August 2011 ~ 30 Day Focus ~ a little late!

Every month in the Langford house we focus on one each of the following:

Fruit of the Spirit
Character Trait/Habit
Composer
Poet
Artist
Hymn

Some of these are Simply Charlotte Mason inspired and some are items that we have built in as a family. My initial lists of artists, poets and composers came from Simply Charlotte Mason.

In preparation for the month, we check out books from library with examples of art from the artist we are covering. We also review biography of the artist at some point during the month or cover a little each day as time permits.

I include some books of poetry by the poet in our book basket for the month and read some of the poems out loud once or twice a week.

Covering composers is simple. At the beginning of the month, we discuss the composer, his style of music and some that we may be familiar with. We find a CD of his music on Ebay, at McKays or the local library and listen to it as we clean or do independent work.

The hymns come from the book Then Sings My Soul. At the beginning of the month, we read the chapter about the hymn from the book. Then we break down the words of the hymn so the children understand what they are singing about before we sing. We then sing this hymn every night during our family worship time for the month.

We work through the fruits of the spirit list in Galatians almost twice a year but this keeps them fresh in our hearts and minds. At one of our meal times, we ask the children how they demonstrated the particular fruit that day or the day before. Dad and I also share some examples. Then comes the hard part, we talk about ways we could have demonstrated this fruit and we did not. Sometimes we have crafts or activities pertaining to the fruit in our workboxes.

For character traits and habits, we use a couple of sources. I love the book Laying Down the Rails by Sonya Schafer and we use the character trait chart found on the Duggar website. Sometimes we work through the lists systematically and sometimes we see an area that needs focus and skip to that one. For Instruction in Righteousness also is also very helpful in providing appropriate scripture for habits and character traits.

Ideally, this post will come on the first day of each new month listing our focus topics, books we are using and planned activities. Feel free to follow along and comment with any ideas you may have.

Here is the list for August:
Fruit of the Spirit: Meekness
Character Trait/Habit: Regularity (Adhering to a Schedule or Routine)
Composer: Pachabel
Poet:Robert Louis Stevenson
Artist: Vangogh
Hymn: Blessed Assurance