by Dr. Mary Kay Clark
Director, Seton Home Study School

I will be starting home schooling this September. What is the most useful tip you could give me?

The most important thing to remember is to stay in prayer and to keep your children saying their daily prayers. With your children, go to Mass daily and go to confession at least every other week.

The second best tip I could give is to be organized and disciplined. This means you need to be organized and disciplined in two areas: your home schooling and your home.

The best way to stay organized, to maintain order on a continual basis, is to have your children be a part of the process.

Home schooling moms are in charge of an active home schooling enterprise. This enterprise needs plenty of helping hands, young hands and older hands. You need to make schedules for each child: when they do religion, when they do math, when they sweep the floor, when they put on the laundry, and so on. You can google “Chore Charts” and see the list of chores that are recommended for children.

Don’t feel that you are putting too much burden on your children by having them do chores. These days, not having enough chores is probably a bigger problem than too many chores. During World War II, families had Victory Gardens to produce food for the family. Schools actually sent teachers out to the homes to evaluate the Victory Gardens the children themselves planted. Children can and are willing to help if they are challenged.

There is less housework with fewer toys and fewer clothes. Don’t allow such things all over the floor and furniture. Children must be taught to keep things in their proper place on a continuing basis, not just once a day. You cannot teach if you are feeling stressed. If things look chaotic, you will feel stressed. Teach your children to keep their things in order. This includes their school materials as well as their clothes and toys.

Make sure each child has his own place of study and his own place where he keeps his books, notebooks, pens and pencils, and any other study materials. Some families have bookcases, some have those large color plastic baskets.

When your materials come, take a full week to look over the books, the tests, the lesson plans, and where the answer keys are located before you start teaching. The children are usually anxious to start school. Tell them to work on their map workbooks or start reading for a book report while they are waiting for you to organize your days.

How do you manage breakfast and lunch during a busy school day?

Anyone who is old enough should be responsible for helping to fix the meals. Anyone younger may be able to do something, such as help set the table.

Use paper plates and paper bowls whenever possible. You can just throw them away later.

Have only enough drinking cups, mugs, or glasses as the number of people in your family. Each person can have his/her name on a glass or mug.

Serve only food that does not fall to the floor. Scrambled eggs and toast, or pancakes, are less likely to end up on the floor than any and all cereals! Soup and some sandwiches can be contained on the table, unlike any and all chips and munchy food. Water and milk are easier to clean up than any and all soda pop.

What are the courses I must teach my elementary students every day?

The most important subjects are religion, math, reading and writing, especially sentence or paragraph writing. The second most important are English, phonics (at the lower grades), vocabulary, and spelling; then history and science. Art and music you really hardly need to teach; it comes naturally to most children. However, you should consider music lessons, for at least the oldest child who can come home and teach a younger child. Playing any musical instrument at least 20 minutes a day can help improve all learning processes, especially math and English.

Seton has just invested in some self-taught music programs using a keyboard with a computer. It is not the best way to learn, but given the economic situation, it may be the only option for many people. Check our website for the Children’s Music Journey.

For several years, Seton has been selling a self-taught art program written by Ginger Himes. For the younger child, this self-learning program has been extremely popular: Look for Basic Drawing and the Simply Drawing series on our Seton books website: www.setonbooks.com.

How much leeway in courses do high school students have?

There is less leeway in high school than in grade school because Seton is meant as a college preparatory program. Our accredited high school program is based not only on state requirements but also on what courses colleges require for incoming students.

There is some leeway regarding which foreign language your student would like to take, and which additional math or science courses beyond the basic requirements. We also have a number of electives from which students can choose.

Our high school catalog is located on our website. Go to Curriculum, then click on High School Catalog. You might want to look at page 5 for Frequently Asked Questions.

For specifics in regard to your high school student, please contact Gene McGuirk, our high school counselor; or Bob Wiesner, a high school and senior counselor; or Eric Kraske, head of the Admissions Department.

My student hardly used the Nutrition book. It is almost like new. Would you like me to send it back?

Frankly, yes. That is an expensive hardbound book. All the hardbound books are very expensive and if they are in good condition, not marked up, and can be used again, and you have no plans to use them, it would be great for you to send them back. (Paperback books, even if they are in good shape and unused, tend to be bent when they come back in the mail, so you may as well give them away as gifts for other children.)

Can you help me with my child’s book report?

This is probably the request we hear most often for students in the elementary grades. Our elementary counselors have developed worksheets for students in the 5th through 8th grades.

If you go to the My Seton section on our website, go to your student’s courses, scroll down to Reading, and you will find a worksheet you can print out for your child to help prepare for writing a book report. (The worksheets are not to be sent to Seton; only the final book report for grading is needed.)

I am just starting with Seton. I am amazed by how much you have on your website, but I don’t know what specifically can help me and my children.

We are always adding to our website. It has become quite copious, but not everything is for everybody. Probably the best way is to start from left to right, click on each topic to see the drop-down menu, and click on any of the topics which might help you. On the Home drop-down menu, the Message Board section might be of some help. Most of the boards are for high school students and parents, but there is one for Parents, Elementary Counseling, and Special Services.

The Parent Resources is very popular mainly because of the Newsletter articles archive, and the Index for the past articles.

The About Us drop-down menu has information about our staff, most with photos, and about our accreditation.

The Curriculum drop-down menu contains abundant information about the elementary and high school level courses, including the catalogs, which contain details about all our courses. It also gives you information about Special Services, a department for children with special learning needs, and samples of audio lectures for our high school students.

The Book Catalog lists not only our regular textbooks used in our program, but also hundreds of books, many Catholic fiction for children, which could be used as supplements for students. These include dictionaries, writing workbooks, diagramming lessons, literature classics, helpful books for learning foreign languages, Saxon math supplements and CDs, science supplements, religion supplements, historical novels by Bruce Clark, supplements for disciplining children, and a variety of Catholic books for fathers and mothers on raising children in a Catholic home.

You don’t need to look at the Testing heading as that is for parents who have not enrolled but want standardized tests for their children. As an enrolled family, these are included in your tuition. However, if you are sending in all of your children’s work online, you will need to request standardized tests if you want them. These are usually taken after a student completes the third quarter work.

My son is a year ahead in math. Now that he is going into 7th grade, do you think he can skip into the Algebra ½?

We are asked the question all the time about skipping a grade level in courses, often skipping a grade level in math. We always respond, “Don’t do it!” No one, neither you nor your child really knows whether he has learned a math process quite correctly. Nor does anyone know if he really has a concept fully understood. Nor does anyone know if he needs more practice and drill in a certain area.

What we recommend is this: take the next grade level, but your son can proceed at the rate that is best for him. Perhaps he can take the first six tests in the first week. But our experience is that once a student moves into the second or third quarter, he needs the review or the practice.

It is common for a student who skips a grade level, even in one subject, to have lower grades than he had previously. It is common for a student who skips a grade level, even in one subject, to begin to struggle with the work. “A” students are not as happy as they once were when there was no struggle.

Your student is more likely to do well if he feels he is mastering the material. Take the next grade level in math, don’t skip anything, but let him proceed at a faster pace, if he can, and earn the “A” grades he is used to earning! If he finishes the book and does well on the tests, he can move to the next grade level in math.

One thing you have not anticipated is that with math continuing to be easy for him, he might develop an interest in history or science or classical literature or something else, and can spend that “extra” time doing more reading in another area of interest.