Teaching Virtue ~ FREE Character Study

A Production of the Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network.
September 3, 2021 by Leave a Comment

Benjamin Franklin said, “Without virtue, man can have no happiness in this world.” We sure are seeing this a lot today. Many human beings have lost their moral code and knowing the difference between what is right and what is wrong. It is so important to teach virtue to our children, especially in this fallen world.

Virtue isn’t just a character trait. Being a virtuous person takes decision making skills. You choose the right road, or the wrong one. This is something we can teach to our children especially at home.

Once they are out in the world so many things will be thrown at them. It can be hard to make the right decisions when you are surrounded by many that are not making them. If they have had practice making good decisions during their childhood and teen years, most often they will carry that out when they leave your home.

Teaching Virtue

We can teach virtue to our kids by setting the standard and leading by example. They model what they see at home. If you are making wise choices they will want to follow suit. Also, talking openly about why you have made certain decisions and making decisions together as a family helps.

Establishing rules and setting limits at home will help them to make wise choices while still living at home. Why are there limits set on technology, especially the internet?

Talk openly about movie and music choices and the dangers of clicking on the wrong thing and what it can lead to. Why do you have standards and rules on what can and can not be watched at home? What are your reasons for that? Explain these to your kids as you set them.

Doing a character trait study together is a wonderful way to start an open discussion with your family.

Teach virtue to your children with this month’s free character study printable pack:

This  Character Counts planner will teach you how to plan a month long study on the character trait of Virtue. Parents love that our planners are open and go and customizable. You can pick and choose what you would like to print and use for your family. You can use them anytime in the year since they are undated. I keep all of our planners in a big binder. We have a nice large collection of them as we download them each month. They are great to pull out if there is a specific character trait that you need to work on in your home.

Many families also use these for a morning Bible time in their homeschool. These planners are designed to be simple and fun, with activities for your entire family to participate in together. This is great for family time and has there are fun conversation starters. Yes, even parents can benefit too! 

This is what is included:

  • Character Quality Family Checklist Worksheet
  • 4 Week Study on Virtue
  • Analyze and Evaluation Sheets
  • Character Trait Planning Worksheets
  • Virtue Printable Posters and Scripture Posters
  • Virtue and Your Gifts
  • Family Virtue Brainstorming Session Sheets
  • Virtue Study Worksheets for Kids
  • Certificate of Completion

The directions on how to download your free Character Counts Planner are sent in each weekly ezine. The planner access information is always located at the bottom of each email. If you are not signed up, you can sign up HERE.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , ,

FREE Creativity Character Counts Study

A Production of the Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network.
June 1, 2021 by Leave a Comment

When you think of good character you may not think of creativity as a character trait. Many people say that they aren’t creative, or that they don’t have a crafty bone in their body. Being creative isn’t always about being artistic or crafty. It is being able to think outside of the box, to solve problems and address things in creative ways when the need arises. It is a practical life skill that can be a lot of fun to work on with your children.

Character Counts Creativity Planner Text with image of paint roller and leaves.

 

Creativity is problem solving:

Having creativity and being creative is a way to to teach your kids how to problem solve. This can come in handy with everyday life activities.

Do you feel like you are stuck in a rut with dinner and meals? Ask your children what they would like to eat, if they want to start helping meal plan and see what they come up with. You may have one child that is very organized and wants to write out a plan and prepare a grocery list. While another child may want to make a contest or cooking game out of it. Either way your dinner will be planned and that tackles one problem.

You can do the same thing with birthdays. Your whole family can work together to come up with some creative ideas to celebrate birthdays in a fun and unique way. Maybe your schedules are all over the place and you can’t celebrate it on the day. You will want to think of ways to pick a special time and place to celebrate. How fun would it be to include the whole family in celebrating with one another?

Are you sick of the same chore routine? You can also tackle this in a creative way when you put your minds together to come up with creative solutions to getting the house clean in a flash.

