For not really being “singers”—and for most of us not really knowing that much about music—we are a pretty “sing-ee” family! We love to sing hymns and worship songs while we’re driving or sitting around the living room. If one of our pianists is here (Kara and Cami), it’s even better! At Christmas time, we really getting into the singing spirit! We love to memorize a complete carol (all the verse) and sing it together; we love to drive around looking at lights and have someone lead out when a certain decoration or sight reminds him of a carol; we love to “sing through the Christmas story.”

Several years ago as we were sitting around singing carols, we challenged the kids to sing a song about a certain part of the nativity story (one part at a time). Before we knew it, we had compiled an entire “cantata” (roflol!) singing through the Christmas story. Cami quickly found the words to all of the carols and made a colorful song sheet on the computer for everybody—and we have since enjoyed “singing through the Christmas story” quite often.

Below are the songs that we sing in the order that we sing them, along with links to the words to each one. Obviously, there are others that would also fit, but these are the ones we discovered and have enjoyed singing. Happy caroling!

1. “O Little Town of Bethlehem” https://www.allthingschristmas.com/music/lyrics.html#olittletown

2. “The First Noel” https://www.allthingschristmas.com/music/lyrics.html#firstnoel

3. “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” https://www.allthingschristmas.com/music/lyrics.html#hark

4. “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear” https://www.allthingschristmas.com/music/lyrics.html#itcameupon

5. “Silent Night” https://www.allthingschristmas.com/music/lyrics.html#silentnight

6. “O Come, All Ye Faithful” https://www.allthingschristmas.com/music/lyrics.html#ocomeallye

7. “Away in a Manger” https://www.allthingschristmas.com/music/lyrics.html#awayinamanger

8. “O Holy Night” https://www.allthingschristmas.com/music/lyrics.html#oholynight

9. “We Three Kings of Orient Are” https://www.allthingschristmas.com/music/lyrics.html#wethreekings

10. “Joy to the World” https://www.allthingschristmas.com/music/lyrics.html#joy

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“Linus’ reading of the story of the Nativity was, quite simply, the dramatic highlight of the season.” Harriet Van Horne in the “New York World Telegram” December 1965

Every year our family enjoys reading about Christmas traditions and songs—how they began, what they mean, etc. One of my favorite readings is the story of how “A Charlie Brown Christmas” came about—and continues to bless people today. Read my “story behind the Charlie Brown Christmas” below aloud to your family—then watch the movie (or at least check out the given links from youtube). Have fun!

On Thursday, December 9, 1965 (nearly fifty years ago!), “A Charlie Brown Christmas” made its debut on CBS on television screens all over the United States. Surprising the network executives, this darling Christmas story was an immediate hit. It seems that its creator, Charles Schulz, battled with the powers-that-be at the network concerning the show’s religious content (CBS thought it was too religious) and the kids’ voices (citing that they should be professional actors, not children). Additionally, they felt that Vince Guaraldi’s theme music was too modern for kids’ tastes. (The jazz soundtrack has, by the way, become a classic.)

Rumor has it that through the years it has been suggested that Linus’ reading of the Christmas story from Luke be taken out of the movie. However, forty-five years later, this classic still contains that powerful passage from Luke, those sweet child voices, and that catchy music*—and each year the true story of Jesus’ birth and the reason for the season—is proclaimed via the secular media.

The post Charlie Brown Christmas (reprint) appeared first on Character Ink.

Another favorite Thanksgiving book! While we listen to and read audios about the first Thanksgiving (an Odyssey one is playing right now as I write this!), I am one who loves whimsical, funny, clever stories, including Thanksgiving ones. That is why I love the book described below. It is incredibly creative and clever—and catches kids (and adults) off guard when Mrs. Moose simply wants to invite Turkey to lunch—not eat him for lunch!

(Please note that I am an affiliate for Amazon. I receive a small commission when you click on my links below. Thanks so much for your support of this blog!)

