Five Tips for Avoiding the Terrible Two’s!

(1) Discern between wants and needs prior to the twenty-four month mark

(2) Mean what you say (“Don’t say no unless you’ll go”)

(3) Don’t sweat the small stuff—discerning between truly bad behaviors (behavior absolutes) and childishness

(4) Provide consistency

(5) Tell, don’t ask (unless it’s okay if the child disobeys or doesn’t listen).

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The post [Video] Five Tips for Avoiding The Terrible Twos appeared first on Character Ink.

“A good tomorrow starts tonight!”

– Ray and Donna Reish, Character Ink Press

This week I have created a video in which I answer moms’ questions about scheduling their school day, specifically the importance of a good morning routine, using morning charts, night people vs. morning people, what you do the night before, block scheduling, order of your day, and more.

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The post [Video] Wondering Wednesday: Scheduling Q & A appeared first on Character Ink.

Aboard, about, above. Along, among, around….

Whether your kids sing them, recite them, chant them, rap them, or write them…prepositions are important.

I learned them in chant-like form when I was in school. However, I never knew WHY I needed to learn them.

My newest downloadable product will teach kids prepositions—in a way that focuses on the WHY, that is, what prepositions really do!

Before you get lost in the product description, click on the video to see me teaching about this amazing product:

Our kids (and we!) need to learn prepositions for a few important reasons:

(1) They are the beginning of prepositional phrases

(2) Prepositional phrases can be mentally eliminated from a sentence in order to get to the bare bones of the sentence…since the sentence’s main subject and main verb are not usually found in prepositional phrases

(3) Prepositional phrases are good to use as openers—especially lengthy ones—as they vary sentence structure and rhythm.

I’m all about songs, jingles, rhymes, recitation, and mnemonics for learning parts of speech (and really anything).

However, when prepositions are learned in songs or recitations, the real reasons for prepositions are overlooked. (Not to mention that they learn about thirty of the over two hundred prepositions….not enough memorized preps to adequately recognize them in sentences and use them for sentence openers!)

That is, students can chant a long list of words, but they do not know how to use them.

Enter my Preposition Practice Packet! I use tricks. I use check sentences. I even use toys (“Preposition Practice Pals”!) to teach prepositions (and practice them).

But all of the methods within this Preposition Practice Packet have one thing in common: they focus on the PURPOSE of the preposition—to show spatial relationships or time.

This 80 page practice packet has fifteen lessons (with student assignments) introducing prepositions in a systematic order: initial letter, with the practice pal, as opposites, as synonyms, as compound words, and more.

When you use this packet, your student will learn prepositions by the boatload—but they will also learn them for their purpose.

Note: If you like the Preposition Practice Packet, you will love the Think Fast Grammar Quiz and Answer Key!

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The post Preposition Practice Packet Product Intro and Video! appeared first on Character Ink.

I have been trying and trying to get this Wondering Wednesday video up. I taped it three times, and I just got the file to upload!

This (along with the Character Pies video and charts) is such an important concept in parenting that I really hope I can find creative ways to get this information out to young families even more! (We will for sure be discussing this in our “”Tweens and Teens: Major on the Majors” workshop in Kelona, British Columbia in three weeks!)

Watch Part I below:

Here is the store description of the poster pack, but even if you do not have the poster pack (from March’s Freebie Friday—go to the blog and subscribe so you don’t miss future freebies!), the video can still be a big help in understanding these behaviors.

“This pack contains eight posters to use with your children to teach them what the Four D’s of behavior are. Each 8.5×11″ poster is colorful and eye-catching.

The entire set maybe used altogether or one at a time as you teach the concepts. One of the posters contains all four D’s of behavior – disobedience, disrespect, deceit, and distraction. This poster summarizes the four of these with bullet points. Then each of the four D’s has its own poster in which that “D” is elaborated upon and described in more detail.

Watch Part II below:

Also included is a disobedience math poster in which Donna lays out the foundation of obedience – doing what you’re told, when you were told, with a good attitude. This disobedience math poster has the obedience plus delay, obedience plus own way, etc., all laid out in a visually pleasing manner and one in which children can learn from quickly.”

