The Digital Catholic Library is tool I created to help students, teachers, authors, writers, Christians and Catholics in general - and homeschoolers - to get access to the books we all ought to have and read, but probably cannot afford.

The following video explains how to use the Digital Catholic Library to print your own Catholic books, and use the unique ebook features:

Knowledge Quest is offering a free download of their 80-page “Star-Spangled State Book.”

Enclosed is a coupon for $5 off the printed edition, and they also offer a workbook which can allow you to use the set as a full-year US Geography curriculum.

Technorati Tags: free book, free curriculum, homeschool, geography

I heard an relevant proverb yesterday regarding fatherhood and teaching. It’s an old English proverb:

One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters.

My wife and I have had interesting conversations with a pool monitor at our community pool. I guess coming in with 5 kids aged 7 and under is rather conspicuous. And this particular pool monitor is a substitute teacher.

The pool monitor (I’ll refer to her as “Peggy” as in that laughable TV substitute, Peggy Hill) mentioned that we should move to Kalamazoo, MI due to the city’s offer of free college tuition to students who attend public school there K-12. I said we had heard of it, but would rather stay near Grand Rapids anyway. She insisted 2 or three time more that we should do it, so finally I just told her we homeschooled.

“Oh,” she said. “Well I teach in public schools so I believe in the public schools.”

From that point on, we couldn’t get Peggy off our case. When my wife took my daughter to the bathroom, she even followed her in! Well I don’t remember all of her questions and challenges, I do remember he asking my wife how she could handle so many children.

“How many children are there per teacher in the schools?” my wife asked.

“Thirty,” replied Peggy.

“Well, I have fewer children to watch than a teacher.” My wife answered.

Peggy, for a moment at least, was speechless.

Technorati Tags: homeschool, public school, homeschool questions

It’s been a while since I posted - there’s been a lot going on in the Nowak household.

Three months after we arrived at our new home, we’ve unpacked everything. The last remaining boxes have been the kid’s clothes to grow into. In fact, most of our storage is full of plastic tubs that have the kids’ clothes for the next 2-3 years. Twice a year we switch out the winter clothes for summer and vice versa, although the process can take several days and leaves parts of the house a disaster in the process.

The benefit of this method is that we don’t have to buy clothes for our kids. We take any hand-me-downs, cast-off or, well, any clothes that are given to us and file away what might be used in the near future and pass on the rest. Thus, if you were to calculate how much we save by doing this, its worth a few days’ work to switch out the wardrobes.

Clothes aren’t the only things we’re purging though. I’m re-centering R.A.G.E. Media around the core business - creating content - and that means a lot of purging of ventures that didn’t pan out or were taking me too far from doing what I believe to be my vocation. It’s been a full year since I wrote The Way of the Christian Samurai, and I need to get moving on new books and offerings.

It’s amazing how clutter - from papers to clothing to “things” to activities - can really drag you down without you realizing it.