I'm looking for something, must be Christian based, to teach a 1st grader about virtues. Does anybody know of anything? Thanks! Oh, and hopefully FREE or low cost.
I remember meeting the folks from doorposts.com at a local homeschool expo. I believe their material covers all ages.
And this is from a review of their material that I posted a year ago. I assume they still sell the same products. I would say a good word too for Doorposts - instilling values in the context of family. Their website is doorposts.com. Some of their materials are expensive for what they are, but there are some good ideas among them. For example, they sell a cloth doll with clothes - each item of clothing representing a value: humility, generosity, etc. When the child demonstrates that trait, they get to dress the doll in that item. If not, their doll goes without. I can believe the person who told me that it's the child who feels embarrassed when the doll shows up for family devotions wearing no clothes.
Not 100% sure what you mean by virtues, but how about leading by example in your day to day life? You can also discuss a virtue each morning and when you are reading books or watching TV later, talk about which virtues the characters are exhibiting. Why what they've done was wrong and whether how they make it right is actually fair in your opinion and why.
Are you implying that she doesn't already do that? I think she's talking about teaching a behavior before it comes up in life. There are some things that can't be shown by example, because they would never come up in my own life, but they may come up in the life of a child. Also, kids don't always pick up on behaviors unless they're told what happened and why. I prefer to teach conceptual virtues on a child's level (apply to more than one situation) than concrete ones on an adult level (very specific circumstances).
I understand there are tons of classes and I love the ideas of teaching it, I believe we live it but we can use it as a class as well. It is a good way to teach skills we may not have thought about ourselves. Gizzy when we teach at home we teach more than the norm remember. (smile)
http://homeschoolblogger.com/shiveracademy/Book+of+Virtues/ free unit study http://www.goodcharacter.com/table1.html Also free, This is a teaching guide to go along with video series but there is enough useful free info here that you can use without the videos,
A while back there was a freebie that was a biblical companion to William J. Bennett's Book of Virtues. I never started it (had planned to this year, but our curricula is soaked in Bible so won't need it). It looked REALLY neat. I'll have to see if I can dig up the source, from what i can remember it was a constant freebie...I'll check. I got the book on Paperbackswap.com (not a paperback!), and I recall they were selling on Amazon, used, very cheaply. ETA: DUH!!!! See Sonita's first link above, THAT'S IT!!!!! SO GREAT!!!!! I REALLY wanted to do this!!!! I may still, now that I've looked at it again! LOL
