Fun Projects For Hands-On Character Building [Paperback]

Rick Boyer (Author), Marilyn Boyer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1996

As the parents of twelve children from infant to adult, Rick and Marilyn Boyer have plenty of experience. With that resevoir of valuable experience in parenting and character building they show you ideas, programs and projects that build character traits like obedience, self-acceptance, a forgiving spirit, meekness, an inner hunger for righteousness, and a strong testimony traits every one of us would like our children to exhibit. The projects are fun to do and will create many precious memories that will last a lifetime. Speckled with scripture and based on Deuteronomy 6:5Ð9, the Boyer's teach you how to "teach them [the commandments] diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up." Rick Boyer writes, "You can see that what we are trying to do here is give you some ideas by which you can saturate your child's home environment with God's Word. All responsible Christian parents have a deep desire to train their children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, but most of us were not brought up in the kind of home we hope to provide for our own families, and we need a little direction as to how to go about the job." Fun, easy, and filled with common sense, Fun Projects is sure to help.

Product Details

• Paperback: 140 pages
• Publisher: GCB Publishing Group (September 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0964539659
• ISBN-13: 978-0964539655
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,284,126 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Marilyn is a homeschooling mom of 14 children who has been homeschooling now for 30 years. Her focus in parenting is on character training and her passion is sharing insights with others on how they can raise kids of character with a passion to impact our culture. She has written books on parenting, our godly heritage in America, and also has developed resources for others to use in teaching character to their children as well. She and her husband Rick are authors of 15 plus books and are well known speakers on the topics of homeschooling, history and parenting. Their ministry is The Learning Parent. Visit them on the web at www.thelearningparent.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun Projects for Hands on Character Building, April 27, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Fun Projects For Hands-On Character Building (Paperback)

After weeks of discipline problems with my 6 year old daughter, a friend loaned me this book. If you are looking for ways to help build respectful, responsible, christian children; this book is a must! It seemed that the lectures just weren't working anymore - this book offered projects to learn by. I would recommend this book for Teachers, Day Cares, Sunday Schools, but most of all, Parents and Grandparents. I just ordered my own copy to keep for future reference for my 5 year old.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Personal account of what they did, March 16, 2010

By 

Laura S. (Virginia) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Fun Projects For Hands-On Character Building (Paperback)

This book is mostly about what this family did. That gives me ideas, but I was expecting a more helpful resource of activities to do than just sharing what they did. I will still use some of them, though.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not-So-Fun Projects for Extremely Christian People, March 24, 2010

By 

A. Fanning "luvs2read" (Houston, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fun Projects For Hands-On Character Building (Paperback)

This is a book for people wishing to incorporate Bible verses into every aspect of their children's lives. This book has *some* fun project ideas that can be adapted to other religious traditions or used secularly, but I wish I had known how *overtly* Christian this book was before I had gotten it, because I think I would have passed. I don't mind mildly Christian content, but this book tends way toward the more extreme range of the scale.

Also, most of the "projects" in this book are more of the kind that the parents do FOR their kids to teach them, not so much things for the kids to do themselves. There are *some* activities to do together, like word games involving bible verses, but those aren't really my kind of thing. I was looking more for a book of ideas for crafts and other kinds of activities I could do together WITH my kids for fun, not suggestions that I make a star chart to encourage them to memorize bible verses.

Chapter Titles (because they're not listed in the reviews or book information anywhere):

Intro "And you shall"
Section 1 Building Obedience
Section 2 Building a Pure Heart
Section 3 Building a Hunger for Righteousness
Section 4 Building Self Acceptance
Section 5 Building a Forgiving Spirit
Section 6 Building Meekness
Section 7 Building a Strong Testimony
Conclusion A Few Words

Each chapter has a front page with a bible quotation that relates to the chapter's theme. The pages have extra wide margins full of the same handprint, needle & thread, tape, paintbrush, crafty border graphic that fills up the page visually and tends to hide the fact that there is very little actual text there. This book is only about 1/2 inch thick to begin with. Out of the 37 square inches of each page, a little over 20.5 square inches is border. The BORDER fills a little over 55% of each page. That's a lot of fluff, and the content that is there isn't much meatier.

Many of these things are very common sense or probably something that spiritual families already think to do with their kids, like read a daily proverb (or other scripture) and discuss it. Here are some sample "project" titles: "games" called obedience exercises and training sessions- didn't sound very "fun" to me, just basic parenting disipline techniques; making an "obedience book" for your child of stick figure drawings to talk about each of their obedience issues that will earn spankings, each with their own associated bible verse- hmmm "fun"? I guess it's better than actually *getting* a spanking; an Obedience Quiz; "scripture saturation" - a bible themed decor for every room in the house; curtains, wall plaques, pillow shams, table cloths, dresser scarves, throw pillows, quilts, lamp shades, magazine rack, milk can, flash cards- all with embroidered/stenciled/painted bible verses (I think I got the idea after the first dozen items: you can put a bible verse on anything if it sits still long enough, but the lists just kept going); bible tapes- have your kids listen to them at bedtime; scripture wheel; daily proverb; scriptural music; family night bible quiz; cloth bible book; king Solomon theme birthday party; the 'where in the bible...' game; bribe your kids into looking forward to Sundays with a "Sunday Box"; bible times scrap book; bible jigsaw puzzles... etc, etc.

Now, if you're in to Christianity as your religion, don't get all excited that this is really a great book. You've just read pretty much the first three chapters. Many of these "ideas" are just the title and a paragraph or two about it. None of the bible verse items listed above contain any kind of craft patterns or even an illustration or image of the project. They have vague suggestions for sample verses, directions of a really basic sort, and are repetitive in nature. They pretty much are just "use paint or fabric crayons to write bible verses on a tablecloth" then "use paint or fabric crayons to write bible verses on a lampshade." Go in to any quality educational toy store, or any Christian oriented kids store and look around for all kinds of ideas of things you can make for your kids.

Items like "Scriptural Music" are simply a paragraph saying it's a good idea to have your kids listen to scriptural music instead of secular music. Well, if I were in to that, I'd say "Duh!" and think "I didn't need to buy this book to know that."

Here is a sample direct quote (complete project item) for:

"Refrigerator Magnet Pictures
Again, glue a picture of a family member on plywood. Cut an oval or circle out of the plywood, finish with 3 coats of Mod podge, and sand the edges of the plywood for smoothness. Glue a magnetic strip on the back."

The "again" refers to the immediately preceding paragraph for Family Paper Dolls, which talks about using enlarged family photographs glued to thin plywood to make more durable "paper" dolls for play. That's a pretty cool idea, actually, but no need to buy the book, that's pretty much all there is to it.

For an idea of the general outlook and philosophy of the authors, here is another (abridged) direct quote for:

"Museum Ministry
Our kids came up with this idea on their own. Collect a home museum of interesting or unusual artifacts. ... Invite friends to come on a certain day or even an open schedule and view the exhibits. Let the kids serve punch and cookies, etc. For unsaved neighborhood friends, Gospel tracts may be in order; Bible story comic books, if you can find them, may be even better."

If this sounds like your idea of fun, then you might actually enjoy this book. Personally, I find it a bit offensive.

If you are completely at a loss as to where to begin to incorporate scripture or biblical values of any kind into your kids' lives, I suppose this book would be a good place to start, but many of the "ideas" are simply lists: of things to do with only limited additional instruction, of other books to find more detailed information, or simply one or two paragraphs describing what someone they knew or they, themselves, did. However, the majority of these projects also don't sound very fun, unless you consider Bible Flash Cards to be fun, then this might be the book for you.