You can get this beloved book, written by Eve Bunting, at Amazon, among other places (including the library): 

From Publishers Weekly: “Although a paper turkey decorates Mrs. Moose’s Thanksgiving table, she longs for the real thing–so her obliging husband sets out to find her one. He is joined by his soon-to-be dinner guests: Rabbit, in his quilted down vest; poky Porcupine, in his furry earmuffs; and ravenous Mr. Goat, who devours everything in sight, including Sheep’s plaid hat. They find Turkey hiding in his nest, surrounded by signs that discourage visitors. Trying to console the terrified bird, Mr. Moose explains: “We just want you for Thanksgiving dinner,” which only confirms Turkey’s fears. Young readers will be as thrilled as Turkey to hear that Mrs. Moose wants him at her table, not on it. Together, Bunting’s ( In the Haunted House ; The Wednesday Surprise ) good-natured tale and de Groat’s ( Hi Bears, Bye Bears ) autumn-hued, richly detailed watercolors convey the animals’ warm friendship and the humor resulting from the misunderstanding. This ideal family read-aloud will awaken the holiday spirit in all.”

Use this book report form for your students to write a book report about this book!

See my book review and writing project ideas for Liberty B. Mouse here.

The post “A Turkey for Thanksgiving” Book Review (With Book Report Template for Your Students!) appeared first on Character Ink.

We all want to raise children who love learning—and if they love homeschooling, too, well, that’s even better. I wanted my kids to love learning and homeschooling so much twenty-five years ago that I wouldn’t teach a child to read unless he could learn within a few weeks with no tears. (Otherwise, we put it on the back burner for a couple more months.) I was serious about this love for learning stuff!

However, in an effort to be sure our kids enjoy homeschooling, we often run into something that makes it hard for us parents to enjoy it—and something that actually handicaps our children in the future. This concept is one of indulgent homeschooling vs fun homeschooling.

Just like our children “don’t like” this or “don’t want” that or “have to have” this or “can’t be happy without” this–and thus, are often not happy with the “normal” things of life–so it is with our children in homeschooling.

Before I come off sounding like an ogre, I want to assure you that we had a fun homeschool. If you were to ask our children (seven of them ages seventeen through thirty-three) if our homeschool was fun, you would hear answers like the following:

“Oh yeah! Dad used to use these huge red pressboard bricks to teach Bible stories. We would build the temple, Zacchaeus’ tree, and even Jesus’ boat!”

“Fun? How many kids do you know who got to sleep at the top of the jungle gym at Science Central overnight—WITH their parents!”

“I can’t imagine more fun than having your mom read to you for two hours every morning and two hours every afternoon. School was definitely fun at our house!”

“It was a blast! When Mom and Dad got us new books and other fun things from the homeschool convention, they would wake us up at midnight when they got home and show us everything and start reading them to us!”

However, one reason that our children found homeschooling fun was because everything didn’t always have to be fun. Just like an indulgent child can’t be happy unless she gets to have a friend overnight, order pizza, and buy new make up to do make-overs often, a homeschooled child will not think school is fun if he has to have fun all the time. I call this the fun factor in homeschooling.

So, strange as it may seem, my first suggestion to making school fun and helping your kids love learning and love homeschooling is to not try to make everything fun.

Our kids knew fun times were coming. They knew that Mom and Dad loved learning and loved homeschooling and would make things fun at times. They knew that we had something fun up our sleeves to pull out any time.

But they also knew that school was their occupation–and it was often just plain hard work sometimes. And it needed to be done. Day in and day out. Just like Dad went to his job and worked his tail off–so Mom and the kids do the same at home.

Our mantra was “daytime is for learning and working and evenings are for fun and family.” (Obviously, we did fun things during the day too—see partial list above….but they knew that they couldn’t just do anything they wanted during the day. They needed to be learning, working, growing. It was their occupation. (And yes, we did have play time for youngers; breaks; etc.!)

We didn’t need to have bells and whistles all the time because they began to love normal (just like their parents did—hint hint–modeling!). They always knew the expectations, and they knew that every day they had to get up and follow a routine for learning, growing, becoming, and maturing.

They learned the joy of following a loose (block) school schedule, setting goals and meeting them, completing tasks, and of gaining knowledge.

They knew that there were many things we do just because they are the right things to do. Every subject, every day doesn’t have to be fun. Chores don’t always have to be games and contests–or rewarded (though sometimes they were!).

Independent lists were there to keep them on track. They were their to-do lists every day.

Chores were a part of our day because chores make a home run smoothly—and give us more time in the evenings for fun family activities.

We taught our children a contentment in homeschooling–in our way of life—that made the fun even more fun, the special even more special, and the extraordinary even more extraordinary.

The Fun Factor in Homeschooling–the fun begins when the normal is good too.