There are many everyday things that arise, that can use some creative thinking to make them easier and more doable to running a home. Some people are more creative than others. That’s why I enjoy these planners so much, because Felice gives tons of suggestions on how to teach the character trait in ways that involve the whole family.

Teach your kids how to be problem solvers with this month’s free printable pack:

This Character Counts planner will show you how to plan out a month long study on the character trait of Creativity.  These planner are organized for you and open and go. It is also customizable, meaning you can pick and choose what you would like to print out and use for your family. They are not dated so you can use them anytime in the year.

I personally store mine in a character training binder. These are great if you have a certain issue that needs to be focused on in your family. Then you can pull them out and work on that trait as you see fit. Many families enjoying using these in a daily morning time in their homeschool. Our planners have been designed to be simple and fun, with activities for your entire family to participate in together. Yes, even parents can benefit too!

Check out what’s inside:

  • Character Quality Family Checklist Worksheet
  • 4 Week Study on Creativity
  • Analyze and Evaluation Sheets
  • Character Trait Planning Worksheets
  • Creativity Printable Posters
  • Creativity and Your Gifts
  • Family Brainstorming Session Sheets
  • Creativity Study Worksheets for Kids
  • Certificate of Completion

The directions on how to download your free Character Counts Planner are sent in each weekly ezine. The planner access information is always located at the bottom of each email. If you are not signed up, you can sign up HERE.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , ,

FREE Character Counts: Enthusiasm Planner

A Production of the Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network.
May 4, 2021 by Leave a Comment

When you think of the different character traits, enthusiasm doesn’t seem like one that you would normally need to work on with your children. Imagine if your children had a positive, happy, and joyful attitude for even simple every day tasks and school work. Do you know how that would change the entire feeling in your home? It would be an inviting place, and people would see a difference in your family and your life style.

Do your children need help being joyful and enthusiastic? This character planner will give you some great tips and printables to guides your children.

This month’s subscriber freebie is on the character trait of Enthusiasm.

When a child shows a lack of enthusiasm and grumbles and complains over tasks they are actually showing disrespect. This needs to be handled quickly or it can turn into more complaining and attitude problems that will be passed down to the rest of the family. It isn’t always easy, and doesn’t come naturally to some children but it can be taught through example.

This planner will give you the tools you need to teach your children to be enthusiastic and have a positive happy attitude. There are reflection sheets for you as the parent to journal about your children and to note their strengths and weaknesses. It well help you see how you can help them and encourage them in specific areas that they struggle with.

One great way to do this is by practicing in your own home. You can discuss how to encourage other family members and to try to be joyful. There are many examples, suggestions, worksheets and activities to help your children to think through their attitudes. It will give them ideas to be an encourager, and to be happy in all things. I really appreciate that there are scriptures to back up what is being taught, that we can show our children when they are struggling.

What is in this month’s planner?

The Character Counts planner helps you to easily plan out a 4-week study on the character trait of Enthusiasm.  Like always, the planning is done for you, which makes it completely open and go. It is also customizable, meaning you can pick and choose what you would like to use. The planners are not dated so that you can use them at any time. We like to print ours out and store them in a character training binder. You can easily access them and pull them out when you are dealing with a certain issue that needs to be focused on in your family. They are also a great addition to a morning Bible time. These are designed to be simple and fun, with activities for your entire family to participate in together.

Check out what’s inside:

  • Character Quality Family Checklist Worksheet
  • 4 Week Study on Enthusiasm
  • Analyze and Evaluation Sheets
  • Character Trait Planning Worksheets
  • Create an Enthusiasm Poster
  • Enthusiasm and Positive Attitude Study Worksheets for Kids
  • Certificate of Completion

The directions on how to download your free Character Counts Planner are sent in each weekly ezine. The planner access information is always located at the bottom of each email. If you are not signed up, you can sign up HERE.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , , ,

FREE Character Counts: Gratefulness Character Planner

A Production of the Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network.
October 30, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Gratefulness is one of those character traits that we can always improve on. I have noticed in my own life that when I am showing gratefulness it seeps down to my children and my entire family. If I am grumbling and complaining about circumstances, or petty things, that gets passed down too. How many times have you found yourself complaining about something little, and then you hear the same thing come out of your child’s mouth the next day? OUCH.

