Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss! In honor of his birthday, some of my blogging friends and I would like to share some fun Dr. Seuss-themed lessons with you. My post encourages you to pull out Dr. Seuss with your older children. The content of so many Dr. Seuss books is far more rich than you might imagine!
Our family recently read The Sneetches as one of our literature-based character lessons. What a fantastic book for teaching about the Christian character trait of acceptance – knowing that every single person has been made in the image of God no matter how they look.
The story:
The Sneetches have divided themselves into two groups – those who have stars on their bellies and those who have not. Those who have stars think of themselves more highly than they ought, while those who don’t have stars think of themselves more poorly than they ought. Mr. McBean soon rolls into town promising to make everyone part of “the” crowd. After a day full of everyone paying lots of money to continually change the group to which they belong, Mr. McBean is left wealthy and the Sneetches are still separated into two confused groups. They finally come to the realization that looks shouldn’t keep people from being friends.
Our lesson:
1. I started the lesson by having my children think about how people are often “sorted” in society by such characteristics as their clothes, shoes, hair styles, skin colors, cars they drive, houses they live in, whether or not they wear glasses, what scores they make on tests, and so on.
2. We talked about the impact these “standards” have had in the past. For example, how slavery and segregation occurred because of skin color.
3. We talked about the lesser (but more personal) impact these “standards” have had in our own lives. Have we ever been judged at co-op or church, for instance, because of an outward appearance? Have we ever seen anyone judged in this way? Have we ever judged someone over such things?
4. We read a few Bible verses:
1 Samuel 16:7b “The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (What should we be concerned about?)
Psalm 139:14 “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” (Isn’t everyone made in the same way?)
1 Peter 3:3-4 “Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.” (Does any of the outward stuff really matter?)
John 7:24 “Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.” (Do we decide whether someone should be our friend based on what they wear or how they act? Do we worry about their hairstyle or whether or not they love the Lord?)
5. Finally, I pulled out some plastic toys (animals or people would work fine.) I asked the kids to think of an attribute and sort the toys. For example, we sorted our people into groups of those who wear hats and those who don’t. We talked about the silliness of considering that the group wearing hats were somehow better than the other group. They obviously weren’t anymore capable, loveable, friendly, etc. than the group not wearing hats. There was no clear distinction other than the hats. To decide whether or not someone is more acceptable simply because they wear a hat (or not) is a ridiculous idea – as it is in real-life, too.
We’ve read other books in the past that emphasize this same concept (with a Christian flair), too:
More middle school (and above) lessons:
We love Dr. Seuss books and I’ve come across all sorts of ideas for using the books with older kids – middle school and above. Enjoy!
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!
I can’t tell you enough about how we have been blessed by reading the books below during our slavery and Civil War unit study. These books were so fantastic – in information, emotion and ability put us in the midst of the time period. I recommend each of them as living books!
(I haven’t included the books from my sidebar, which are equally as good. They will end up in another post soon.)
You never know what I might be writing about - homeschool plans, field trips, projects, family life, and so much more. I hope you'll consider using the subscribe button at the top of my blog to keep up with all the happenings at Westward Academy. And, by the way, I love comments!
