Name: Thrive! NCHE Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-05-22T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-05-24T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Winston-Salem, NC

Tagged: BOOK OF virtues, character, Personal Development, The Book of Virtues

This topic has 11 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 11 years, 8 months ago by Sara B..

Viewing 12 posts - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)

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August 21, 2013 at 6:21 pm
Sara B.
Participant
Does anyone use The Book of Virtues for Personal Development/Character Training in their school? I want to use it for my 10yo dd in Year 5, but I’m not sure how to divide it out. How do you use it with your kids?
August 21, 2013 at 6:38 pm
Rebekahy
Participant
Check out this unit study – we’ve used parts of it for a Sunday School class I taught – TONS of free printable pages – probably WAY more than you’ll ever use, but it gives a schedule and did I mention it was FREE? http://www.shiveracademy.com/book-of-virtues.html
August 22, 2013 at 12:23 am
jojo
Member
Hi I did use the Book of Virtues for character training and I used it with the above mentioned website and downloaded the whole thing (its free) and did what it said each week it was great! We really liked the stories too but we did only use the first 5 units. Its easy to use just follow the week plan.
Blessings Billiejo
August 22, 2013 at 1:30 am
ServingwithJoy
Participant
Thank you, Rebekah! I have been using the Book of Virtues for years, but I never knew this was out there. Love learning from you ladies!
August 22, 2013 at 3:17 am
Alicia Hart
Participant
What is the difference between this one and the Children’s Book of Virtues? Does anyone use the later?
August 22, 2013 at 4:51 am
blue j
Participant
Yes, we do. I had all of the pages printed out to go along with it. While they are fine, I have chosen to go my own way with it, and do not use them – though I do know a few other families who use BoV and the pages and like it alot. After using them, though, they felt like busywork to me.
August 22, 2013 at 6:24 am
Wings2fly
Participant
blue j, how did you use it in your own way? Read and narrate? I am wondering how this would work along with LDTR for Children?
The Children’s Book of Virtues has selected stories from the big book and is illustrated on every page. It is a picture book for about pre-k to 3rd or 4th grade. We used it as part of Sonlight P4/5 when my kids were about ages 4 and 7.
The original Book of Virtues is a thick book for older children. I have not used it yet, but played an audiobook on cassette we found used somewhere. But I want to go through it more focused than that, at least with some narration.
August 23, 2013 at 1:34 pm
Sara B.
Participant
Thanks for the help so far. I looked at the site you mentioned, Rebekahy, but it does seem like busywork to me, as blue j mentioned above. I was meaning more of, how do you break it down? Do you do just a story/poem each day? each week? Some other way of breaking it down? If we do one story/poem each week, we’ll be doing this book for several years. 🙂 Even daily I doubt we’d get done in 1 school year. Which is fine, but just wanting to know which way you have found works best. I’d love to hear more of how you’ve used it, blue j!
August 23, 2013 at 1:53 pm
Rebekahy
Participant
Oh dear – I’d forgotten how much they offered for each virtue! If I remember correctly the schedule they supply just has one story (or a couple pages) per day, covering a virtue every two weeks – it’d probably take 15-20 minutes to read following their schedule. Did you see the copywork and notebook pages? That’s what we used (NOT ALL OF THEM – JUST ONE!) and then we used ONE lapbook component per virtue so when the kids were done they had a lapbook with 10 virtues listed – some people think lapbooks are busywork, my girls really enjoy them and were in 1 and 3rd grades at the time so they had minimal writing requirements. We covered one virtue a week in our Sunday School class and used the lapbook component along with the Children’s Book of Character Bible Story.
August 23, 2013 at 2:02 pm
Wings2fly
Participant
Rebekah, I was excited to learn of your link. I plan to use some of it. I like the idea of one mini book per virtue for one lapbook. They tell you on the link to not use everything and to certainly not print it all at 992 pages. Copywork and notebooking look good.
August 23, 2013 at 4:12 pm
blue j
Participant
I am using 4 different resources this year for habit/civics/personal development. I have been using BoV for two years now. There is one habit in particular that needs to have reinforcement on a regular basis to keep it current – beyond the norm – for one of my girls. I plan at least 6 stories/poems from a chapter for 6 weeks worth of work. However, if habit is taking us a little longer to instill, I am able to add some in as there are a plethora from which to choose for any given habit/ virtue. We do narrate, and we also chat about what we, personally, want to remember from the story or poem – ie. what we see in ourselves that we want to change VERY specifically, and we write it down. I check back in with them on Wednesday regarding their goals and assess the week on Friday. The next Monday, we add something to our list of VERY measurable behavior we want to add to our list, so then we have 2 things to work on for that week, and so on. We also use this time to pray for strengthening in the areas each of us would like help. I do it along with them, because heaven knows I need to work on my own issues. I also want them to know that just because I am an adult doesn’t mean that I’m not continually striving to keep the good habits I already have and oust the bad ones.
Editted to add that we are doing more notebooking and this is an area in which we are adding it. I am hopeful that this will help as they will then have a notebook of habits they are covering and a very specific prayer list that they can pray in regard to their own character. I have one who does not do well at figuring out how to pray for help in these kinds of things. I am hoping this will give her the direction that she needs and she will see she need not be self-conscious.
August 24, 2013 at 3:19 am
Sara B.
Participant
I was doing some thinking and searching online, and I can’t believe no one seems to have come up with a project-based unit study on the Book of Virtues. The only thing I am finding about the Book of Virtues is the same link rebekahy originally posted. Wow. Am I the first person who has ever thought of this? And I never do project-based unit studies! Or unit studies in general! Or even projects! LOL
So I am working on putting something together for my daughter to use. I don’t plan to do every story/poem for every unit (especially toward the end under Faith there were some questionable authors that I don’t think my 10yo needs to know about right now, but when she’s older we can definitely relate them back to the Bible – so based on her age/maturity). I have a few things she can choose from to do – a regular narration (tell the story/poem), relate the story to her life somehow, or draw/illustrate/act out/some other form of hands-on type project. I am also giving her the option to create a book or binder with her narrations & projects in it. And we don’t have to do the units in order, either. We can choose what needs to be studied based on her current character. What do you think of it? Am I doing something totally wrong or boring or other bad thing? Or am I on the right track? Feedback greatly appreciated!