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“A vonderful goot game!” from the Dutch Blitz web site

It’s that time of year…that time when we start looking for great stocking stuffers, gift exchange gifts; and games for our kids for Christmas AND that time when we start gathering around the table in the dark evenings and weekends rather than playing outdoors. We are a huge game family! Love, love, love playing table games. We suffered through (okay, now I don’t think it is suffering as I miss my kids’ little days so much—but at the time, it got long!) many, many games of Chutes and Ladders, Clue Junior, and Go Fish. But it was worth it all as we now have seven kids (and some kids-in-love) to gather around the game table for fun “big kids” games, like the ones I am reviewing below!

These three card games are great for Christmas:

1. Small amount gift exchanges
2. 40 presentation ideas for cash or gift cards
3. Pass around/steal gifts
4. Plastic wrap gifts
5. Kid exchanges
6. More!

(Please note that I am an affiliate for Amazon. I receive a small commission when you click on my links below. Thanks so much for your support of this blog!)

Dutch Blitz

The Dutch Blitz website describes this game as “It’s kind of like solitaire. But with multiple players. And a lot more speed. And color. And fun.”

That sums it up. It is one of my personal favorite card games for two to four players, ages eight and up or so. (However, you can get a second deck and mark the four “suits” with a check on each and instead of being “buckets,” the player who is that suit would be “buckets with a check.” Large families are extremely creative and resourceful, you know!)

Dutch Blitz was created by Werner Ernst George Muller, a German immigrant and optometrist who thought the game might help his small children learn about colors and numbers more easily. (That really isn’t true since it is so fast moving, small children can hardly play it much less learn from the flying cards!) At any rate, Muller’s game caught the attention of gamers in Eastern and Central Pennsylvania and has since spread throughout the world and is available via two hundred different vendors.

This card game can be purchased for around ten bucks, is portable, and can be learned in a few minutes. Players each take a “suit,” and make stacks in front of them from which they play on the board simultaneously, trying to be the first one to put their Red 1, Red 2, Red 3, etc. in the red stack; Blue 1, Blue 2, Blue 3, etc. in the blue stack; and so on.

It is a game of high speed (my kids’ grandpa does not like it at all!), laughter, and fun. We love it so much that I just got each of my “grown” children a deck for Christmas to be sure that they have it to play with friends and not just when they are home visiting. I don’t think your family would be disappointed with Dutch Blitz!

Btw, for you current Dutch Blitz players, the website touts a “card replacement” policy for lost cards—and it looks to be free. Imagine that!

Oh—if you have an old deck without the rules, you can re-learn the game by getting the free download of the rules here.

Get Dutch Blitz on Amazon!

Pit

Pit is another favorite card game of my crew for ages eight and up, from three to eight players. It is a loud, rowdy game that boys, especially, love! Do not play this if you have a headache or do not like a lot of noise!

The website describes this game as “Pit Deluxe is the ‘Corner on the Market’ card game! Shout your deal and trade your cards to ‘corner’ the market. Be the first to get all the cards of one commodity, ring the bell and you’ll win the hand.”

In a nutshell, each player is dealt a certain number of cards and then everybody begins shouting out “two, two, two” or “one, one, one” (or three or four) to trade a pair, trio, etc. of the same card to try to accumulate all one commodity (rice, corn, wheat, etc.). You alone can see the cards that you are trading, and when somebody else also has the same number of cards to trade, you swap those cards. The game continues in this loud, crazy manner until someone shouts “Corner on the Market” or rings the bell, signifying that he has all of the same commodities in his hand.

If you’ve got boys who like card games, your family will enjoy Pit. If you have a shortage of nerves, you will not! Takes a couple of minutes to learn. Check out the link below.

Get the game of Pit here!

Uno

The Uno website heralds Uno as one of the world’s most popular family card games, with rules easy enough for kids, but challenging and exciting enough for all ages.

This colorful card game is similar to “Crazy Eight” in that you go around the table playing a card if you have the same number (or color)—or you play a WILD card (in place of the crazy eight) that causes your opponents to have to draw four cards, skip their play, etc. The object of the game is to get rid of all of your cards.

This game, for ages seven and up, also takes a few minutes to learn—and has the added advantage of being for up to ten players. Great for large family play! This game is the most widely available of the three reviewed today and can usually be purchased at Walmart and other local retailers. Good for new readers or even smart non-readers, it is one of the most “family friendly” games as it is appropriate for fairly young children and even grandparents.

