Helping Your Little Ones with Friendship

Do you have kids who struggles with making friends?  Are they shy or just have trouble reaching out sometimes?  Or do you have a child who is on the spectrum, who struggles with making eye contact with others?

Have you ever thought about using a coloring book approach to help them?  

I recently found a series of delightful coloring/story books called Donnie Learns.  One of the books Donnie Learns How to Make Friends, shows kids how to make friends through a sweet creative story.  

Each book pairs gentle, sweet stories about friendship and 6 more character traits like gratitude, with a coloring activity on each page.  

The seven books in the Donnie Learns series speak especially well to kids who are on the spectrum.   The author wrote the books for his nephew who had Aspergers.  They are great for typical kids as well, especially shy ones.

My favorite book in the series is the one I mentioned above -Donnie Learns How to Make Friends.  It is a story about making new friends after a move to a new home, starting with how the boy befriends a deer in his own backyard.

It encourages using eye contact, in a sweet way, first through the deer, whom he watches from his window.  

What a wonderful way to encourage a child who struggle with making friends, or making eye contact with others!  They are also great for when you want an independent coloring activity for your young ones, while you are working with your older kids. 

There are six more coloring/story books in this series, each with a different creative story, all with the same kind and respectful tone.  Click here to read lots more and my review. 

Would you like to look inside one of these books?  Below are links to all of the books in this series, each focusing on a different character trait, like gratitude, responsibility  and more.  

Note - This post includes affiliate links to products that we love and have used or would use in our  own homeschool. Please see my disclosure policy.

Just for fun, here's some of my favorite pictures of homeschooling my 2e daughter when she was little:

Homeschooling with our cat....

And riding her bike that she received for graduating from our Kindergarten at home.  What's happening at your house this winter? You may be making memories without even realizing it!  Please share one or two in the comments.  I love reading them!

Thanks for stopping by BJ's Homeschool,

Betsy

Betsy is mom to her now rising college senior, whom she homeschooled from preK through high school.  She blogs at BJ's Homeschool, about the early years, high school & college and wrote - Homeschooling High School with College in Mind.   She offers free homeschool help through messages at BJ's Consulting,  and has had articles picked up by the Huffington Post.

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Copyright, 2017, All Rights Reserved

Character Education FUN for Young Ones

Summary:  More than 5 easy to do character education activities for your homeschooled kids.  I may share products that we used in our homeschool or others that we found and love in my blog.  Please see my disclosure policy.

Are you looking for easy to plan, helpful ways to teach character development to your kids?  

Today, I'd like to share some favorites of mine for just that, using simple activities, and yes, even coloring books to reach concepts like gratitude, responsibility, how to make friendships, and more.  

Each of these posts gathered from my blogging friends, are geared towards young learners, say from preschool to the primary grades.

I love this article by Raising the Extraordinary, about using everyday life events to teach good character.

Teaching Character By Example

"The content of our children's character is what will shape their future.  So I ask.....click on the title to read more"  from Raising the Extraordinary.

Secondly, Year Round Homeschooling shares how to teach character development through homeschooling...

Building Character Through Homeschooling

"The most important part of our homeschooling journey is to build character.  It is my responsibility to......"click the title to read more from Year Round Homeschooling.

Next, how about doing it through movies?  

Year Round Homeschooling has also collected 100 Movies That Build Character, for you to browse.

My fourth resource is a very simple one....making a thank you jar...

Photo from http://teachbesideme.com/

Family Thankful Jar Craft

Tips for teaching gratitude and thankfulness, by Teach Beside Me.

Or would your kids like to make a thank you tree?  What's that?

The Thankful Tree

A fun, easy to do gratitude activity, from Motherhood on a Dime.  Click on the title for more info.

Finally, I just found a new way to teach character development to your young learners. 

Do your kids like to color?  

How about teaching character education, through coloring books?

The dad of a child on the Spectrum wrote a series of delightful books that tell storeis about character education.

And they are also coloring books.  The series is called Donnie Learns.

It  includes all the books in this photo above.  It is a creative series of coloring books that tell sweet and gentle stories about good character, such as gratitude, responsibility, and friendship.

 The Donnie Learns series includes the following books:

1. Donnie Learns How to Make Friends
2. Donnie Learns How to Be Grateful
3. Donnie Learns Self Love (That he is loved)
4. Donnie Learns How to Do What He Says
5. Donnie Learns The Value Of Time
6. Donnie Learns to Value of Earning
7. Donnie Learns to Take Responsibility for His Action

Each book focuses on one character trait, told through delightful stories that can be easily read by young readers around the first grade reading level.

.
Below are all the books in the series, Donnie Learns.

I hope this little list gives you some good ideas for helping your young ones grow in this very important area.  

What would you add to this short list of resources?  

Please share in the comments, as I am thankful for each one. They are also perfect for read alouds....(click here to read more of my review of them.)

What memories are you making this season, with your kids?   You may be making them without even realizing it!

