This month is the month we focus on "Society" (see my "7 Monthly Themes" post). To explore the question of what makes a good society, I am going to use the platform virtue of "civility" and it's role in making or breaking societies on many levels: home, marriage, community, global.
(The Presidential Election would be a perfect case in point of a negative example.)
I will be using as an outline: "Choosing Civility" a book full of short little "pointers" on how to be more civil. Today, we began our exploration of "civility" with a look at words and their power in devotional,
Our opening welcoming "power of words video" was perfect today :). (This is not always the case. Sometimes, it is just the music that makes people rush down so they don't miss any of it.)
Then I opened a discussion about our video we watched as a family last night, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." I asked them to identify examples of civility and the lack thereof. I then listed off words that aroused different feelings, "warmth, respect, thank you, kindness, awesome..." and asked them to think of the power of words.
I asked them each to pick a word they would like to either hear more or say more. After everyone shared them, I read the story of "Please" from The Book of Virtues.
Words. So powerful.
This short film really brought to the forefront the benefit of "choosing civility" and using words wisely.
How beautiful!!
We then watched this one: (again, I try to let the kids do most of the talking or the artwork I select because they hear from me so much!)
Change your words, change the world.
Someone in our church last Sunday referenced "How to Win Friends and Influence People." Tova (19) brought up how Carnegie teaches that little changes in words can change so much! "You are great at addition but you still need to work on multiplication" suggests that the lack in the second part negates the goodness of the first. Try: "You are great at addition and now you can work on multiplication" builds on the goodness of the first."
I challenged the kids to read the book this month, reminding them of the powerful influence it had on the speaker on Sunday when he was 14 and felt that he had no friends in the world.
Closing song after my words: "I'll Walk With You" from our Primary songbook and closing prayer.
I glanced over to where the littler ones were being quiet and saw this:
Cool connection! In history right now we are studying the "extremes" of the Gilded Age: 1890-1920, where buildings, business and art were all exploring new heights and extremes. I had pulled up a bunch of pictures of the houses of Frank Lloyd Wright from that time period and was going to focus on that for our Time Machine today (yesterday, we had the dentist). I just thought about how words can "build people up or destroy them." In fact, I just read in the chapter this week from "Aspire" about "Inspire" the power of words!! CONNECTIONS!!!! Anyway, I can discuss with them (as they are building their own buildings out of Legos and K'Nex the importance of good building tools, just like we need to have good words to build each other up with.
Oh the wonder of connected learning!!
(The Presidential Election would be a perfect case in point of a negative example.)
I will be using as an outline: "Choosing Civility" a book full of short little "pointers" on how to be more civil. Today, we began our exploration of "civility" with a look at words and their power in devotional,
Then I opened a discussion about our video we watched as a family last night, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." I asked them to identify examples of civility and the lack thereof. I then listed off words that aroused different feelings, "warmth, respect, thank you, kindness, awesome..." and asked them to think of the power of words.
I asked them each to pick a word they would like to either hear more or say more. After everyone shared them, I read the story of "Please" from The Book of Virtues.
Words. So powerful.
This short film really brought to the forefront the benefit of "choosing civility" and using words wisely.
How beautiful!!
We then watched this one: (again, I try to let the kids do most of the talking or the artwork I select because they hear from me so much!)
Someone in our church last Sunday referenced "How to Win Friends and Influence People." Tova (19) brought up how Carnegie teaches that little changes in words can change so much! "You are great at addition but you still need to work on multiplication" suggests that the lack in the second part negates the goodness of the first. Try: "You are great at addition and now you can work on multiplication" builds on the goodness of the first."
I challenged the kids to read the book this month, reminding them of the powerful influence it had on the speaker on Sunday when he was 14 and felt that he had no friends in the world.
Closing song after my words: "I'll Walk With You" from our Primary songbook and closing prayer.
I glanced over to where the littler ones were being quiet and saw this:
Sometimes it is just worth the quiet :). I will be doing Nursery with them later this morning so their spiritual "shot in the arm" can come then/
Cool connection! In history right now we are studying the "extremes" of the Gilded Age: 1890-1920, where buildings, business and art were all exploring new heights and extremes. I had pulled up a bunch of pictures of the houses of Frank Lloyd Wright from that time period and was going to focus on that for our Time Machine today (yesterday, we had the dentist). I just thought about how words can "build people up or destroy them." In fact, I just read in the chapter this week from "Aspire" about "Inspire" the power of words!! CONNECTIONS!!!! Anyway, I can discuss with them (as they are building their own buildings out of Legos and K'Nex the importance of good building tools, just like we need to have good words to build each other up with.
I love when ideas all come together!
We are focusing on "My body makes beautiful things" for Nursery this week, so today we will talk about words, doing beautiful things with our body like singing, dancing, speaking, etc, and are doing an "art project" where we draw outlines of our bodies and then fill it with glitter, beads and other beautiful things.
Oh the wonder of connected learning!!
I love that when I base my homeschooling on principle-based learning, the ideas that I have put in place at the beginning of the year coincide!
We are also going to be watching "The Wizard of Oz" (from that time period) which is also a satire on society, our study of the month. Ah-hah. More and more connections.
No comments:
Post a Comment