You can get Uno here!

If you are looking for ideas for Christmas with young adults/college kids, check out my series about this topic. I think you’ll find lots of fun ideas! You don’t have to quit having Christmas fun just because the kids are grown! ?

P.S. What are your favorite stocking stuffer games?

Love and hope,

Pin this post for later!

The post 3 Fun Family Card Games appeared first on Character Ink.

If you have read my article about the Fun Factor in Homeschooling, you know that a lot of our homeschooling was hard work. Perseverance. Stick-tu-i-tive-ness. The daily grind. The day-to-day in’s and out’s. Teaching our kids contentment, work ethic, and study skills.

But we also had fun. A lot of fun. Not every subject. Not every hour. But in balance, we had fun in our school.

I pray that your family can find that fine balance between fun and just plain hard work. Homeschooling is a long, sometimes lonely, and always challenging endeavor.

As I have mentioned before, if we try to make it all fun and games all the time, our children will miss valuable lessons. However, if we omit fun from our homeschool entirely, we risk making everything else look better to our children than home.

Here are a few ways we made homeschooling fun:

1. We always started our day with Bible reading/character reading together–and ended that reading with a fun chapter book that we worked through together. (This was after each person’s morning routine and chore list, usually, and was sometimes during the kids’ breakfast eating.) Everybody looked forward to our continued chapter book readings. I read quite literally hundreds of chapter books aloud to the kids this way, and these are some of our most fond memories of all of homeschooling.

2. While we tried to get curriculum that fit each child’s strengths, interests, learning styles, etc., and I (Donna) did the bulk of the choosing, for extra things, we took the kids with us to smaller conventions (or let them look in a catalog to choose), and they picked out their fun “extras”–including chapter books they wanted to read that year, educational coloring books, audios to listen to, etc. (Yes, we spent a lot on our kids’ school. We live in a very old, tiny, non-fancy house with used furniture and old vehicles with lots of miles. We financially (and time and energy-wise) prioritized our kids’ education and family times over everything else.)

3. While we did many weekday field trips, we didn’t limit our field trips to school days. It wasn’t uncommon at all for us to take a Saturday to go to museums and zoos with Dad or to plan a long weekend vacation museum-hopping in Chicago. The kids knew that their education was important to both Dad and Mom–and wasn’t just something that Mom did, thought about, planned, and carried out.

4. In addition to our morning chapter book, I usually had chapter books going with various kids. I would have one that I read aloud to each of the three olders–plus another that we did as a family with Dad. Everybody worked hard so we could do our reading.

5. I should say after the #4 reading one that we did not have access to television stations or even computers with our olders. We had a big old television hooked up to a vcr–and we limited everybody’s watching to five hours per week (usually together). I need to include that here because when you don’t have television or computers, reading aloud together becomes a fun activity. While I don’t think we should run away from our society (not have a computer, act like technology doesn’t exist, etc.), we recommend highly limiting and controlling it so that the little things in life become sweeter. (See The Fun Factor in Homeschooling.)

6. Read the book/watch the movie. We didn’t do this formally, but we did it quite often. With so many book/movie combos out today, I would make this a homeschool tradition!

7. Add fun subjects. Our kids always got to do extra things they enjoyed like art, music, pottery, sewing, science kits, etc. We tried to expose them to different fun things to see what they were good at and where their interests took them.

8. Make PE a family affair. We tried to do a lot of our kids’ PE at home together. We had other families over to play. But we also just played as a family. We loved making up new games with various sizes and styles of balls!

9. Get cool school supplies. We didn’t do back-to-school clothes shopping, but we did let them pick out their binders, pens, crayons, etc. They weren’t limited to a list from a school with boring “16 Crayola crayons–no more, no fewer”—any style or color or pattern of school supply works at home! 😉

10. As our kids got older, we let them plan their subjects for the next year–and sometimes even choose the books.

11. Also, as our kids got older, we let them plan their school schedule/order with us for the year. As long as it worked and they completed their lists, they could continue to make choices about these things.

12. School with another family. We often did field trips, activities, unit studies, days away, etc. with another family or two of kids. We got together to do gingerbread houses and crafts, etc., every Christmas.

13. Do anything different than what kids around you are doing! Our kids loved the fact that they didn’t have to get on a bus early or they didn’t have to stay inside at a desk if it was nice out. Or we could go to the park for lunch and some PE on any given day. Point out the fact that homeschooling affords us so many activities and opportunities that those in school can’t do or enjoy.

