us in a pretty bad way - first from parents who did not take care of them at all, and then from living six months in the foster system (i.e. sat in front of a TV for hours a day in different homes). They both had speech problems (the only consonants being d, t, and w), and the 6-year-old could not even count to 10. I need not add they had very short attention spans. There was talk about diagnosing them with learning and attention disorders.

Enter, a Zero Television policy, read-aloud classic literature, TATRAS, Math-U-See, and much prayer. The little girls are doing so well the state is allowing us to homeschool them this year (truly a miracle). In less than a year their speech problems have completely disappeared, their attention spans are terrific, and their (mostly informal) math skills are great. Oh, and it must be stated, that learning first-time obedience was at the top of the chart when they came into our home (thank you, Laurie, for suggesting The Mother at Home some years ago).

We want to thank you for all the information you provided on your site. We wanted to let people know also that these methods helped two really troubled children, when “professionals” had decided they couldn’t be helped without extensive therapy and medication.

We are humbled, and grateful to God to be a part of this process.

– A Reader

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New Classical Education Forum — In Spanish

The new forum is called Educación Clásica Cristiana en Casa‎ and can be found at The Classical Mommy web site.

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Translation Contest?

No one has guessed the correct answer to the translation contest yet.

And we still don’t have a winner in the last newsletter contest.

Posted in Contests | 3 Comments »

Homeschool Freebie of the Day

We again want to recommend the Erskine family’s Homeschool Freebie Of The Day site to you. The Erskines continue to offer an outstanding and often unique assortment of homeschool resources each weekday - completely free of charge. Just this past week, their “freebies” included an audio essay by Benjamin Franklin on life lessons learned from playing chess; an ebook on what to do when daughters don’t want to help in the kitchen; modest sewing tips; an emergency preparation guide for families; and a 12 lesson learning guide to the book “Treasure Island”! As you can tell, they have a very eclectic selection of resources, with something for just about everyone - whether you are homeschooling or not. The site will be featuring one of our resources this week, so be sure to stop by and pick that up as well as the other resources they are making available.

Posted in News | 2 Comments »

Congressman Ron Paul gives us his thoughts on the failure of the bailout bill just minutes after leaving the floor…

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Chicago Custom Knife Show

Kyle Royer with knife collector, Paul Kessler, at the Chicago Custom Knife Show

Sold, $1,250

Sold, $900

Kyle Royer looking for stag and mammoth ivory handle material

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Birthday Today

Hey, look at our new baby!

Helena and Daddy

In Erie, 1984

Grabbing Daddy’s ink pen

New bonnets

OK, I’ll comb your hair now, Helena, if you promise to comb my hair when I’m old.

The never-ending game of dolls

Helena standing next to the current science fair projects

History Fair

If you need anything ironed, give it to Helena. She loves to iron.

Lilia Wilson’s piano recital

Mercer County 4-H Fair judging

Primitive Civil War ball costumes

Helena wins a ribbon at the fair for her black cape

The blue dress

Keithsburg, Illinois pine forest

One of Helena’s quilts for her hope chest

Ribbon embroidery

Helena’s first pet, Gwennie.

Insertion lace

1914 Afternoon Dress

Ball Gown

Day Dress

White water rafting in Colorado

Unidentified people at New Year’s Eve party

She needed this….

…to go here.

Playing guitar with her teacher

Drawn-thread work

With friend Emily

Helena’s little helper, Ronnie

Posted in About Our Family | 11 Comments »

Latin Translation Contest

The first person who can translate this Latin phrase and tell me which kind of Latin it is (classical, ecclesiastical, etc.) wins a copy of the book The Lord Builds the House by Johannah Stanford.

Abeashe Orpusce

Email me at bluedorn AT triviumpursuit DOT com

Posted in Contests | 7 Comments »