Character in Action {Character Concepts Review}

Thinking back over the years I've been home educating I came to realize quite early on that academics were not going to be the most challenging aspect of the home education journey.  Character was. Teaching character and how to make wise choices was a real daily challenge. With Timothy and Jane we used many different tools however with a child who is on the spectrum it was becoming a challenge to teach biblical character in a concrete way that he could fully understand.

I am so very excited to have found Character in Action:Taking the Next Steps by Character Concepts.  Character Concepts was started by the Boyer Family whose passion is to equip families with resources to train their families to show forth the character of Christ.

Character in Action:Taking the Next Steps is not just another character curriculum.  This is a character book with a difference!  The difference is that these are real people, living real every day ordinary lives just like us and who are able to put into action what they are learning and take us along for the journey all the while encouraging us to do the same.

Each time we read a chapter we discuss the actions and why the families are doing what they are doing.   One of the biggest benefits of real life photographs and true living examples is that when we are out and about I can refer to a character trait and he knows exactly what I'm talking about.  For example we went to a friends house for a play date and I could encourage him to be sensitive to the needs of the younger children and he understood what I was asking of him as we had read the chapter on sensitivity that morning.

Character traits explored in this book are:

1. Creativity
2. Sensitivity
3. Kindness
4. Responsibility
5. Compassion
6. Initiative
7. Generosity
8. Honor
9. Hospitality
10. Alertness
11. Gratefulness
12. Availability
13. Decisiveness
14. Deference

 Inside the book

• Each chapter focuses on one character trait. 
• The character concept is explained in a short sentence followed by a scripture.
• A short true life story follows.  Each story is narrated from the real  life experiences of the Boyer Family cousins. Interspersed throughout each story are family photo's of the particular experience. The most appealing part of the stories is learning alongside the children as they learn to put into real life application the particular character trait being covered.
• The end of each chapter contains a one page Taking The Next Step section.  In this section the family list extra ideas of putting into practice that particular character trait. The lists are not just a set of Googled ideas they are ideas that the families have used to put into practice that which they are learning. 
• Each and every story is beautifully presented.  Each trait is uniquely formatted. Through out each story there are beautiful full colour photographs of the family in the story.
• The whole book is in full colour. 

 Character traits explored in this book are:

1. Creativity
2. Sensitivity
3. Kindness
4. Responsibility
5. Compassion
6. Initiative
7. Generosity
8. Honor
9. Hospitality
10. Alertness
11. Gratefulness
12. Availability
13. Decisiveness
14. Deference

The Details

• Title: Character in Action:Taking the Next Steps
• Book 3 in the Learning Character with the cousins series. (Crossroads of Character and Character Trails)
• Format: Hardback or eBook
• Number of Pages: 144 pages
• Publisher: The Learning Parent
• Publication Date: May 2016
• ISBN 13:  9780986043321
• Author: Marilyn and Kelley Boyer and "The Cousins"
• Photographs by numerous sources

Cost* of Character in Action

• eBook US $14.00
• Hardback Book US $19.99

*Prices are correct at time of review and subject to change at the discretion of Character Concepts. 

Recommended Age Range

• 6 to 12 years old.

Connect with Character Concepts on social media

    

Over All I thought ...
I'm very pleased to have discovered Character in Action:Taking the Next Steps. It has been a great way of introducing important life skills to Nathaniel.

Blessings
Chareen

WIN a copy of  Character in Action:Taking the Next Steps

Thanks to Character Concepts, we have the opportunity to give away a single copy of this wonderful book** to one of our readers.


To go into the draw:

• To ENTER: leave a comment on this post, {don't forget to let us know how we can reach you}, Tell us what character trait you most admire in people, or which one you wish your children knew more about! 
• You must be 18 years old or older to participate.
• Prize fulfillment is dependent on Character Concepts and is not the responsibility of Every Bed of Roses.
•  A random winner will be selected next Friday 7 October! 

** USA winner will receive a hardback version OR International winner will receive the eBook version.

Our New Learning Space {NBTS}

This post comes with a WARNING.  You do NOT need a personal library to home educate, although it does seem to be a common side effect in many home educating family homes.  Paul indulges my Bibliomania habit and my Dad custom built some bookshelves to make storage easier.  I think that I would have had a lot of books even if I had not home educated.  Home education has simply empowered me to find excellent twaddle-free literature.

A few years back I did a show and tell post about our learning spaces.  We tend to homeschool using our whole home. Nothing had really changed over the last three years. This years Aussie Not back to school party Learing Spaces theme over at Our World Wide Classroom has inspired me to change things up a little at home and move my primary learning area into the same space that most of the books are kept.

We found a great couch at the local op-shop and that is at the rear of the room.  I moved the small shelf next to this courch.  I keep our current read-alouds here along with a few reference materials and a couple of items that are to tall for any of the other shelves in the house.  The beautiful flowers are a gift from my daughter before she flew out to the USA two weeks ago.

I spent a few weeks rearranging my shelves and removing books I know I will not be using with Nathaniel and making some new sections.  I wrestled with how to arrange the books on the shelves which took a while.

If you're anything like me you'll want to get in there for a closer look at what sorts of books are housed on the shelves.

I finally took the plunge after 10 years of home educating and used the colour stickers on the Sonlight Core books to keep the different cores together. I am pleased that I finally did do this as it's made life so much easier.  It's so much easier to locate a specific book in a specific core. I can now see at a glance if a book is in the wrong place too.

I decided to try and place the biography style books together. Some of these are specifically for homeschooling and some of them are for me.

I also rediscovered my character study resources and will be adding these to our studies later this year.

One of my current passions is learning about the Charlotte Mason method of home educating.  The more I've looked into it the more I found out about Nature Journaling and journals, so over the last couple of years I have been collecting some resources for it.

Earlier this term I attended a Charlotte Mason workshop where classical subjects were talked about so I decided to place my Charles Dickens reources, William Shakespeare, Hymn Study, Artist and Composer Studies resoruces together.

Other posts in this years Not Back to School blog hop

• Meet the Family
• Year 4 Curriculum
• A Day in Our Lives

It's been so much fun rediscovering the treasures that have been hiding on my bookshelves and knowing they are in full view so I remember to use them when we're studying.  I am looking forward to a little more tweaking of this space but so far I am very pleased with the results.

Have you blogged about your homeschool space ?  If so I would love to come and see so please leave a link either in the linky or in the comments.

Blessings

Chareen
PS If my spelling is not a 100% this week I would ask for your patience. I am borrowing a friends laptop (who happens to be german) and so I have no way to do any spell checking as her pc has a default setting of German ...