Resources For Teaching Virtue to Children

November 30, 2023November 29, 2023Leave a comment

Hello friends, and welcome.

Today has been another cold one. I am very thankful for a warm home and blankets! I woke up feeling a little under the weather and so I am trying to be very gentle to myself today. My husband and I signed up to run a half marathon on Saturday, and I really hope to make it!

I love looking for resources that teach virtue lessons to my children. Last week, I purchased a few new books for our home library. We owned two of these books for years, but over time they completely wore out. I felt like it was time to get replacements!

I thought I would share my purchases with you today in case you are interested.

The Children’s Book of Virtues is chock full of virtuous stories. I first purchased it about twenty years ago when we used Sonlight curriculum. After several moves and lots of years, I knew we needed to purchase a new copy.

You can find The Children’s Book of Virtues here.

I also decided to buy a new copy of Aesop’s Fables. I absolutely love to read these stories to my preschoolers!

You can find Aesop’s Fables here.

Finally, I purchased Stocism for Kids. This is a totally new book to me. We have read three stories out of it so far, and while they are pretty basic, my children seem to like it.

Purchase Stocism for Kids here.

And that’s about it. Friends, I have been buying so many books lately. I’ve been buying them used when I can in order to save some money.

I hope you enjoy these books if you decide to purchase them. Now I must go to place a Walmart grocery pick up order. Fun times!

Have a wonderful week!

This post includes affiliate links, which provide a small commission to me with no additional cost to you.

Our First Week of School

August 8, 2023August 8, 2023Leave a comment

Hey friends, and welcome.

We all have been busy bees around here! Our first day of homeschool was this week, and I think overall we are enjoying it. (Except for my son, as I’m sure you can see from his pained smile in the photo. He would much rather be doing something else!)

Oh friends, I am so happy to be back to schooling. This is such a good opportunity to pour into my children. The years are fleeting, and I’m so glad to spend this time with them.

Overall it’s going very smoothly, but I am spending much more time interacting with my children this year. We switched a lot of our curriculum choices over to The Good and the Beautiful, and we are still trying to get the hang of it. I think it is a good change!

We used a certain curriculum company over the past few years that I feel is just too “light,” if you know what I mean. We are still using a couple of their offerings, but not many.

I am also spending time reading aloud to my 13 and 17-year-olds. I’ve never done this before, but I’ve realized that I don’t have much more time with them. There are certain books/topics that I’d like to read out loud to them and then have a discussion time together.

At the moment, I am spending a good four to five hours actively helping my children with their school work. Last year I spent about two hours with them each day, and they were able to work independently for the rest of the time. So this is a little adjustment for me.

I plan to purchase a dedicated preschool curriculum for my three-year-old after my husband gets paid this week. I considered going with Sonlight since I have such fond memories of using this preschool curriculum with my older children. But boy, it is expensive! So my plan is to purchase a preschool curriculum from The Good and the Beautiful and supplement it from some books from Sonlight’s book list. I think this will work well for us!

We plan to work through a lot of things on Monday through Thursday, and then Friday will be a lighter day for us. This will work well since our violin lessons are on Fridays.

Besides homeschooling, I have been working on Etsy orders and canning produce from my garden. Today I put up six quarts of tomatoes and picked green beans. Okra is also starting to come in which is exciting!

Thank you so much for stopping by today, friends.

Blessings, Nicole

If you’d like to take a peek at my Etsy shop, please click here.

The Calm Before the Storm

July 28, 2023July 28, 2023Leave a comment

It is so very humid, and I’m sitting outside on my front porch. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I’m reconsidering, ha! A mourning dove is keeping my company though, and I will try to make it a little longer.

Friends, I hope you have had an amazing week! I have been doing my best to relax over the past couple of days. I feel like this is “the calm before the storm” since we plan to restart our home school in the beginning of August. Not that home school is a storm. Not in the least! But life does become more busy when we pick up the books again.

I still have some planning to do, which I hope to take care of next week. At this point, I will probably only plan a few weeks at a time. It likely is better this way anyhow. That way I won’t have to spend time crossing out and erasing as plans change…they likely will.

I spent more time reading to my children today, and I probably will next week, too. This will help us to ease into it. I still need to purchase our math and finance curriculum. We are going with Teaching Textbooks and Dave Ramsey’s program.

Speaking of Dave Ramsey, I’ve recently decided to start reigning in our spending a bit. Starting in late August is our “birthday season.” I call it that because we have five birthdays over the course of five weeks. That amounts to a lot of presents! I usually try to keep the decorations and food costs minimal though, and we usually have a small gathering with a grandparent or two.

We also have a beach trip planned for September, and our final payment for the vacation rental is due in August. I think it will be smart to spend as little money as we can while planning for these things.

I will be interested to see how my senior likes her Finance curriculum. I hope she enjoys it. I sure wish I would have been taught these concepts when I was younger. But to be honest, it might not have mattered because I was pretty hard headed! In my younger years I always had to learn things the hard way. Thankfully now I am wiser and I listen to good advice the first time around.

Well, now I hear thunder in the distance. If it rains, it will be a good thing. I’m sure my garden will be thankful! Pop up storms are common for us in Georgia because of the high humidity and heat.

I hope you and your children have an amazing school year ahead of you! Thank you so much for stopping by today.

Blessings, Nicole

If you would like to take a peek at my Etsy shop, please click here.