Love and hope,

Donna

P.S. If you have any YouTube advice for me, please contact me! 🙂

The post Video: The Four D’s of Behavior Poster Pack appeared first on Character Ink.

I continue to have technical difficulties with YouTube. I have recorded the Wondering Wednesday video “The Four D’s of Behavior” three times now (the past three weeks), and it still isn’t able to be fully uploaded.

I keep trying because I am starting to think it is really needed with all the problems!

So again, I give you a “re-run.”

However, I referred to this one several times in the Four D’s video, so I decided it would be a good one to leave with you this week—the video on Using Character Pies.

It describes how to use this tool—but it also describes how to tell the difference between routine behaviors/character behaviors and Four D ones a little. Seems like a good one before we get the Four D one!

So here is my re-run again. Pray for my technology skills!

Love and hope,
Donna

The post Video: How to Use the Consequence Pies appeared first on Character Ink.

Click here to download the printable Sample Checklist Challenge!

This video has Donna Reish, author of the Checklist Challenge method, teaching how to use the Checklist Challenge. The Checklist Challenge is included in nearly every writing project in every Character Ink Press book (including Character Quality Language Arts; Meaningful Composition; Write On, Mowgli; and Write On, Peter Pan). This sample one may be tweaked and used over and over again in classrooms, homeschools, and co-ops.

The Checklist Challenge has the following characteristics/benefits:

(1) Each task is given separately (i.e. not just a big master list with no explanation). The tasks are explained and samples are provided.

(2) The checklist has check boxes (one per paragraph) for each essay/report/story that you can customize to a certain project. It is clear that a paper has four paragraphs, so most of the task should be done four times—once per paragraph.

(3) The tasks are skills learned in grammar. Once a child learns how to use quotations, he should practice them immediately by putting them in his writing. The Checklist Challenge marries grammar and writing in a way that other programs do not.

(4) Coding instructions are given so that a student can be taught to code his additions and revisions for easy teacher-grading.

And so much more.

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The post Video: How to Complete the Checklist Challenge–Level I appeared first on Character Ink.

On my recent podcast episode for the last Wednesday of December, I actually talk about the Daily Duties page first. I did that because I truly believe that Daily Duties are what make us the most successful in parenting, homeschooling, home management, and even entrepreneurship.

So where does the Daily Duties page fall in a simple planner? In The Simplified Planner (get it for free here during January 2016 by subscribing to the blog or newsletter or buy it here for five dollars), the Daily Duties page is a template page that you print off and fill in. (I recommend that you print one off and fill it with all of your Daily Duties as described below, then make copies to use each week. This way, any time your Daily Duties change (and they do throughout a year), you can print a clean one off, create a new sheet, and photocopy that.)

That is where it falls in The Simplified Planner, but it should fall every week in your actual calendar/planner. Let me explain:

1) The Daily Duties is a page that you create with all of your daily must do’s on it. These are things that you need to do every single day to be successful in life.

2) This page can be a daily page or a weekly page:

a) Daily just means that you will use a new one every single day (with the same ongoing daily list on it).
b) Weekly means that you will use one a week but each daily task will have five check boxes before it (one for each weekday), and you will check off one box for each task every day as you do it.)

3) Regardless of whether you create a daily sheet or a weekly one, it should have every thing listed on it that you need to do. Again, I work in categories, so my Daily Duties page was always divided by categories. For example, as a homeschooling mama of many, my sheet had these categories on it:

a) Personal Morning Routine
b) Morning Devotions/Reading With the Kids
c) Oversee Morning Routines and Morning Chores
d) Unit Studies (there were always things on here I did every day–Read biography; read character book; sing hymn; other reading for one hour, etc.)
e) Oversee Noon Chores
f) Littles in the Afternoons
g) Food Preps etc.

4) The point is that if you need to do it in order for things to operate smoothly at your house, it should be on this list.

5) Note that the categories may be time periods or categories/types of activities.

