Jimmie of Jimmie’s Collage and Notebooking Fairy has just released her first e-book and I had the pleasure of reviewing it for her!! What a gem it is!
Clear. Concise. Full of practical ideas. Easy to implement. Very motivating! Those are phrases that perfectly describe Notebooking Success by my blogging friend, Jimmie.
I’m not new to notebooking. My children have used this method of narration and writing for years in our homeschool . But, after reading Jimmie’s e-book, I felt a renewed passion for this excellent method of teaching and learning – and this old dog even learned a few new tricks!
Jimmie’s writing style is so smooth and succinct that you’ll find yourself easily reading all the way through the book in less than 30 minutes. More importantly, at the end of the 30 minutes, you’ll have all the tools you need to get started (or refreshed) with notebooking right away.
Why incorporate notebooking into your homeschool? Jimmie answers that. How is notebooking with a 1st grader different than a 6th grader or 10th grader? Jimmie answers that. Doesn’t notebooking get boring for children? Jimmie answers that. She covers everything you need to know about notebooking from start to finish, including plenty of grade-specific ideas to get you and your children rolling.
As explained in the book, notebooking works well with just about any type of homeschooler – even those who use a strictly textbook curriculum. I have often mentioned notebooking to friends who are looking for a “better” way to help their children retain information or for children who need extra motivation for writing. Now, I’ll be sure to point those people toward Notebooking Success!
Welcome to Day 2 of my Heart of the Matter 10 Days of… series on Teaching Values in your homeschool!
Today I’m writing about one of my very favorite topics – living literature! There are SO many ways you can use literature to encourage good values in your children – and teach about the consequences of poor values as played out in the lives of book characters. Whether you’re teaching preschoolers or high school students, living literature is a gold mine for values training.
Yesterday, I mentioned the Fruits of the Spirit as defined in Galatians 5:22-23 as our “go-to” list of values for training our children. And, while that is certainly the list I focus on most in my home, there are plenty of other values which are important to instill in our children – gratefulness, truthfulness, hospitality, thriftiness, punctuality, attentiveness and many more.
You can find a wonderful list of virtues along with an amazing set of Bible and teaching ideas for each virtue at Home Life Ministries. Don’t miss this website! Also, while I’m not entirely sure of the content of The Virtues Project website, they have three printable posters of virtues you might be interested in.
Considering all the possible values to reinforce, it would be nearly impossible for me or anyone else to give you a comprehensive list of the best books to use for each and every value. While some websites and books set out to get you started on the practice of using literature for character training (see below), my intent is to show you how I take just about any book we read and use it for at least some character training.
A Sample Lesson
Let’s use just any ol’ non-secular book you might find at the library…The Three Little Pigs. You know the story, right? After reading the story with my children (if I was intending to use it as for part of a values lesson and not just sweet reading time), I would start asking open ended questions. Typically, I would only focus on one topic per book per day. In other words, I wouldn’t try to cover every single character flaw at one time.
Two possible character discussions:
Topic/character flaw = being mean
What do you think about the wolf? Why do you think he was called the ‘Big Bad Wolf’? I wonder what prompted the wolf to be so mean? You think he was just hungry? Okay, what could the pigs have done to help him? When people are mean, should we try to help them? What if they don’t want to be helped by us? Is there ever a time when we should run away from people instead of helping them? (Stranger talk!)
Topic/character flaw = laziness
Tell me what you think about each of the houses that the pigs made. Whose house stood strong against the wolf? Why? What did the other two pigs want to do rather than build strong houses? Do you think they were prepared for the troubles that came their way? What other troubles might they not have been prepared for? What does God tell us about being lazy in the Bible? Is there a time to play and relax?
There are obviously other discussions you could have based simply on this little picture book, too! And, just about any book you find will lend itself to character building discussions!
