Homeschooling: Practical Tips and the Art of Teaching

Introducing a Catholic AI Platform Parents can Trust

Published on February 19, 2026February 20, 2026 by Mary CooneyLeave a comment

I just had to share this with you.

Because parenting is hard. Today, more than ever.

As most of you know, one of the hardest parts of parenting is managing our children’s use of addictive screen-based tech: Smart phones. Social media. The internet. These are wreaking widespread havoc on the mental and emotional health of our youth. And navigating screen-based tech with our kids and teens has been challenging… exhausting, actually.

If parenting weren’t hard enough, along comes AI, that powerful tool that is rapidly changing the landscape of innovation, work, and education.

So parents have yet one more thing to worry about, monitor, and try to keep up with.

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Around the Year Picture Books with Beautiful Illustrations

Published on January 6, 2026January 6, 2026 by Mary CooneyLeave a comment

Reading picture books with beautiful illustrations is a wonderful way to draw our kids into reading and help them appreciate that which is objectively good and beautiful. Illustrations play an important role in the development of our children’s imaginations, so we want to make sure we give our children lots of beautiful books.

Here are twelve of my favorite illustrators (some classic, some contemporary) for around-the-year picture books with beautiful pictures.

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Simply Addition Level 1 Flash Cards and Worksheets

Published on April 14, 2025July 15, 2025 by Mary Cooney1 Comment

Using addition flash cards are a quick and easy way to help our kids practice the addition facts. For children with Down Syndrome and other visual learners, including a visual aid on the flash cards makes addition more concrete. I searched high and low for rekenrek addition flash cards with large numbers and finally ended up making them myself.

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Ten Essential Math Skills that Prepare Children with Down Syndrome for Addition

Published on January 20, 2025January 30, 2026 by Mary Cooney2 Comments

Is your child with Down Syndrome struggling with addition and subtraction? If so, try focusing on the essential math skills needed before beginning addition. Here are ten hands-on ways to develop number sense and prepare your child for addition and subtraction.

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A Year of Picture Books with Sequencing

Published on January 7, 2025January 20, 2025 by Mary CooneyLeave a comment

Sequencing is such an important skill for little people and especially for those with delayed language skills. It helps build comprehension and memory, and it helps children to narrate, which in turn supports the development of speech.

Reading a picture book and re-ordering or retelling the sequence of events is a very simple yet effective way to build language skills. When I can, I use visuals to support the sequencing of events. But often we just practice telling what happened next, or who did what next. So, I’m always on the hunt for picture books with clear sequence of events.

Here are some of our favorite picture books for sequencing:

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Ten Tricks for Motivating and Engaging Children with Down Syndrome

Published on November 25, 2024July 23, 2025 by Mary CooneyLeave a comment

How many times have you called your child/student with Down Syndrome to come and do some school work and that child balked or refused to co-operate? Sigh. Yes, in our little homeschool and co-op it’s a common occurrence. But necessity is the mother of invention, so I’ve learned many ways to motivate my son and his little friends. I really believe that what most hinders our children with DS from learning is not intellectual delay/disability, but non-compliant behaviors. So to help elicit co-operation, here are my latest tricks for motivating and engaging children with Down Syndrome:

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The Articles of the Mass: Three-part Cards

Published on February 6, 2024 by Mary Cooney1 Comment

This year, the boys in our little T21 co-op are preparing to receive First Confession and First Communion. We are so grateful that a trained catechist has been coming to run a little Catechesis of the Good Shepherd class just for them.

They have been learning the names of some of the articles of the Mass, and so I made these Montessori-style three-part cards to teach them words such as monstrance, chalice, paten, and purificator.

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Let’s Learn Letters: Lowercase !

Published on February 23, 2023 by Mary CooneyLeave a comment

Here’s a cute set of handwriting worksheets that will help your child learn to write lowercase letters. Similar to the uppercase set, these have dots which show your child where to begin forming each letter. In addition, each worksheet comes with verbal prompts to help your child learn the order of strokes.

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Our Favorite Books and Publishers for Emergent Readers

Published on November 30, 2022 by Mary CooneyLeave a comment

As many of you know, my son Junior, who has T21, has become a voracious reader. Hence, we make several trips to the library to keep him well supplied. To simplify my never ending job of finding reading material, I find a publisher/series that I like and order as many books from that series that I can from the library. Here are our favorite books and publisher series for emergent readers.

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Our Homeschool Room no. 2

Published on September 9, 2022July 7, 2023 by Mary Cooney2 Comments

Last fall we moved into a new house… actually a very old one, but new for us. So that meant I got to arrange a new homeschool room!

With our oldest daughter in the convent and the three teenage boys in school, we no longer need a large school room like the one we had in our previous home. But we still have a room dedicated to homeschooling our two youngest children. It’s actually the dining room converted into a school room….

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