If you have used any of the Young Peacemaker materials (Teacher’s Guide, adult book, Student booklets, etc.) would you please share how you used them? I am currrently reading through the adult book and enjoying it very much, but wondering how to practically apply these principles with my children every day. I do have the Teacher’s Guide and student booklets, which I can use or not use. I know SCM says they are like “curriculum in a box”, but I ordered them just to get me started. Before I jump in, I was hoping others could share what they’ve done with these materials.
I just open the TM and my children follow along in the Student book. My 11 year old does what is in the SB and any assignments from the book on his own and then we talk about them the next day. My 7 yr old just listens at this point. We really like these.
I printed out the first booklet of the student books for the kids today. Then I read from the first chapter of the Teacher’s Manual. We stopped often and discussed what was going on in the conflict. Then we read about the different types of Escape (running away, blame game, denial) and the three types of Attack (fighting, gossip, put downs). It took almost 20 minutes to do all this, and I could see eyes glazing over so I stopped the lesson. We will try to finish the lesson later in the week. I feel like this is a lot of information about conflict for a 7yo and 8 1/2 yo, and that much of it they probably won’t remember or even understand without a lot of extra explanation.
What would you recommend I do to make these lessons not only shorter, but also more understandable and relatable on my children’s levels?
My friend has successfully used only the student booklets with her kids 15 down to 6. When we pick this book up again, that’s what I plan to do. I really dislike the teacher manual.
Christie, I almost feel like I dislike the student books more than the teacher manual. I really don’t care for the drawings in the student books, but ds is really liking the comic book style of them. I guess I need to get through the first few lessons and then re-evaluate.
I know what you mean re the drawings and i agree, but I like the short sweet and simple presentation of subject matter. I never like Wading through TMs written like that. The original book, I liked, but it was too much to wade through with my guys.
We split the lessons up into short sections (literally 5-10 min is all we did at one time). Then in the next week I tried to find ways to bring the lesson into our life (even if I’m whispering Slippery Slope in their ear). It took us a LONG time to go through it but it was worth it. I agree… I don’t really like the format of either. There has to be a way to make this product better…
Our family is currently starting this study. We love the content, but the illustrations are not our favourite. Even the children have not enjoyed looking at them. So, we are studying this way:
1. I have only purchased the main lesson book. In the front, she has some good examples of other resources to help supplement (not necessary, only if desired): ie., Bible stories about conflict/peace resolution, Proverbs for Parenting, etc..)
2. We are going to take one week to go through each lesson. There is a good lesson breakdown here: http://www.simplyconvivial.com/2013/peacemaker. This breaks lessons down into 10 minutes a day to be used over a four day period, 1 chapter per week.
3. The children have their own small notebook that has lines and blank spaces for pictures. The children will decorate it, be writing things such as defintions, journalling thoughts, memory verses, drawings to replace the ones in the book when illustrated points are helpful, etc… This allows us to use a Charlotte Mason approach to notebooking and making our work look beautiful and unique to each child’s personal art and writing style.
4. I’m reading aloud the main lesson book and we’re discussing things along the way.
5. We’re reading selected books about famous peacemakers throughtout history, around the world. Some will be read alouds, older children will read ones on their own, younger children will have some pictures books.