Are you homeschooling a high schooler this year? All the details that you need to plan your high school at home are here.

Homeschooling High School with College in Mind - 2nd edition, 
Amazon 

Thanks for stopping by BJ's Homeschool,

Betsy

Betsy is mom to her now college grad, whom she homeschooled through high school.  She blogs at BJ's Homeschool, about the early years, highschool, 
college, gifted/2e and wrote -Homeschooling High School with College in Mind, 2nd Edition,   She offers homeschool help through messages at BJ's Consulting,  and has had some of her articles picked up by the Huffington Post.

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Just encouragement for your homeschool in your inbox. 



Copyright 2022 @ BJ's Homeschool
All Rights Reserved

This post was shared on my favorite linkups here.
Copyright, 2017, All Rights Reserved

Best Amazon Finds for Hands-On Learning

Summary -  A collection of hands-on activities from Amazon, for crafts, science and more. This post includes affiliate links to products that we love and have used or would use in our homeschool. #handsonlearning #homeschoolelementary #giftsforkids.  I use affiliate links to products that we used or would use in our homeschool. Please see my disclosure policy.

It's curriculum search time and I always started back to our homeschooling routine with a fun hands-on learning project.  Each year, when my daughter was young, we spent at least one day a week working on a hands on project that she chose for herself.

My 2e daughter learned so much from doing hands-on projects in our homeschool, especially during the fall and the cold winter months, when it was too chilly to play outside. It was nice and cozy inside when my daughter had a fun project to do.

And she loved doing these projects!  At the same time, doing hands-on learning taught her so much, and with her ADHD tendencies, we saw improved attention span, concentration, attention to task, and more.  And doing these activities or kits together made wonderful memories, too.

Amazon has tons of ideas for fun, hands-on learning that is educational, too. Here are some of my favorites for you, including creative arts and crafts, fabric arts, my favorite science kits, and even some construction kits for making things with wood.

Let's start with arts and crafts, which are so great for developing small muscle skills for handwriting, and more.

ARTS AND CRAFTS KITS

Arts and Crafts were always big in our homeschool.  My daughter learned to hand sew early on, and loved making small sewing projects.  We also enjoyed spinning art, origami, and crafting with clay. And anything project oriented from American Girl.  Here's some creative kits for each of these activities that I just mentioned.





HAND ARTS  - KNITTING & WEAVING

Have you ever thought about teaching your kids how to knit or weave, using very simple projects? Oak Meadow Homeschool curriculum got us started with some knitting and weaving.  These projects were so fun to do together and also helped my daughter with her attention issues and concentration skills.

Each year, in the elementary years, we spent every Thursday morning working on a hand arts projects, using VERY small, VERY easy projects.  My daughter made this quilted pillow above.

Now let's look at some wood and construction kits....

CONSTRUCTION KITS

And finally, I'd like to share some wonderful wooden construction kits that I found.   At our house, my daughter, when she was little, started out making things out of cardboard and tape, and here's one that she made of the rides that she took at our state fair.  Then she got into making things with wood.....

Building with wood, what a great way to play and learn on a winter's day!  Making things with kits like these below, improved my child's direction following skills, attention to task, organizational skills and more.  And then, there was the pride of creating something by hand, and a job well done!

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT - Through coloring books?

These books are written in story form, to teach character education for young learners, through coloring books.

Would you like to teach your kids about gratitude?  Taking responsibility for their actions?  How to be a good friend and to make friends? How to do what he says? These and more are taught in the series called "Donnie Learns".

These books tell simple and interesting stories that teaches a positive character trait.  The author even had the cover by blank, so as to encourage the kids to color it and all the pages of their books.

Here are a few for you to browse, if you like.  Here is a link to my review - Character Education Coloring Books




I hope that this gives you some helpful ideas for your own homeschool. What would you add to this list?  If you share your ideas below, I am sure that other families would be interested in them. I wish you a wonderful homeschool year, with lots of hands-on learning fun with your kiddo.

This post is linked to lots of other posts from veteran homeschool bloggers of the iHomeschool Network. Click here to connect with all of them!

Thanks for stopping by BJ's Homeschool,

Betsy

Betsy is mom to her now college grad, whom she homeschooled through high school.  She blogs at BJ's Homeschool, about the early years, highschool, 
college, gifted/2e and wrote -Homeschooling High School with College in Mind, 2nd Edition,   She offers homeschool help through messages at BJ's Consulting,  and has had some of her articles picked up by the Huffington Post.

Want to stay in touch?

Subscribe, Pinterest, Facebook 

No spam ever.  
Just encouragement for your homeschool 
in your inbox.

Copyright, 2017
Revised 2020
All Rights Reserved

BJ's Best Boards for Hands-On Learning - Preschool thru High School

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Thanks for stopping by BJ's Homeschool,

Betsy

Betsy is mom to her 20 year old college student whom she homeschooled from day one.  She blogs at BJ's Homeschool, about the early years, high school & college and wrote a new e-book for College Bound teens.  She offers free homeschool help and messages at BJ's Consulting.

