Back to {Home} School Giveaway :: Your School of Love: A Spiritual Companion for Teaching Mothers & Mama’s Notebooks

by | Sep 7, 2014 | Back-to-School, Giveaway, Home Education, Reviews | 0 comments

To celebrate the new school year I’m hosting a giveaway each day this week (September 1st-7th) featuring educational products and books! Today’s giveaway is sponsored by Mama’s Notebooks and Shower of Roses! 

The next time I come up with a “great idea” to schedule giveaways for SEVEN DAYS IN A ROW during the first week of school, could someone please knock some sense into me?! I had every intention of writing and scheduling the posts ahead of time, but of course that didn’t happen… Between our daughter’s 11th birthday last Saturday, lots of family in town, and my brother’s golf tournament last Thursday-Monday, we were hardly home until school started Tuesday morning. Despite the extra time I needed to spend on the computer, our school year has gotten off to a surprisingly productive start and I’ve really enjoyed hosting the giveaways, reading all the comments, and introducing you to some awesome resources and businesses! All good things must come to an end and this is the last giveaway I’m hosting, at least until later this month. 😉

I’ve shared about my Mama’s Notebook in the past and I’m still using it (almost) every day to keep track of my to-do lists, menu plans, what we’ve been reading, and most recently my exercise and diet goals. Heather at Mama’s Notebooks is always so generous when it comes to sponsoring giveaways here at Shower of Roses and has kindly offered to once again send one of my visitors a copy of Mama’s Notebook!

Mama’s Notebook: Weekly Planner & Organizer

Mama’s Notebook provides you with an easy, flexible, and efficient way to organize your life. In one glance, you can coordinate your meal plan with the whole day’s events and tasks, and there’s always ample room to take notes on the things that matter to you most!

Unlike other planners, you can start up Mama’s Notebook on any week of the year, and you can skip weeks as needed. The back section of the planner provides you with easy reference sheets to help you schedule and shop efficiently.

Click here to buy one now!

Current Special: Free mail shipping or 50% off ground shipping with the code SMG14 through September 11.

* * * * * * * 

I also want to give away a Kindle Edition of the brand new book Your School of Love: A Spiritual Companion for Teaching Mothers which was recently published by TAN.  I’ve always enjoyed the other books by Agnes M. Penny (I especially love the prayers in the back of her books. In the past I’ve shared her Prayer of a Bereaved Mother of an Unbaptized Baby here and Prayer of a Bereaved Mother of a Baptized Baby here.) so when I saw this book was now available I ordered a copy.  I just started reading Your School of Love this past week.  From what I’ve read so far, my own teaching style is different than the authors but as the description states this book “is not a homeschooling curriculum or a how to guide” and I have found it inspiring to read her thoughts as we begin our new school year.

Here are a few quotes I’ve highlighted in my copy:

Homeschooling is what we make it. If we see it as a burden, it will be a burden. If we see it as a joy, it will be a joy. If we see it as a grave but rewarding responsibility, a vocation within a vocation, then that’s what it will be. If we see homeschooling as an opportunity to mold the intellectual, cultural, and spiritual character of our children and our own personal path to grow closer to our children and to Christ, then it will be that, as well. ~ Chapter 1, Homeschooling

Homeschooling makes huge demands on our time, our energy, our patience, and our emotions. These are the gifts we present to God. ~ Chapter 3, The Vocation to Homeschool

A cranky, discouraged, or stressed-out woman cannot effectively fulfill her duties as teacher or mother, and is certainly a poor sample of a saint, which is our ultimate goal. Therefore, we have to avoid burnout for our own sake and for the sake of our children. ~ Chapter 4, Burnout

We as homeschooling parents, hoping to encourage our children to learn, and perhaps remembering our own toilsome schooldays, seek to make learning fun, but a better way to approach learning might be just to avoid making learning “unfun.” ~ Chapter 8, Making Learning Fun

Your School of Love: A Spiritual Companion for Teaching Mothers
(also available directly from TAN)

Book Description From the Back Cover:

Homeschooling your children can be a beautiful and fruitful experience for both you and your children…but it can also be overwhelming. Agnes Penney, the popular author of Your Labor of Love and Your Vocation of Love, is here to help you along the way. Your School of Love is not a homeschooling curriculum, or a how-to guide, but a spiritual companion that will help you and your children get the most out of homeschooling. Your School of Love is packed with short chapters, perfect for the always-busy homeschooling parent, offering tips and advice on a variety of topics, including:

  • Homeschooling girls, boys, large families, young children, and teenagers 
  • How to keep up with Homeschooling during pregnancy or with a new baby in the house 
  • How to include fathers 
  • How to encourage and balance your children’s social lives 
  • How to Balance Confidence and Humility while teaching your children 
  • Making Homeschooling a prayerful endeavor 
  • How to deal with the emotional struggles of homeschooling 
  • And so much more (like how to avoid burn-out, how to foster vocations, how to teach a child to read and write) 

Your School of Love is lovingly written by a homeschooling mother, and will be your constant companion throughout your homeschooling years, both as a guide, a spiritual reference, and a helpful friend who knows what it’s like to deal with the struggles of homeschooling, and also how to embrace the great joys.

Prayer of a Homeschooler 
Eternal Father, I thank Thee for blessing me with the children Thou hast given me, and for granting me the opportunity of homeschooling them. Help me to provide them with an atmosphere of love, peace, purity, self-sacrifice, and joy so that they may develop the virtues they need to lead holy, Christian lives. May they learn all they need to know in all their subjects, but especially may they learn to love Thee and to show this love for thee through acts of love for others. May I do my part to fill their spiritual, emotional, physical, and intellectual needs, and model to them Thine own patient and forgiving love. May our homeschool turn into a true school of love, where our family learns to love Thee in everything that happens to us, and in everyone that we see, so that someday our family may meet again in heaven, where we will see face-to-face, Thou, Who art Love. Amen.

If you’d like a chance to win one of these books, please enter the giveaway using the Rafflecopter box below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Be sure to enter Our September Book Basket and giveaway here, the Holy Heroes giveaway here, the Saint Magnus, The Last Viking giveaway here, the Homeschool in the Woods giveaway here, the Arx Publishing giveaway here, the St. Mary’s Messenger giveaway here, RC History giveaway here, and a St. Michael Apron giveaway over at Catholic Cuisine before they start ending tonight! 


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Prayer of Mothers

Father in heaven, grant me the grace to appreciate the dignity which you have conferred on me. Let me realize that not even the Angels have been blessed with such a privilege—to share in your creative miracle and bring new Saints to heaven. Make me a good mother to all my children after the example of Mary, the Mother of your Son. Through the intercession of Jesus and Mary I ask your continued blessings on my family. Let us all be dedicated to your service on earth and attain the eternal happiness of your kingdom in heaven. Amen.


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Hi! I'm Jessica, a Roman Catholic wife and home educating mother to our nine children. I was home educated myself, along with my eleven younger siblings. I have a special devotion to St. Therese, through whom I have been given much help and many blessings--the beautiful "Shower of Roses" that she has sent my way! Here I will record a few of the blessings I treasure. Please remember that what you see here is just a little glimpse at our lives, so please say a prayer for us, as we continue to strive for holiness.

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