Home Is Cool 101: We Choose Virtues Review

About We Choose Virtues From her love for children and desire to see them reach their full potential, seeing so many children with the lack of self-esteem, Preschool teacher and Children's Pastor Heather McMillian, created We Choose Virtues.
Heather McMillian often heard from grade school teachers that sometimes it took from September to Winter Break for their students to follow even the simplest instructions. As her passion grew, she realized that she wanted to teach children how to change, not a short-term change, but a lasting change that also brought better attitudes. In her observation (I agree 100%) she notes that children need to be inspired by positive and consistent instructions, and parents and teachers need an effective language to communicate these instructions. Heather created a list of virtues along with catchphrases and used them first at home with her four children, she taught them in her own preschool classroom and then introduced them to fellow teachers, parents and counselors.

We recieved the physical parenting cards (retails for $38.49), as well as the, "We Choose Virtues Bundle" (a retail value of $7.99), that included the following downloadable pdfs for this review:

Kids of VirtueVille Coloring Book
Family Character Assessment
Teacher's Handbook
Butterfly Awards

The Parenting Cards are family or Homeschool version of the Teacher Cards. There are 13 double sided, 8.5' x 5.5' cardstock cards. They are a huge part of the We Choose Virtues system that helps to create character building in your home. Beautifully illustrated, loaded with tips that introduce and demonstrate the 12 virtues. (Diligence, Helpfulness, Perseverance, Attentiveness, Honesty, Gentleness, Self-Control, Obedience, Contentment, Kindness, Patience and Forgiveness) Each card includes:

the name of the featured "Virtue Kid"
an inspiring story
a virtues challenge
virtues catchphrase
antonyms for each virtue
a Bible memory verse with each virtue (choose KJV or NIV old & new testaments)
you can also get these cards in Spanish

These cards can be reused and are included in the Homeschool and Family kits as well. Each virtue is easy to use and can easily be taught within 10 minutes. Each week, select a parent card of your choice, read them over and use the demonstrations listed on the back to help your children get some practice using that Virtue. There is no order to use these cards in, select the cards in any order you prefer. Daily and through out the week look for opportunities to help and encourage your child in usuing that virtue for the week. When you have finished that virtue, begin a new virtue for the coming week and keep repeating until all of the cards are used.

A great tip she encourages for parents with older and younger children together, encourage and allow your older children to teach the younger siblings. Once you have purchased the cards you will also recieve a FREE Download: Family Character Assessment, which will be delivered to you via email.

We Choose Virtues was designed for the early-childhood - elementary aged children, but I believe you could get away using it with some children of middle school aged.

We really enjoyed using these cards for the review time and I plan to use them again here soon. This would be a great asset for churches to use in children's church or the toddler-pre to elementary age classes or you could include this in with object lessons. It's ok honestly to get creative and have some fun with these cards. Especailly when you have larger groups of children. Kids love to learn and have fun at the same time. (I plan to include them in some of the classes I teach in church).
We used these cards weekly, however, we already use character building in our school, so some of these virtues came easily and others well we still need more work on. (Reuse for sure!) My kiddos enjoyed our fun in learning and relearning using these cards, most of all I know my girls enjoyed the coloring pages. My son doodled and said ah, done. (not much of coloring kiddo) I like the Character Assesment, even caught myself in the middle of some of these virtues, (bites tongue). Needless to say, it never hurts to improve in some of these areas, sometimes we over look things in time especially as we get older.. (ouch, haha).
Our review crew is also reviewing the Youth Virtue Journal which includes a 100 pages, covering 9 virtues: Attentiveness, Contentment, Gentleness, Helpfulness, Honesty, Respectfulness, Forgiveness, Obedience and Perseverance. Click the attached review crew button below the disclaimer to see what everyone is saying about We Choose Virtues.
Check out the We Choose Virtue Store, Here. You can also follow at the noted social media pages below:

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/wechoosevirtues

Pinterest – http://www.pinterest.com/WeChooseVirtues/

Blog -- http://www.wechoosevirtuesblog.com/