Want to stay in touch?

Subscribe, Pinterest, G+, Twitter, Facebook 

This post was shared on my favorite linkups here.

Copyright, 2016, All Rights Reserved

BJ's Best Boards for Hands-On Learning and High School, too.

Do you like to collect favorite pins for your homeschool, like I do?  With so much out there on the web in the way of resources, new curricula, etc, I tended to get overwhelmed with all the many choices.  So I began to collect my favorite hands-on learning activities and ideas onto my pinterest boards.

 Today, I'd like to share my best pinterest boards with you.  They are full of hands-on learning ideas and activities, and  reviews of my favorite project oriented curricula, too.

I am picky about what I pin.  Some of my blogging buddies pin everything that they come across. For me, I only pin things that I used or would use in my own homeschool.  So for most of my pinterest boards, you won't find tons of pins to scroll through, but just what I consider to be the best for my family.

Pinterest is such a great way to collect new ideas and resources for your homeschool.

I have boards for all of the season of homeschooling, as I had the pleasure, and of course, the hard work, too, of homeschooling my kiddo from preschool all the way to college.  As a homeschooling family of one gifted 2e child, I include two boards specifically related to that, as well. 

During elementary and the middle school years, my daughter had some ADHD type struggles as well as sensory processing issues and auditory learning challenges, too.  You will find a number of things to pin on those topics, in my special needs board, and information on dysgraphia on my handwriting board.

I include lots of pins from my fellow homeschool authors at The Curriculum Choice, as well as others from around the web.

 So let's get started, first thing first, with my board for preschoolers and early learning.

EARLY LEARNING FUN! - for preschool and kindergarten

Awe, my favorite years of all!  Here are my best posts on early learning with links to my favorite early learning resources.  As a former preschool teacher and a mom, I highly recommend these hands-on learning favorites for your young learners.

ELEMENTARY - HANDS-ON! - for kids ages 6 - 11

In the elementary years, we focused a lot on hands-on learning, and that included fun projects like knitting, hand sewing and other great ways to build in the fun and  improve attention span, too.  Here I share my favorite resources for project based learning, from me and my blogging friends too.

MIDDLE SCHOOL IDEAS 

Are you looking for new ideas for your middle schoolers?   These are the years when our kids are learning who they are, and are developing their personalities and favorite interests.  


ROCKIN' HIGH SCHOOL and COLLEGE

High School  - My board on high school includes tons of ideas for planning, organizing, choosing curricula, rockin' electives and more!  I collected my best tips for newbie homeschoolers and veterans who are getting started homeschooling high school,  wondering how to assigning high school credit, looking for good electives and activities for their teens and more.

College Bound Teens - This same board above includes all of my best tips for getting your teen ready for college and helping them get in, too.  I include special tips that is important to homeschooled teens who are applying to college, such as how to share their accomplishments to the colleges, and all those pesky little details, like SAT prep and more.  How to homeschool high school with college in mind....it is not that hard!

HANDWRITING HELPS - Help for teaching handwriting and tips for kids who struggle 

Are you looking for a fun, low stress way to teach handwriting to your kids?  Or do you have a struggling handwriting in your house?  Or a child with dysgraphia?  Here are my best resources and tips for each of these handwriting needs.


SPECIAL NEEDS HOMESCHOOLING 

Do you have a child with ADHD, ADD, sensory processing disorder, or other special learning needs? My daughter struggled with some these learning issues, and I want to encourage others who have kids with special needs, too.  The 1 on 1 of homeschooling can be such a gift to kids with special needs.  Here are my favorite resources for you, from me and my friends, and from my background in OT, too.

This week has been a wonderful one in our house.  My daughter, now in college, was available and for our holiday tradition of joining in the Argosy Holiday cruise.  It is a short ride along Puget Sound, with a choir who sings and is along for the ride.  Here's a picture of the boat, taken from the shore. They always have a nice bonfire there, too, each year.

We have been doing this as a family tradition, since my daughter was 10.  I got a picture as she and my hubby stepped off the boat.

What are your favorite Christmas traditions with your kids?  I love reading your comments.

I am honored to be a part of the iHomeschool Network!  

I just joined recently.  This is a part of one of own iHN projects, linking you to other great homeschool resources.  To reach all the other awesome pinterest boards of iHomeschool Network, click here.

Thanks for stopping by BJ's Homeschool,

Betsy

Betsy is mom to her 20 year old college student whom she homeschooled from day one.  She blogs at BJ's Homeschool, about the early years, high school & college and wrote a new e-book for College Bound teens.  She offers free homeschool help and messages at BJ's Consulting.

Want to stay in touch?

Subscribe, Pinterest, G+, Twitter, Facebook 

This post was shared on my favorite linkups here.

Copyright, 2016, All Rights Reserved