Becky Aniol

Becky holds a bachelor's degree in English literature and music, a master's degree in Christian education, and is currently pursuing a PhD in Christian education. She taught classical upper school grammar, literature, and history and lower school composition and grammar for two years, elementary school music for one year, and Kindermusik classes for four years before the birth of her children. She now loves staying home with her four children, Caleb, Kate, Christopher, and Caroline and homeschooling them classically.

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Author Archives: Becky Aniol

Beautiful Poetry Anthologies for Children

April 20th, 2017 | 0 Comments

In honor of national poetry month, here is a list of my favorite poetry anthologies to use with children. A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson (My favorite illustrated versions are by Tasha Tudor and Jessie Willcox Smith.) A Child’s Book of Poems by Gyo Fujikawa A Child’s Treasury of Poems by Mark… Continue Reading

A Homeschool Mom Reads: February and March 2017

April 7th, 2017 | 0 Comments

Here are my noteworthy reads from the last couple of months: Augustine’s Confessions, translated by Maria Boulding–Our church ladies’ book group finished this in February. I really enjoyed this very readable modern translation. Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis, read by Nadia May [audiobook]–Love, love, loved this! Great narration also. A Handbook to Morning Time by… Continue Reading

Beautiful Baby Books: A List of Recommendations

April 6th, 2017 | 0 Comments

I got a great question recently, and it’s one I’ve given a lot of thought to since Christopher was born last June. The question was about baby and toddler books. Last summer I went through our picture books and board books to set up the bookshelves in our nursery, and what I found is that… Continue Reading

The Benedict Option for Education

March 16th, 2017 | 0 Comments

Being familiar with some of Rod Dreher’s other works like The Little Way of Ruthie Leming and How Dante Can Save Your Life, I was excited to read his newest book, just out on Tuesday, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation. While the whole book is both accessible and informative (see Scott’s review… Continue Reading

A Homeschool Mom Reads: 2017 Reading List and January Books

February 9th, 2017 | 0 Comments

I haven’t done a reading post in awhile. It’s not that I haven’t been reading, but it always seems that the last few months of the year I have a harder time keeping track of my reading. At the end of 2016 in particular, I just blew through a bunch of modern mystery novels. I… Continue Reading

A Homeschool Mom Reads: June and July 2016

August 4th, 2016 | 0 Comments

June was baby month around here (Christopher arrived on June 20th). In addition to getting everything ready for his arrival and resting up for the big day, I managed to get in a decent amount of summer reading as well. I love the extra time I generally have in the summer for reading. Here’s what… Continue Reading

The Four Approaches to Classical Christian Education, Part 4: The Bluedorn Interpretation of Trivium-As-Stages

June 16th, 2016 | 0 Comments

This entry is part 4 of 4 in the series Classical Christian Education: Four Distinct Approaches You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

So, I started this series awhile ago, and it’s not that I’m not enthusiastic about the topic, but life got in the way…namely in the form of pregnancy morning sickness and sleeping when I would’ve otherwise been blogging. I’m also slowly in the process of turning this series into a book, which is sucking away my blogging… Continue Reading

My Curriculum Choices for 2016-2017: Morning Time, 3rd Grade & 5th Grade

June 14th, 2016 | 0 Comments

For the first several years that I homeschooled, I would spend the spring and summer searching for curriculum sales on the things I wanted for the upcoming year. As time has moved on, I have drastically simplified to the point that I don’t really buy that much prepared “curricula,” and, therefore, don’t have to work… Continue Reading

A Homeschool Mom Reads: May 2016

May 31st, 2016 | 0 Comments

We finished school this month, so that has, thankfully, left me with some more time to read. As a summer goal, I’m going to try each month to read some fiction, have a biography or history going, and also have a more purely didactic book going (on education, theology, Christian life, parenting, etc.). We’ll see… Continue Reading

A Homeschool Mom Reads: January-April (2016)

May 3rd, 2016 | 0 Comments

So, I feel like I’ve been in a huge reading (and blogging) slump. I’m blaming it on the pregnancy. When I would normally be reading or writing I’ve been…sleeping (or working on projects for the baby). But I did read a few things over the last several months, and I’m determined to do better once… Continue Reading

