HIS FINEST WHISPERS

Five reasons I loved the Creation Story Placemat this week: 1. It gave my students a colorful and creative way to say the 7 days of creation each day during Bible time. 2. It wasn't too small: All the kids could perfectly see it during our Bible time. No one was shouting, "I can't see it! What is it? Move over so I can see." (Sometimes if a book is too small, this is what I hear.) 3. It wasn't too big: I didn't have to stash it away so the kids could see the board or see me. I kept it out each day so we could constantly refer to our God and how gorgeous He made the world. This helped keep our minds on what really mattered as we worked: Jesus and all He has made!  4. It was the perfect "center piece".  I placed it in one of our rotating centers for the afternoon and the kids had a choice: They could write the words of each day of creation or they could copy the pictures. They loved it and I think their pictures turned out pretty nicely too. L...

Detriment: That word seems harsh when talking about “rewards” for children. Aren’t rewards supposed to be great? Maybe not! A recent study has found that 3 year olds who were rewarded with an extrinsic material were less likely to continue kind behavior and more likely to increase in bad behavior. Yes, that sounds bizarre, but that is exactly what the study found. You can read it here . Material rewards have recently concerned me. I’ve seen the disappointing effects when years later, the 6 th grader (who has received material rewards for years), scores a 100 on his test and says, “Wow, a 100! What do I get?” For a long time, we haven’t been aware of how to fix this, even though we’ve known that we don’t want to raise generation of children who do the right thing, solely based on “what they were going to get” for it. For a while now, this whole issue has left me uncomfortable in my spirit. Another very common discipline strategy that has worried me is the concept o...