FREE Character Counts Gratefulness Planner

This year, more than ever is a time to really settle down and focus on what we are grateful for. It has been a tough, tough year for so many families. Job losses, sickness, civil and political unrest. Vacations and special events cancelled. Disappointment. Worry for what the future holds. We need to be able to take a step back, enjoy our family and the resources God has given us.

Being thankful for the simple things.

How many of you are so thankful that you have toilet paper in your house right now? Who would have ever taken something like toilet paper for granted until this year? We literally jumped for joy when my husband found a pack of 1 ply. That is something I would normally complain about, and we rejoiced to have anything! Can you believe it? It sounds silly, but it is absolutely something to be grateful for.

Every little step at showing gratitude, helps you to be more grateful for even the hard things. Sometimes it is the hard things that shows us the simple things we can thank God daily for. It helps your children to be grateful and complain less as well when they see you modeling this in your home. Before you know it, gratefulness will be flowing from your heart, and you will see true change, joy and happiness.

This month’s subscriber freebie is our Gratefulness Character Planner:

November is always a great month to hone in and focus on being grateful and thankful for our blessings. Even more so this year, but it is just more easily done during the time of Thanksgiving. With the Thanksgiving holiday around the corner, our family always enjoys doing unit studies on thankfulness.

This is the perfect time to gather your family around and work on these activities together. Felice always includes some creative ideas, experiences, activities, printables and worksheets to help your family work together towards the specific trait. There is a lot of room for discussion, and very good thinking and conversation points as well.

What is in this month’s planner?

Our Character Counts planner will help you plan out a 4-week study on the character trait of gratefulness.  Our planners are open and go and all the planning is done for you. They are also customizable, meaning you can pick and choose what you would like to use. The planners are not dated so you can use them anytime of the year. I like to print ours out and store them in a character training binder. Character training is a great addition to a family morning time in your homeschool. The activities are good for all ages in your family.

Check out what is inside:

  • Character Quality Family Checklist Worksheet
  • 4 Week Study Gratefulness/Thankful vs. Ungrateful
  • Analyze and Evaluation Sheets
  • Character Trait Planning Worksheets
  • Gratefulness and Your Gifts Journaling Sheets
  • Gratefulness Study Worksheets for Kids
  • Activity Sheets and Create a Poster
  • Grateful Tree Craft
  • Gratefulness Printable Motivation Posters
  • Certificate of Completion

The directions on how to download your free Character Counts Planner are sent in each weekly ezine. The planner access information is always located at the bottom of each email. If you are not signed up, you can sign up HERE.

 

 

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , , ,

FREE Character Counts Planner: Flexibility

A Production of the Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network.
July 31, 2020 by Leave a Comment

I was excited to get to preview the new subscriber freebie for this month. It’s another timely theme, on the character trait of Flexibility. Our kids sure have had to learn about being flexible in 2020. There have been many changes and unknowns. It can drive the sanest person insane, and can be very difficult to children who thrive on routine. It’s been very difficult for me who thrives on a routine as well!

FREE Character Counts Planner: Flexibility

We have been staying home much more than normal. Especially since March! Homeschoolers are usually home more often than others most of the time. Yet since March, we really haven’t been able to go much of anywhere. We never got to finish our homeschool co-ops and extra curricular activities that we looked forward to each week. Then summer time is here and we can’t even look forward to the normal summer.

It seems like all our normal summer events are cancelled. There are no more craft days at the local craft store, no dance camp, no summer camps, VBS is cancelled, and the list goes on. Everyone is finding themselves at home more this summer. One thing I have noticed about being home is that there are a lot of character traits that I need to work on with my children. I know I am not the only one who feels this way!