One other thing I might mention… When I’m preparing for a character talk (or when one comes out of nowhere), I’ll browse through my copy of For Instruction in Righteousness. It prepares me with Bible verses, Bible stories and ideas to bring home the point on a huge number of “character flaws”. It’s been one of the most used book in my home! In fact, I’m planning to write a whole post on how I use this book as part of our values training later in this 10 Days series.
Some Great Resources
The following websites offer wonderful collections of character building literature:
You might find this large selection of Aesop’s Fables helpful since every story has an obvious moral to discuss with your children.
(Short fables like these are good for assignments, too, where you ask your child to develop her own moral or write/act out a new version where the character makes better decisions.)
The books in the widget below contain either book lists of great literature (with a moral) for all ages, or are collections themselves of literature selections.
I hope you’ll join me tomorrow as we discuss teaching values through service and leadership opportunities!
Be sure to visit these brilliant ladies during our 10 days adventure between November 7th-18th!
Whew. Day 10. Thank you for hanging in there with me these past two weeks! I truly hope you’ve enjoyed this series about teaching values and pray that at least one thing stuck out as a good idea to use in your homeschool. Today I’m going to wrap up the series with two simple comprehensive lists of character training resources that I have found helpful over the years. Some of them have been mentioned in previous posts, some have not.
Sorry for making you click links, but the past two weeks of writing have tuckered me out. Plus, there are simply too many resources to include in one post. So…here are links to my aStore where you’ll find pages and pages of great resources.
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Colossians 3:12-17
Before I leave you… Enjoy your children. Soak them in the Word. Pray for them continually. Be a good example. Be merciful. Love God.
Be sure to visit these brilliant women during the 10 days adventure between November 7th-18th!
Children of the 21st century simply must be knowledgeable about and capable with computers. Besides typing programs and internet research, I like to assign occasional projects that are computer-based. I thought you might like to see the most recent projects…
Writing is something that Caleb does NOT like. But, when the writing is (at least somewhat) hidden, I get way fewer complaints! Using the newsletter program that came with Office 2010, I asked Caleb to create a keepsake page about his summer’s experiences with baseball. Besides the obvious skills of writing and word processing, he practiced page design and inserting photos and clip art. (There was a little more on the bottom of the page, but it included personal info that I didn’t care to share, kwim?)
Mahayla was given an assignment to create an informational newsletter about horses. The topic was her choosing and I was completely floored by her final product. What you see below is only the first of a two-page newsletter. I couldn’t figure out how to copy the 2nd page as a jpg!
Just this week, Caleb has been learning about non-vascular plants during science. We went on a fungi photo walk where he was supposed to find as many fungi as possible to photograph. (We found more than 20 varieties!) I asked him to create a notebooking page about the fungi using some of the photos from his walk. This proved to be a great learning opportunity for him in science, writing and computer skills – typing, fonts, tables and inserting images.
How do you use computers in your homeschool? I’d love to see some of your projects!
By the way, now is the perfect time for studying fungi in most parts of the USA. Check out A Fungus Among Us!
Lately we’ve been having lots of read aloud time in the afternoons. I’ve been trying to give my children things to keep their hands busy – paints, knitting, Lego pieces and nature notebooking pages or simple activities. So many of the NaturExplorers notebooking pages and activities can be used on the spur of the moment that they have become wonderful “fillers” during our reading time.
Before we read, I have them hop out into the yard to collect whatever nature specimen they need to complete the page or activity. Since they know we’ll be reading for some time, they don’t rush through the assignment and the resulting work has been excellent! Below are just a couple of examples from the Fruits and Nuts and Delightful Deciduous Trees studies.
(Note that my notebooking pages are copied in black and white. All the NaturExplorers notebooking pages are created in full color, but print just fine in black and white if you don’t have a color printer.)
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Just this week, Caleb has been learning about non-vascular plants during science. We went on a fungi photo walk where he was supposed to find as many fungi as possible to photograph. (We found more than 20 varieties!) I asked him to create a notebooking page about the fungi using some of the photos from his walk. This proved to be a great learning opportunity for him in science, writing and computer skills – typing, fonts, tables and inserting images.