6) Once you have it made, you should print it off and insert it (either with a paper clip or in your binder if you use a three-ring binder) just before that week’s Weekly Worksheet. Open your binder or planner up to this page, and use it to work your mama magic in your home.

There are very few homemakers, homeschoolers, or work-at-home mamas who truly conquer the Daily Duties. There are many reasons for this–not really pinpointing what those things are; feeling overwhelmed by bigger things instead of tackling the smaller, day-to-day tasks; lack of motivation; not having kids help enough so the daily list is truly too much for one person, etc.

But the thing about the Daily Duties list is that once you master it, you can accomplish anything! Once you prove to yourself that you can do what needs done every day–before you let weeklies or monthlies or “tyranny of the urgent” overcome you–there will be no stopping you!

Check out my three chore sessions a day and dishes/laundry/trash twice a day for more insight!

Check out this podcast episode about Using Your Planner/Calendar to Get More Done!

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The post Welcome to a New Year: The Daily Duties Page appeared first on Character Ink.

When I used to buy planners completely made up for me from the office supply store, I never really had a good handle on those week-at-glance pages. I found the clock ones, those with half an hour increments of time down the page, to be very unhelpful to me as a homeschooling mom. Now I still find them equally unusable as a work-at-home mom. I simply don’t have those appointments every thirty minutes.

I know some homeschooling moms do like to plan their school day out in thirty minute increments, but you still wouldn’t need one of those every single week. Hopefully you have a master schedule for that whether you use the hour by hour planning method or the block scheduling method that I talk about here.

Likewise, I never even found the week-at-a-glance pages with each day listed in columns to be that helpful. I usually put the things that were happening each day on the monthly calendar. But in recent years I have found great uses for those week-at-a-glance pages. I now call these pages my Weekly Worksheets.

Once again, I categorize. I think as moms we have a tendency to think in categories more than we even do time or date. Thus, my weekly planning pages are set up in categories. For example, I list the category topics at the top of each square or column, and then I have spaces beneath each one to write down the things that I need to do in that category. For me now, as a nearly-empty-nester, I have categories each week as follows: cottage classes, podcast episodes, blog posts, Meaningful Composition, downloadable products, freebies, family, home, meals, recipe/cooking. All of these categories are areas in which I have ongoing to-do lists!

Obviously, those of you with young children would have different categories than mine. Twenty years ago my categories would’ve been very different. But whatever categories of life that you have a lot of things to do in will make up the categories on your Weeklies Worksheet pages.

(Keep in mind that the this worksheet is for a to do list for the week. Thus, I do not put things I automatically do on these pages. When I was homeschooling several children, those types of “repeating activities” were written on my block schedule homeschool plan for each week–and my children’s to do lists were written on their Independent Work Lists.)

So back to the Weeklies Worksheet page. This two-page spread follows each Monthly Memos sheet in my planner and is for one week. Before I made my own Weeklies Worksheet page, I would just use the week-at-a-glance sheets that came with my planner and re-label those with my categories – already to create my to do list or the week.

So each Weeklies Worksheet double page spread has that week’s date and all of my categories listed in boxes or columns. Then I simply fill in under each category what I need to do that week. I add to this throughout the week and even start next week’s pages this week if I have anything to put on next week’s to do list.

The real secret to success on my Weeklies Worksheet is the prioritizing system that I use on it. Every to do item that gets listed under a category gets a letter before it – either A, B, or C. In a perfect world, A means priority one; B means to do after A; and C means to do last of all. In reality, A means that I really need to get to that this week. B means that I would like to get to that. And C usually means to move it to next week! (See my blog post As Easy As ABC…)

This set up for a Weeklies Worksheet has worked best for me for a few reasons. First of all, each weekly page follows the next and they all follow that monthly calendar page. Thus, it is close in proximity to the monthly calendar. Secondly, my to do list is divided by categories. This is really important to me with deadlines etc. Third, by prioritizing each task with letters, I can see at a glance the importance of each one under each category. Finally, by having it all set up ahead of time, I can flip over to future weeks and jot things down.