14. Take fun field trips! If you have heard us speak or follow our blog, you know that our older kids are extremely proud of the fact that they (along with Mom and Dad) slept at the top of the jungle gym at Science Central, in the snake room at the zoo, and on the soldiers’ “cots” at the fort. Go for the unusual, and they will remember them and love homeschooling because of them.

15. Do story time from birth. There is nothing like shared picture books with little kids. And there is definitely nothing like the memories of reading picture books every afternoon with momma for ten years. I’m telling you–this is what memories are made of.

I could go on forever and ever about how much we love homeschooling; how we tried to make it fun (but not so fun that normal wasn’t enjoyed!); how we put our time, money, strength, and energy into raising our children in this homeschooling lifestyle–and how much they, as adults, are grateful to us for it.

The post Ways We Made Homeschooling Fun appeared first on Character Ink.

Recently when my sister, her husband, and her two young teen daughters were here visiting in Indiana from North Carolina, we took as many from our family who could come and my sister’s family to our local YMCA to play a game called “walleyball” (rhymes with volleyball). This game is similar to volleyball in its rules–with the addition of walls as it is played in a racquetball court.

Since the court is smaller than a regular court, the game is actually a little easier for those who are not as strong–but not as easy for stronger people who hit the back wall (one of the out of bounds zones) quite often. The combination of the walls, the rules, the size of the court, and the various strengths of the players that night has made me think over and over again in the days since we played about the idea of the “mulligan.”

As indicated in the opening of this post, a mulligan is “an extra stroke allowed after a poor shot”–that is NOT counted on the scorecard or against the one who has been issued the “second chance.”

This term is one that we have thrown around our family of seven children (now ages seventeen through thirty-two) for years since my husband is a master at adapting games to fit the crowd who is playing. He loves to bring two or three families together and modify a kickball game or our oldest son’s homemade handball invention in order to allow littles to play with biggies; parents to play with children; and lesser skilled participants to play with “athletes.” Thus, a “mulligan” is a familiar word–and one that has been spoken many, many times in our home over our thirty-two years of parenting as we have enjoyed playing with our children.

It wasn’t uncommon during our walleyball night to hear someone shout “mulligan” whenever a person attempted to serve but didn’t make it over the net. Then we would evaluate and determine “yes” the person gets a mulligan or “no” he does not. What has led me to think of these mulligans quite often since that evening is the criterion on which we based giving mulligans during our play.

I mean, how does someone tell a sweet, small, twelve-year-old balletic niece that she cannot have a do-over after she tried so hard to get the ball over the net?  Or how do you turn down a poor middle-aged sister (*smile*) who is still recovering from frozen shoulder surgery: “too bad–you should have hit it harder”?

So when did we give mulligans that night–and what does this have to do with parenting?

Allow me to give you our walleyball mulligan run-down:

1. My younger niece is not a “ball” type of athlete. She is a dancer, cheerleader, and gymnast. She is also fairly tiny. She was a good sport about the whole night–but walleyball probably wouldn’t be her first choice of games. Because she is small, she had trouble getting her serves over at times, so everybody agreed to give our sweet Brittany some mulligans when her serve fell short of the net.

2. My sister had just had surgery for frozen shoulder approximately ten weeks before our Y night. She was able to play okay, but definitely didn’t have the range of motion that a serve often requires. Thus, we moved her closer to the net and gave her mulligans.

3. Our youngest daughter (24) has never been a volleyball player. She always thought she was terrible at it, and she often sat on the sidelines and watched others play through the years (in spite of her being very fit, a runner, and serious ab-workout girl!). She wouldn’t ask for a mulligan when she missed, but because she has just been learning volleyball over the past few years, we sometimes offered her a mulligan as well.

Who didn’t get a mulligan?

1. I adore volleyball. I played a little in high school, and while I’m not great at it, my years of experience in playing it at picnics, etc., meant that I was not a mulligan candidate.

2. See that athlete in the picture above–serious tennies and headband? That is our son’s wife who was the captain of her high school volleyball team and took MVP at nationals. She played a year of volleyball in college–no mulligan for that expert!

