Pages

▼

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Building Character

I recently asked on a couple of homeschool lists for ideas on character building.  Teaching our children to be loving, kind, and obedient is much more important than teaching them facts and multiplication.  I realized that I was spending all day teaching things like reading and writing, but not really knowing how to deal with character issues.  I didn't have a teacher's manual for character issues, or a clear plan on how to teach these types of lessons.  I work hard at giving my children a good education (facts, multiplication, reading, and writing included!), but realized that character training takes a focused effort too.


In no particular order, here are some of the ideas I received:

A Child's Book of Character Building

making lapbooks on character building - lots of ideas here

reading stories from The Book of Virtues and The Children's Book of Virtues

My ABC Bible Verses

Joy Berry books

The Put On Chart from Doorposts <-----  We bought this one and plan to use it.

Big Thoughts for Little People: ABCs to Help You Grow <----- We have this from the library right now and really enjoy it.  In the photo above, this is the book they are reading.  :)

Right after I had asked this question, we ended up switching to Heart of Dakota for our homeschool curriculum.  Although My Father's World was Bible based, with Heart of Dakota I feel like the girls are catching on to the lessons a bit more.  We have had some great discussions about character issues in Reddy Fox, the Bible stories, and more.

I'm so thankful to be home with my girls and imparting these important lessons to them while they are still young!  Please feel free to chime in if you know of another good resource for teaching character.
at

4 comments:

  1. Lindy BossMarch 5, 2011 at 10:43 PM

    Christy, I haven't used any of it, but have seen some of the curriculum they have and it looks really good. I'm hoping to add this to my curriculum. Hope this helps... check out www.pearables.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. A Slightly Better WifeMarch 7, 2011 at 9:32 AM

    Thank you for bringing up this great topic! This is something I struggle with, with my 3 1/2 year old boy. This would be a great time to start trying to buid his character in a positive way.
    My 8 year old girl is very compassionate, but I think she would even benefit from a praticing character buidling skills.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The Cullen CrewMarch 16, 2011 at 6:05 PM

    I have both The Book of Virtues and The Children's Book of Virtues - I purchased them at Booked for the Season both in excellent shape. I love to read to my kids from these then talk about the stories. We also do the co-op on Tuesday's we call Konos. Where mom's take turns teaching the virtues and base it off the Konos curriculum. That has been a big help with opening up discussions with my children. I agree that teaching your children character/virtues is important. Thanks for the post.

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownAugust 15, 2011 at 12:59 PM

    Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this matter! I have been dealing with character issues with our 4 1/2 year old. I have done quite a bit of searching and came up with some of these that looked really helpful that I thought I would add to your collection of ideas: http://www.keepersofthefaith.com/ has some wonderful ideas and specifically their Character Series, they also have a keepers of the home handbook for girls and a Contenders of the faith for boys; There are some books I found on Amazon as well you may like: A hive of busy bees Volume 1 and 2; Child's Book of Character Building: Growing Up in God's World - At Home, at School, at Play, Book 1 and there is also a Book 2....I really liked these. Anyway, I appreciate your stand about character building over academics. Even though Academics are important it is far better for a child to grow up learning honesty and responsibility so that they can work at a job with integrity =D

    ReplyDelete