Oftentimes, we have loose pieces of paper, sticky notes, index cards, and even restaurant napkins with to do lists jotted down here and there. With the Weeklies Worksheet, everything is in one place. If I do not have my planner at any given time, I make a note on the sticky pad that I keep with me at all times or in my Notes section of my phone. If I don’t have time to transfer that all over to my planner, the sticky note gets put in the planner, and the next time I work on my calendar, I transfer the information from the sticky note to wherever it goes in my planner. Having everything in one place is really helpful.

Watch in the next day or two for what is probably the most important part of planning and truly getting things done – the Dailies Duties page. You won’t want to miss it!

Check out our freebie, The Simplified Planner, by subscribing to our blog here.

Listen to detailed instructions on how to set up a simple planner/calendar at my Wondering Wednesday podcast here.

The post Welcome to the New Year: Using Week-at-a Glance Planning Pages appeared first on Character Ink.

In a podcast episode here, I describe in detail about how to use your planner/calendar to get more done in the upcoming year. I thought I would also include some information here at the blog in print format to help you out.

Note that all of this is also available in our freebie Friday on January 1, 2016, to blog or newsletter subscribers (you will still have access to this link for the whole month of January if you subscribe now). That freebie is The Simplified Planner that I described in the wondering Wednesday podcast episode and I will refer to here as well. However, any planner that is broken down into monthly then week-at-a-glance pages—and has the space to add pages to it (The Monthly Memo page described here and the Daily Duties page described in an upcoming blog post) will work fine. The main thing about planners is getting something that you will really use every day—whether that is my freebie, one from the office supply store, these fancy/gorgeous ones available online, or an electronic device.

Most of us use some kind of monthly calendar. Many of us have several calendars scattered around the house and office. Others only use digital or electronic devices keep track of things. I guess you could say this information is for old-school folks – those of us who still use a two-page spread of a monthly calendar/planner (though the prioritizing in upcoming posts will help those with print planners or digital planners).

I like to use a large calendar, much like The Simplified Planner that is available as our Friday Freebie. Most 8.5 x 11 planner pages that you might get at an office supply store are set up in this way as well. I like the larger calendar planners because you can fit more on each square.

I use the top two thirds of each calendar square to put anything that is going on during that day activity-wise – kids’ activities, my tutoring students, appointments, etc. Because I like to keep track of our college and high school kids’ work schedules, the bottom third of each calendar square is reserved for the kids’ work schedules. This way I can see at a glance that Josiah is working 7 AM to 7 PM this Thursday, etc.

In addition to using the monthly calendar page, I follow that page up with a two-page spread I call Monthly Memos. I like to categorize everything in my planner, so I do the same on this Monthly Memos page. This Monthly Memos page has categories such as recipes to try, blog posts to research or write, family things, podcast episodes, personal goals, etc. I use this like a worksheet throughout the month to jot down ideas, things I don’t want to forget, goals, etc. (As a writer, I also have my project planner for big projects, but this two-page spread helps me focus on the upcoming month.) For younger parents, your Monthly Memos page will have completely different categories—maybe books to hold at the library, things to research for homeschooling, parenting goals, meal idea, etc.

I have these Monthly Memos pages inserted throughout my calendar following each month, so I can go up a few months and jot something down for that month if I don’t want to forget something or something is seasonal that I want to remember. Having a place where everything goes for that month is helpful – especially since it is located right before my week at a glance pages. Check out a future blog post for more information about the week-at-a-glance pages and how to really use those pages for weekly goal setting.

The key to getting more done really does lie in the planning; however, if we don’t have a planner or tool that we will readily open and use each day, that is also not helpful. Our planner usually begins with the month, but I prefer to focus on my days (The Daily Duties pages), so stay tuned for those upcoming posts! Your success lies in the completion of Daily Duties! 🙂

Check out our freebie, The Simplified Planner, by subscribing to our blog here.

Listen to detailed instructions on how to set up a simple planner/calendar at my Wondering Wednesday podcast here.

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The post Welcome to the New Year: Monthly Calendar and Monthly Memos Page appeared first on Character Ink.