3. See that young man below? He is our seventeen year old–our youngest child. And he can be hyper, funny, loud, helpful, compassionate, and crazy all at the same time. On this particular night, he (as many seventeen year old boys do) tried to serve overhanded as hard as he could in an effort to score on every serve. Thus, he often hit the ball too hard and hit the back wall or the ceiling–both out of bounds spots. No mulligan for someone who knows how to do it but is hot dogging! 😉

4. None of the men or teen boys got mulligans. They are strong, athletic, and competitive. No motivation or encouragement was needed!

So what does this have to do with parenting? More than you might think.

In the “game” of parenting, we have the opportunity every day to give more chances or to show “tough love”–to extend grace or to train through consequences. We face these situations often unprepared.

We lament over them–“I just feel like if I don’t bring his shoes to gym class and he gets an F for the day, he will blame me” or “I know we have told her dozens of times not to leave her phone lying around at the gym, but now that it is stolen, I feel sorry for her because she misses talking to her friends. And we homeschool, so her phone is a way she socializes,” etc. etc. etc.

And I am not making light of any of these scenarios. We, after all, have raised six “teens”–and have one teen that we are in the thick of raising (a last child, nonetheless!).

Grace. Training. Mercy. Responsibility. I mean, honestly, who wants to choose among those?

warming up…

But let’s break down our walleyball game a little further to see if we can get some benchmarks for giving our kids mulligans:

1. Brittany is younger. She is not as strong as the big guys. She is not as used to ball handling like her sister who plays basketball at school. Extending mulligans to Brittany, who was trying to serve the ball over the net with all her might and had a good attitude in the process, is a good decision.

And so is giving a mulligan to a child who is struggling and genuinely wants to change/alter his behavior/make things different. And you know what? Most of the time we parents know when this child deserves a mulligan. The key is going to be to not give mulligans forever to a struggling child–but to gradually reduce the mulligans as the child becomes stronger and more adept.

2. My sister was injured for pity’s sake! She was being a sport just joining in the family fun.

When a child is downhearted or overwhelmed, he often needs grace. I don’t mean in trouble because of continual bad decisions or poor character but rather truly discouraged. When mercy is extended to a child in this situation, it can make a huge difference in how he pulls himself up by his bootstraps and gets moving in the right direction.

How long does a person with a shoulder injury need to recuperate before she should just serve already? Just as my sister’s doctor told her that it varies from person to person (with hers being more extensive once they got in there and found bone spurs as well), so it is with our children.

This is where heart parenting really comes in to play. Should the mulligans come to an end and this “injured one” come back now? Are we prolonging the healing process by not letting her live with consequences?

Someone who is hurting needs a mulligan–but not forever.

3. Volleyball playing is somewhat of a new experience for Kara. Granted, she is twenty-four, but she has only been getting on the court and playing over the past couple of years. You could say that she is in volleyball training.

A child who is “in training” in a certain area needs more mulligans than the child who has already been doing that skill or task for a while. We talk about this in our parenting seminar (Raising Kids With Character)–the idea of “childishness.” Childishness (forgetfulness, irresponsibility, etc.) in a child who is still learning his morning routine or his after school chores is best handled incrementally–with mulligans in place as needed–but not so many mulligans that the immaturity and irresponsibility remain.

We gave Kara a mulligan or two–but her volleyball training is about over (evidenced by how much better she played tonight than the previous time we played), and her walleyball mulligans are about to come to an end as well.

What about those who didn’t get mulligans?

1. Strong people who have done something over and over again do not need the motivation that comes with a mulligan (usually). It was easy to tell our twenty-two year old, athletic son to roll the ball under the net if he hit the ceiling on his serve. No training was taking place; no motivation or encouragement was needed.

2. Those who were hitting the ball so hard that it hit the ceiling or the back wall did not need mulligans. They needed to learn cause and effect. Walleyball is different than volleyball–the court is shorter and the back wall and ceiling are off limits. If you continue to smack the ball with that force, you will serve it out, and the other team will get the ball.

It wasn’t that hard in our walleyball game to determine who got a mulligan and who didn’t.

And while that isn’t always the case in parenting, we can use some key benchmarks for extending grace, including age of the child, past experience, whether other consequences have already been in place but didn’t help, the attitude of the child at the time, the frequency with which something occurs, the strength of the child, and more.

Because sometimes each one of us needs a mulligan in this game called life. But we also need to learn and grow. Because each of us needs a little grace sometimes. But because the Bible tells us that we can easily take advantage of that grace. Because we don’t want to exasperate our children. But we don’t want to be the kind of parent who doesn’t help our child become responsible or kind or thoughtful. Yes, sometimes we need to give our children mulligans.