Teaching our kids flexibility:

Being flexible doesn’t come naturally to everyone. If you have multiple children you will see these differences very well. I have 3 kids that are very easy going, go with the flow, take things as they come type of personalities. I have another that has to have a schedule, and a planner and a routine. She needs to know what is going to happen before it happens and what the plan is.

You can only imagine how difficult things have been and the emotions we have been dealing with around here since the shut down. Even the children with the go with the flow attitudes have faced waves of disappointment. The one who needs to know what is happening next is dying that she doesn’t know what is happening next as things change daily around here!

It’s hard to teach our kids to be flexible in times of uncertainty. Yet it is so important to teach them to find a balance, it will pay off in the long run. This planner will help you learn to find that balance, but working together as a family.

What’s in this month’s planner?

The Character Counts planner this month will help you to easily plan out a 4-week study on the character trait of flexibility.  The planning is already done for you, which makes it completely open and go. You can also customize it for your children. My favorite part of these planners is that they are not dated so that you can use them at any time. I have been printing mine out and storing them in a special binder specifically for character training. These are also great to pull out when you are dealing with a certain issue that needs to be focused on within your family unit. We also enjoy using them in addition to our morning Bible time. These are designed to be simple and fun, with activities for your entire family to participate in together.

Check out what’s inside:

  • Character Quality Family Checklist Worksheet
  • 4 Week Study Guide on Flexibility – Adaptability vs. Inflexibility
  • Analyze and Evaluation Sheets
  • Character Trait Planning Worksheets
  • Flexibility and Your Gifts Journaling Sheets
  • Activity Sheets and Create a Poster
  • Flexibility Study Worksheets for Kids
  • Motivational Words Worksheet
  • Flexibility Blue Print
  • Certificate of Completion

The directions on how to download your free Character Counts Planner are sent in each weekly ezine. The planner access information is always located at the bottom of each email. If you are not signed up, you can sign up HERE.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , ,

FREE Character Counts Planner: Thriftiness

A Production of the Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network.
May 29, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Have you been enjoying the character planners each month? We personally use these during our morning time. The activities are fun and engaging and we enjoy doing them as a family. This month’s character theme is the character trait of thriftiness. This planner will be a huge help in teaching your children the character trait of thriftiness!

Character Trait of Thriftiness | Free Planner | #freeplanner #charactertraits #thriftiness #kidsplanner #kidscharacter

If you spend any time with homeschoolers on a regular basis, you will see that we are a pretty thrifty group. Many homeschoolers operate on a single family income so they have to be thrifty in order to maintain their lifestyle. Thriftiness can come naturally to some people, and it can be harder for others. If you have multiple children you will probably see this in each of their different personalities. Thriftiness is something that does need to be taught and is really an amazing life skill for our children to learn to emulate.

Teaching Thriftiness in Children:

We have grandparents that gift money to our children for birthdays and holidays. Or our children may earn money from odd jobs. I have one child who wants to go shopping and spend that money the day after she receives it. It literally burns a hole in her pocket and drives her crazy not being spent! Another child will save some for spending, and some for savings. Another child will save 100% of it for something expensive and special and will sit on that money for a long time. Much to the dismay of her spending sister.

My oldest child is now an adult and is very frugal with his money. He doesn’t mind spending money, but he always makes sure that he finds a good deal, or a coupon first. He always looks for gift card deals or cashback before making a purchase. His friends sometimes tease him for being “cheap”, but I am so proud of him. He definitely grew up helping me cut coupons and watched me search for the best deal before I purchased anything. It’s neat to see them grow up and “adult” with the life skills that we have trained them in our homes.

Teaching Thriftiness and budgeting vs. saving and spending is a great life skill to work on with your teens. This planner would be great to use as a one on one study with your teenagers and incorporate it into home-ec and a life skills elective credit too.

What’s in this month’s planner?

