by Donna | Mar 25, 2011
“You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up” Deuteronomy 6:7
One of the ways that we tried to show the children the importance of spiritual and character training in our home throughout our twenty-eight years of parenting was to put spiritual training and character training first in our day.
We used the model in II Peter 1:5 as a basis for our how days would flow: “But also for this reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to your virtue, knowledge.”
From this verse, we taught our children and tried to manage our home in a way that reflected this—that we should put “faith” first in your life—spiritual training in our homes in the case of a family. And we should put virtue second—character training in the Christian home. Then we should put knowledge—or education.
Now, we are dedicated homeschoolers (we began twenty-eight years ago this fall by teaching my younger sister at home each day)—and we followed this pattern for our daily schedule and our prioritizing all of our school years—with tremendous success. Education (knowledge) was never considered low—but it simply came after faith and virtue. And our children’s amazing academic success has proven that this strategy did not hurt them one bit. (Our oldest son tested out of his entire college degree except for two classes for which there were no exams available. Our next child, a daughter (with severe dyslexia and dysgraphia) who is now a missionary nurse, received perfect verbal ACT scores two times and received full ride academic scholarships for all three colleges she attended. All of our kids have taken college classes during their junior and/or senior years of high school. Yep, this approach benefits academics too!)
What exactly does this “faith first; virtue next; knowledge next” approach look like in a family’s daily life? Join us tomorrow for the answer to that question!
by Donna | Mar 24, 2011
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words, which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up” Deuteronomy 6:5-7
Okay, so I’ve used this verse like a half dozen times over the past fourteen months of the Positive Parenting blog. And I am using it again! This time, however, I am going to use it over the next few weeks to share with you many of the ways that we have implemented character training/spiritual teaching.
I will be breaking the time frames/teaching opportunities down to chronological orders, giving ideas for teaching during those times. We have had deep learning times, many life lessons, intimate relationships, and, most of the time, wonderful fruit, from our times with our children over the past twenty-eight years. I hope you will join us as we share dozens of these over the coming weeks!
Sneak Preview
WHEN YOU RISE UP
-Character building chore times
-Family devotions
-“Morning read aloud”
-schedule/daily disciplines
-Snuggle, rock, and read
-Schedules that put God first
WHEN YOU SIT IN YOUR HOUSE
-Story time
-Organization/upkeep
-Discussion
-Questions
-Listening together
-Daily fruitfulness
-Parenthetical Parenting
-Expectation Explanation
-Teaching like Jesus
-Reading together
-Games
-Prioritizing it—making the time to “sit in your house”
-“Good report” time
-Songs/sayings to build relationships
-Family worship
WHEN YOU WALK BY THE WAY
-“Who has shoes on?”
-As you drive down the road
-Who had good character?
-Daddy talks
-Meal times
-Car talks
-Twalks
-Terrific Tuesdays and Wonderful Wednesdays
-Movie and book talks
-Teachable moments
-“Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks”
-Listen more than you talk
-Phrasing your teen talk
-Appearance is reality
-Singing together
WHEN YOU LIE DOWN
-Malachi time
-Bible talks
-Bedtime stories
-Tying heartstrings
-“Get this teenager out of my room!”
-The eyes are the windows to the soul
Thanks for joining us! We love helping families!
by Donna | Mar 15, 2011
Since the language arts curriculum that we write is based on character qualities, we have a handy little Character Quality and Overview “Chart” to help parents teach character in their homes.
This “chart” goes character-trait-by-character-trait (twenty-four in all) with some handy information for implementing character training in Christian homes–regardless of whether you homeschool or not and regardless of whether you use our language arts curriculum or not.
Here are some cool things these character quality overview charts have:
1. Character Quality listed at the top of each chart
2. Key verse that goes with that quality
3. Sermon on the Mount Scripture focus that points to that quality
4. Related character qualities–those that are similar and those that are opposite
5. “Detailed Areas of Study in This Unit”–this details some of the stories, characters, science and nature areas, historical figures, missionaries, Bible people, etc. that our language arts curriculum focuses on in that monthly unit–but for those wanting to use this as a character quality study/overview, it lists songs, books, topics, etc. that you might do during your study of that character quality (especially biographies, Bible characters and stories, books to read, etc.)
6. Bible passages–these are listed in the margin and are passages of Scripture that you may read together as a family, etc. for devotions
7. Bible characters-this is a list of Bible characters that did or did not exhibit that quality
8. Materials Available Through Training for Triumph–these are books and additional materials that we carry about that character quality
This is a great resource for gathering items to study character! Homeschoolers can print off eight of these for the eight qualities that they would like to focus on during the eight months of the school year, take this to conventions with you–and get read alouds, etc. to go with your character studies.
Non-homeschoolers can have verses and Bible characters at a glance to read from for quick devotions, etc.
When you go to the link below, be sure to scroll down a few pages to the first of the twenty-four qualities.
https://www.tfths.com/docs/ch18cq&ca&os.pdf
by Donna | Oct 11, 2010
Our family ministry and publishing company publishes (and my older kids and I write) language arts and composition books for homeschools and Christian schools. One of our product lines is “Character Quality Language Arts,” a complete language arts program for second through twelfth grade students. In this program, we have a vocabulary section entitled “Definition Dissection” in which we teach students to figure out vocabulary and comprehend text better through six comprehension techniques (known as “Definition Dissections”).
To make a long story short, some chapters of our Teacher’s Guide for this program are available at our website, and, in particular, the vocabulary packet that goes with the program is available there for free.
I wanted to list it on this blog as many students are preparing for SAT and ACT exams this time of year—and the Definition Dissection packet is excellent preparation for the vocabulary and comprehension sections.
Feel free to print this document off and use it with your kids—work through all six strategies to help your kids learn how to unlock unfamiliar words and difficult text.
You can view this document along with several others in our CQLA Teacher’s Guide.