The post When Do I Give My Child a “Mulligan”? 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!

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 When we had Valentine’s parties (or any “holiday” party) with our kids, we always did it a few days after the holiday—so we could get the candy and treats for 50-75% off! So…if you are reading this after the “real” holiday, it really isn’t too late to have a party with your kids for Valentine’s Day!

One of the things that we tried to do with our kids for celebrations (or just “anytime parties”) is that we tried to go out of our way to make being with Mom, Dad, and brothers, and sisters cool. Our kids see us go to great lengths to prepare for a Sunday school class party, Mary Kay party, or extended family party. We put thought and effort into having “parties” with our kids—so they wanted to stay home and party with their family–and so that they would know that they are as important (more so!) than the Sunday school class, the gals at the make up party, or the reunion.

We have fond memories of communion nights, footwashings, Valentine parties, Easter celebrations, fondue parties, “flat top grill” parties, and more with our children. Being in our family was just plain fun and way cool! Some times we would just announce to the kids that “tonight, we’re having a movie party” or “tonight, we’re having a chocolate party” or “tonight, we’re having a game party.”

It may have been as simple as frozen pizza and a movie or as elaborate as a fondue meal that Mom and the littles spent the afternoon preparing for. It may have been for a holiday (after the holiday!) or just because we wanted our kids to stay home with us on a Saturday night instead of running around with friends. (We’re not opposed to friends, but the more time we spent with our kids the more WE would influence them rather than peers influencing them.)

I will list some ideas for a homemade Valentine’s Party—some that we have done and some that I have read about or heard of.

1. Write love notes to each other. Okay..I can write this one without crying…I really can. Some of my fondest memories are the times that we sat down and had the kids write notes to each other. Okay…forget the not crying thing. Talk about incredibly sweet and memory-imbedding! We drew names and sat down and listened to the true Valentine’s story on cassette (Adventures in Odyssey) and wrote love notes to each other. I still have some of them! We had the little kids dictate to us. One of the funniest ones: one of the little boys wrote, “Dear Kayla, I love you so much because you have skinny arms.”

2. Have fun foods! This is especially important as your kids get older. After all, what do they have when they go out with friends or to youth group? Pizza, Taco Bell, mall snacks. As our kids got older, we got more elaborate with our party foods. When the two oldest girls were college age and crazy about Flat Top Grill when it first opened in Fort Wayne, one of our Valentine’s parties was a flat top grill night. (It was tons of work to prepare for, but the older kids loved this!) We had meats, veggies, and pita breads all ready—and had griddles and electric skillets all set up on the table. It was quite the feast!

3. Do something for others. Preparing Valentine’s cookie baskets or bath baskets for nursing home residents, etc. is a great way to spend a party—and helps others too.

4. Wait until after the holiday to have your party, so you can get some cool party treats for fifty to seventy-five percent off! With seven children, buying elaborate Easter baskets or Valentine’s hearts was usually out of the question. However, after the holiday, we could go get things for a lot less and still give them special treats.

5. Spend your Valentine’s Day showing love to those less fortunate. For the past several years, we have spent time on or around Valentine’s Day serving a Valentine’s banquet (and sometimes cooking it or helping to cook it) for adults with cognitive disabilities through our daughter’s disability ministry (One Heart). We often do things to prepare for it (cookie making, set up, preparing a special drama, etc.) then serve at it. Valentine’s Day is about love…and what better way to show love than to live out Luke fourteen.

6. Get a special movie, audio, or talking books to listen to or watch together for your Valentine’s party. We love Adventures in Oddysey and other radio dramas put out by Focus on the Family; the Christian bookstore (and Hallmark) have some good movies about unconditional love, etc. that are appropriate for this holiday.

7. Write various verses about love on large hearts cut of construction paper, cut each one in half in various zig-zags, mix them up, and pass out a half a heart to each person. That person then finds his other half, reads, the verse, and discusses it with the family.

8. Sing Scripture songs about love. Once we had piano players around here, we loved to gather around the piano and sing. None of us is too musical (except the two pianists), but we all loved it anyway.

Party with your kids—and make them want to stay home more!

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Click on the link below to get your free online advent calendar!

https://www.naturedetectives.org.uk/ideas/advent

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