So….if you are serious about helping your toddlers and preschoolers love books, learning, simple things, routine, and more, check out the links below!

Wondering Wednesday Video—“Creating a Love for Learning in Littles”

In this video, Donna gives specific tips on book baskets, activity tubs, reducing technology (and using it well), and more.

Room Time Activities Resource List

In this document, Donna details great products to use with toddlers and preschoolers—for Room Time activities and for to you do with your littles.

Timberdoodle

Great place to get age-appropriate “school kits.” Don’t let the homeschool kits aspect scare you. These are amazing kits of the best of the best put together for toddlers and preschoolers!

Creating a Love for Learning in Your Home

In this audio, Donna talks about love for learning in older children.

Turning High Need Preschoolers Into Darling Angels

In this audio, Donna talks about common preschool behavior problems and ways to handle them.

Preparing Your Preschooler to Learn to Read

In this audio, Donna teaches some strategies and habits that will help preschoolers be prepared to learn to read when the time comes.

Tips for Avoiding the Terrible Twos

In this video, Donna talks about strategies to use with your pre-two year old to avoid those “terrible twos” that people always talk about.

What to Do With a Wonderful One Year Old

In this audio series (two part), Donna talks about the amazing days of one year olds.

Jonathan’s Journal Blog Series

In this blog series, Donna uses her unpublished children’s book, Jonathan’s Journal, to detail a wonderful day it the life of a preschooler—teaching parents every hour of the day!
 

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The post Littles Love Learning appeared first on Character Ink.

Today we answer reader’s questions about how to create a love for learning in your home! This audio presentation is actually one that we did as a keynote address this spring in British Columbia, so I’ll let the description from the program speak for itself!

Don’t forget to contact us with questions that you would like to see answered!

“Ray and Donna Reish draw on their thirty years of home schooling-and developing a love for learning in their seven children—to help home school parents see how they can have children who love learning and enjoy home schooling. They include information on the importance of beginning early in developing a love for learning (as opposed to a disdain for multiple workbooks at a young age); the influence of free time and frivolities on love for learning; the value of reading aloud; building comprehension to build enjoyment of learning; how hands on learning encourages a love for learning; modeling love for learning; creating learning memories; the fun and value of family learning times; how to develop a home school lifestyle; the effects of peers on love for learning; developing study skills; spiritual training at various times; teaching multiple children and multiple learning styles; and much more.”

Download the podcast notes here.

Listen to previous podcasts here.

 
Links:

When You Want Mamas to Feel Great

Two Things to Teach Kids When They See an Emergency

[Series] 52 Weeks of Talking to Our Kids

[Podcast] 30 Tips from 30 Years
 

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The post [Podcast] Creating a Love for Learning appeared first on Character Ink.

Many years ago we were able to go to many homeschooling seminars including the Christian Homeschooling Workshop by Greg Harris. I mentioned before on this blog that we came home from his seminars (basic and advanced) ready to tackle one thing at a  time out of that amazing binder of material.

One of the things that he taught us were the amazing benefits of using delight directed studies. He said that if we would focus some of our studies on things that our children love, things they were delighted in, things they were interested in, they would learn so much more easily and learning would be more fun.

I was all about waiting for readiness in my children so that they would love school. I was all about building a love for learning in our children. And delight directed studies lined up beautifully with those goals.

We came home and began looking for opportunities for our children to study things that they were delighted in. Immediately, this meant learning math through baseball, football, and basketball cards with our little seven-year-old. It meant a lot of time in the kitchen with our four-year-old. And it meant reading for hours and hours every day – at least a little bit each day about government and the presidents for our seven-year-old future history major and teacher.

From there, our delight directed studies have been vast:

1. Getting a barnful of chickens and gathering eggs
2. Unsuccessful dog training
3. Learning angles and degrees on the basketball court drive-way
4. Learning shapes from Legos and “large red bricks” (cardboard)
5. Math games out of playing cards
6. Dice games
7. Statistics with sports cards
8. Milking a goat
9. Community learning through a lengthy, weekly citizens academy program
10. Creating track events with measurements and make-shift equipment
11. Making up new sports games for PE continually
12. Going to government and creation seminars
13. Investing in more highlighters and large poster boards than any one family should ever need for our young mapmaker
14. World War II videos, games, and miniatures
15. Angles taught/learned through quilting
16. Math in baking and cooking
17. Dad and daughter sign language classes
18. American Girls dolls, books, and do-it-yourself accessories
19. Overnight at the zoo, science museum, and fort
20. More pioneer villages and re-enactments than any one parent should attend

Delight-directed studies are everywhere–they are where ever our children are. Whatever they love to learn is their delight–and our opportunity for more learning, more love for learning, and more fun in our homeschools!

The post Homeschool Benefit #7: The Chance to Use Delight-Directed Studies appeared first on Character Ink.