The Character Counts planner this month will help you to plan out a 4-week study on the character trait of thriftiness. It will help teach your children how to budget, and how to save money. As always, it comes with lots of practical applications. The planning is already done for you, which makes it completely open and go. There is also room for personalization to customize it for your children as well. Our character planners are not dated so that you can use them at any time.  We like to keep them all together in a character training binder. They would be great to pull out when you are dealing with a certain issue that needs to be focused on.

Check out what’s inside:

  • Character Quality Family Checklist Worksheet
  • 4 Week Study Guide on Thriftiness
  • Analyze and Evaluation Sheets
  • Character Study Worksheets for Kids
  • Character Trait Planning Worksheets
  • Journaling Pages on Happiness and Money
  • Activity Sheets on being thrifty and your gifts
  • Spending vs. Saving and Budgeting Worksheets
  • Thriftiness Blueprint
  • Family Goals and Savings for Vacations
  • Family Activities and role-playing ideas that demonstrate Thriftiness
  • Certificate of Completion

The directions on how to download your free Character Counts Planner are sent in each weekly ezine. The planner access information is always located at the bottom of each email. If you are not signed up, you can sign up HERE.

Character Trait of Thriftiness | Free Planner | #freeplanner #charactertraits #thriftiness #kidsplanner #kidscharacter

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , ,

FREE Character Counts Justice Planner

A Production of the Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network.
May 8, 2020 by Leave a Comment

I personally look forward to the new Character Counts Planner and character study that Felice creates for us each month.  We tend to use these studies before we start our homeschool day in the morning. We love how there are always a lot of activities that are great for the whole family to work on together.  This month’s character trait is Justice.

justice character planner text on image of books and hour glass and gavel.

There are many in this world today that want everything to be fair and equal, balanced and just. How do we encourage our children to stand up for what is honorable, just and true without giving up their own rights? It sure is something to think long and hard on in this day and age. As we have all seen with the shut down in many areas of our country, there hasn’t been a lot of justice going on. It is important to teach our children to stand up for what is right. Many of our liberties were taken away in the hopes of staying safe during this time.

In the meantime, how can we teach our children about Justice?

Justice can be taught in several different ways. This planner will cover a few different ways to teach justice and honor.

  1. Being just is also being honorable. When you act justly and right, you are acting in an honorable way. Acting just and being called to justice is following through on God’s plans for us.
  2. Being just is loving your enemies and doing unto others as you would have them do unto others. Talking with our children about being just and honorable will show them that being self-centered is not how things work.Teaching our kids how to play fairly, and include others can help them choose right decisions.
  3. Justice also pertains to the law and rules that are set in place for us. You can dig very deep into this while discussing unjust things in the world, and how laws are put into place to protect and bring about justice. There are also many examples in the media today, where justice needs to be served and isn’t. Or where people are fighting to change things and make them better. These are all great things to discuss and talk about with your children.

What’s in this month’s planner?

The Character Counts planner this month will help you to plan out a 4 week study on the character trait of Justice and Honor. It will help you teach and guide your kids on how to learn how to be just, and live a life of honor. As always, it comes with lots of practical applications. The planning is already done for you, which makes it completely open and go. There is always lots of room for personalization and customization for your children and family too.

Check out what’s inside:

  • Character Quality Family Checklist Worksheet
  • 4 Week Study Guide on Justice/Honor vs. Injustice
  • Analyze and Evaluation Sheets
  • Character Study Worksheets for Kids
  • Character Trait Planning Worksheets
  • Journaling Pages
  • Activity Sheets on the Character Trait of Justice
  • Laws vs. Rules Definitions and Worksheets
  • Printable Quotes and Bible Verses on Justice and Honor
  • Justice Blueprint
  • Family Goals
  • Family Activities that Demonstrate Justice and Honor
  • Certificate of Completion

Our character planners are not dated on purpose!  You can use them at any time.  I like to keep them all together in a character training binder. They would be great to pull 0ut when you are dealing with a certain issue that needs to be focused on.

The directions on how to download your free Character Counts Planner are sent in each weekly ezine. The planner access information is always located at the bottom of each email. If you are not signed up, you can sign up HERE.

 

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , , , ,