I made a spontaneous decision in the last few days of December to do monthly character studies with the little Ws this year. We obviously talk about all these things as they come up in daily life already, but I wanted to zero in on one at a time for a while. I came up with a list of twelve traits that I felt were worth our attention, then randomly assigned one to each month.
This was the inaugural month and I didn't even get started until we were about a week into January, but that's fine. My goal is not to have some rigid plan that's going to create stress if it doesn't all fall perfectly into place, but to intentionally think and talk about a particular character trait for several weeks. I'm sure it will look a little different from month to month, but the parts that will remain the same will be for each of us to define the trait, choose a quote or Bible verse that relates to it, and spend some time talking and praying about these traits being evident in our own lives. Because I want this to be something that stays on our radar, I'm having everyone write down their definitions, quotes, and verses, then we're taping them on the wall in a highly visible area of our home.
Main benefits?
Knowledge. The little Ws will (hopefully) understand what all of these character traits mean.
Understanding. They will learn why these traits matter, how their presence or absence can affect both ourselves and those whose lives intersect our own.
Application. We'll all have ample opportunities to choose whether or not to display the character traits we're studying, learning from the times we blow it and identifying the times we nail it.
Fringe benefits?
Handwriting practice. This month proved to me that this will be an opportunity for me to have the little Ws step it up in the handwriting department. I've seen the stellar handwriting they can use ... and it was
not on display for this project. No biggie this time around, but I'm going to buckle down the rest of the year.
Spelling practice. One kid rewrote a paper a few times in order to get all the words spelled correctly and that's how it will be for everyone all year.
Dictionary practice. Yes, I require the little Ws to crack open a book when they need to define something. I know it can be done in a snap online, and they do get more opportunities to do that as they get older and are competent with a dictionary in their hand, but I think it's good to know how to look something up, to figure out where a word falls alphabetically on a page, and to feel comfortable looking up answers to the things you don't know.
Research practice. Whether they're looking in a Bible's concordance for a verse or searching online for a quote, they'll have opportunities to search for the information they want, refine a search when they don't get the right kind of results, and sift through the search results to find whatever it is that grabs them or meets the need of their assignment.
Here's what we've done so far.
This paper will stay up all year ...
... and this one will change each month.
Our first job was to define the character trait of self-control.
Our next task was to find relevant Bible verses or quotes, talk about them, and write them down.
We still have another week to go in this month, so we are going to read some library books that focus on self-control, spend time praying about these continue talking about the quotes and verses, but otherwise this is what we've done for our first month of this new project.
Here's how it looks on our wall. It's just a scattered arrangement of definitions, quotes, and Bible verses around the two central papers.
This picture shows how it's in a central place in our home, a wall we walk toward a gazillion times a day.
I'm really looking forward to doing this for the rest of the year, knowing it will lead to some good conversations with the kids and some opportunities for personal growth.
