{"id":1098,"date":"2010-09-06T02:10:00","date_gmt":"2010-09-06T02:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/characterinkblog.com\/day-230-introducing-study-skills-slowing-down-activities-for-all\/"},"modified":"2015-03-12T02:36:58","modified_gmt":"2015-03-12T02:36:58","slug":"day-230-introducing-study-skills-slowing-down-activities-for-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/characterinkblog.com\/day-230-introducing-study-skills-slowing-down-activities-for-all\/","title":{"rendered":"day 230: introducing study skills\u2014slowing down activities for all"},"content":{"rendered":"

In winter I get up at night<\/strong><\/span>

<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
And dress by yellow candle-light.<\/strong><\/span>

<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
In summer quite the other way<\/strong><\/span>

<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
I have to go to bed by day.<\/strong><\/span>

<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
~Robert Louis Stevenson<\/strong><\/span>

<\/span>

<\/span>

<\/span>
It\u2019s that time of year! School has started for another academic year. The weather is changing. Days are getting shorter. And we are running kids everywhere! <\/span>

<\/span>
How do you develop good study and work habits while running kids from one activity to another? You don\u2019t! Think about it. When you fill your personal schedule too full, do you consistently do things around the house that need done? Do you fix nutritious, eat-at-home meals? Do you get to bed at a decent time and get up when you need to in order to have good mornings before the day\u2019s activity? No\u2026because it is basically not possible to develop good habits of study and work when you overcrowd your schedule. The same is true of our children.<\/span>

<\/span>
If we want our kids to develop good study habit and work routines, we must be sure that their schedules are not too jam-packed to make those goals realities. Many experts nowadays (Kevin Leman and Ray and Donna Reish (! LOL!) included) are advocating the slow down method with our children. We adopted Leman\u2019s one activity per child per semester guideline long before we ever read it in his book\u2014and it has worked wonderfully for our family. It allows us to have three or four evenings a week together at home\u2014family dinner, discussion, homework help, read alouds, movie nights, chore times, family work, business work, problem solving, relationship developing, and more.<\/span>

<\/span>
It might be too late for you to adopt this lifestyle for the fall\u2014but please consider it for the second semester. It gives us time to teach our children those important things\u2014and time for them to learn to develop good study habits and work routines.<\/span>

<\/span>
I will leave you today with an excerpt from Anne Kroeker\u2019s \u201cNot So Fast\u201d:***<\/span>
<\/span>

<\/span>

<\/span>
“Imagine your child wrote a college application essay that began something <\/span>

<\/span>
like this:<\/span>

<\/span>

<\/span>

<\/span>
‘I lived a deliciously slow childhood. My siblings and I took long walks in <\/span>

<\/span>
woods and caught fireflies in jars in the summer. We would wade in the<\/span>

<\/span>
creek and stare at pond skaters skimming the water\u2019s surface. In winter,<\/span>

<\/span>
after tromping over piles of snow, we curled up in front of the fireplace<\/span>

<\/span>
with books and read all afternoon with no noises other than the subtle <\/span>

<\/span>
swoosh of a page being turned. We prayed often\u2014at dinner and <\/span>

<\/span>
bedtime and anytime we felt the urge to worship or be thankful or ask<\/span>

<\/span>
for help. By draping sheets over a clothes line, we imageindd we were in <\/span>

<\/span>
an army barracks, fighting in the Revolutionary War. Life was slow and <\/span>

<\/span>
sweet, full of spontaneity and creativity; embracing a natural approach to <\/span>

<\/span>
learning as part of everyday life, and mingling reading and play with<\/span>

<\/span>
meaningful work.’<\/span>

<\/span>

<\/span>

<\/span>
What do you suppose the Harvard admissions office would say to that? <\/span>

<\/span>
Would they dismiss it as a poetic framing of ridiculous underachievement, <\/span>

<\/span>
or would they celebrate it? Would they embrace someone who benefited <\/span>

<\/span>
from a real childhood, full of wonder?<\/span>

<\/span>

<\/span>

<\/span>
{Actually, they have indicated that they possibly would!} …..the <\/span>

<\/span>
former dean of students at Harvard himself sent out a letter to all<\/span>

<\/span>
incoming freshman recently, an essay, entitled, \u201cSlow Down: Getting <\/span>

<\/span>
More Out of Harvard by Doing Less.\u201d \u2026.the hypothetical \u201cslowed down <\/span>

<\/span>
childhood\u201d in the earlier paragraph sounded a little like it was written by a <\/span>

<\/span>
person who already enjoyed some of the {recommendations in the <\/span>

<\/span>
Harvard article}.”<\/span>

<\/span>

<\/span>

<\/span>
People everywhere are starting to recognize the desperate need we<\/span>
have to slow things down for our kids. We hope you will start to <\/span>
recognize it too.<\/span>

<\/span>

<\/span>

<\/span>
So, if you do have time in the evenings at home, how do you help your<\/span>
children develop good study habits and work routines? I\u2019m going to<\/span>
pull out some of my old \u201cstudy skills\u201d articles and workshop notes and<\/span>
dig in to give you some ideas in the coming days.<\/span><\/p>\n

***Note: The formatting on the “one hundred word or more quotation” in this post is not correct. I had to just use quotation marks since I could not get the indenting format to work on the blog. I say this because I try to use correct grammar and punctuation on here as much as possible. (I am, after all, a language arts curriculum author! \ud83d\ude42 )<\/span>

<\/span>
<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In winter I get up at nightAnd dress by yellow candle-light.In summer quite the other wayI have to go to bed by day.~Robert Louis StevensonIt\u2019s that time of year! School has started for another academic year. The weather is changing. Days are getting shorter. And we are running kids everywhere! How do you develop good […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[280,277,283,99,310,300,314,275],"yoast_head":"\nday 230: introducing study skills\u2014slowing down activities for all - Character Ink<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/characterinkblog.com\/day-230-introducing-study-skills-slowing-down-activities-for-all\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"day 230: introducing study skills\u2014slowing down activities for all - Character Ink\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In winter I get up at nightAnd dress by yellow candle-light.In summer quite the other wayI have to go to bed by day.~Robert Louis StevensonIt\u2019s that time of year! 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