Our Classical Homeschool 2nd Semester: Curricula Choices and Weekly Checksheets

January 12th, 2016 | 0 Comments

Every semester it seems I’m able to simplify even more as I read and learn and find new resources. This makes me happy. Our homeschool averages about 3 hours each morning, 4 days per week, and this semester consists of Morning Time (read about specifically what we do here; this includes Worship elements, Literature, Shakespeare,… Continue Reading

A Homeschool Mom Reads: My Book List for 2016

January 6th, 2016 | 0 Comments

First of all, if you follow this series, you know I didn’t post the books I read in October through December. The truth is, I can’t remember all of them! I’m usually very good at keeping track on Goodreads, but we did a lot of traveling, which meant a lot of library downloads to my… Continue Reading

Review: Just Like Jesus Bible Storybook

December 7th, 2015 | 0 Comments

Today I’m reviewing the Just Like Jesus Bible Storybook by Stephen Elkins, published by Wonder Kids, a division of Tyndale. This retails for $14.99 (currently $10.95 on Amazon). A few notes about the format: Comes in a padded hardback with 173 colorfully illustrated paper pages Scripture verses taken from the NLT (and a few from… Continue Reading

Children’s Christmas Books Shopping List (with FREE Download)

November 3rd, 2015 | 0 Comments

I recently posted a Children’s Books Shopping List for my trips to Half Price Books and the library book sales. As the Advent and Christmas seasons are swiftly approaching in a few short weeks, I’d like to be on the lookout for some quality Christmas books to add to our family collection, so I… Continue Reading

New Facebook Group for Sharing Family Resources

October 23rd, 2015 | 0 Comments

We’ve started a brand new Facebook community, Religious Affections Family Resources, for Christian families to share and discuss the best in books, music, and educational resources for cultivating beauty and imagination in our children! In this group, we plan to share carefully selected resources from around the web (and print media), link to resource sales… Continue Reading

Children’s Books Shopping List (with FREE download)

October 16th, 2015 | 0 Comments

Our library book sale is coming up this month, plus I’ve been frequenting our local Half Price Books, so I recently made myself a book list to take along anytime I’m doing book shopping. I’ve gleaned these books from Sarah Clarkson’s Read for the Heart (I explain why I like this better than Honey for… Continue Reading

Virtue Formation Through Liturgy in Our Homeschool Morning Time

October 13th, 2015 | 0 Comments

Earlier this month I had the privilege to speak at a women’s conference for ten like-minded Fort Worth churches. I spoke on family worship in the home–developing daily habits, or liturgies (which can be defined as habitual group actions), reflective of the gospel and of the church’s worship in order to cultivate Christlikeness in… Continue Reading

A Homeschool Mom Reads: August and September

October 6th, 2015 | 0 Comments

August: August was back to school month for us as well as me getting ready to speak at a conference, so, while I didn’t get much read, two out of three of my books were excellent. Caught Up in a Story by Sarah Clarkson I bought this after listening to Sarah on a podcast at… Continue Reading

Book Review: Bonding with Your Child Through Boundaries

September 29th, 2015 | 0 Comments

Since reading a highly recommended secular parenting book earlier this summer out of curiosity, I’ve been on a bit of a parenting book binge, looking for intensely practical parenting advice like that book offered, but from a biblical perspective. Bonding with Your Child Through Boundaries by June Hunt, with Peggy Sue Wells, was released by Crossway this summer, and… Continue Reading

The Four Approaches to Classical Christian Education, Part 3: The Trivium-as-Stages Approach

August 12th, 2015 | 0 Comments

This entry is part 3 of 4 in the series Classical Christian Education: Four Distinct Approaches You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

In this series, I am discussing the four different ways that evangelicals are doing classical Christian education (CCE) in 2015. In my first post, I asserted that CCE has come a long way in the 30-plus years since Doug Wilson wrote Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning. I would argue that CCE has grown beyond… Continue Reading