Category: November Check-Ins

November Check-In: Family B

It is amazing how fast time flies and one month passes. We finally completed our value tree!  The kids had a lot of fun creating it, and we think it turned out really pretty. I wrote in our values, and tried to keep the wording easy for little ones to understand. For example, I wrote “thankful” instead of “gratitude,” and “giving” in place of “generosity”.

At the core/base of our value tree you will find family, friends, faith, and nature. And then our first main branch shows how we value ourselves and others; these include our behaviors that show those values. In that branch you will find kindness and patience, for example.

The second main branch goes into more detail of what we value. For example financial security (we chose to write “money” so the kids can relate better) and health, which then further branches off into nutrition, exercise, sleep, etc.

The kids also wanted “the fruit of the spirit” added into our picture.

I hope you get the picture, but to help visualize what I am trying to explain we have posted our art project here 🙂

Family B value tree

We think that having our values displayed will help explain why we do certain things in our everyday life, such as speak kindly, brush our teeth, go to school/work, etc. We also hope that it will also remind us to focus on what we prioritize a little bit more–such as having fun and being generous.

It will be interesting to see if the upcoming holiday season will help us focus on our values a little more OR if we will be distracted from our priorities with all the to-do’s of this season.   (Feel free to let us know your experience as you navigate the holiday season while also trying to live your values everyday!)

More to come soon 🙂

November Check-In: Family A

This past month’s goals proved incredibly difficult to meet.

As with other families involved in this challenge, life seemed to get the best of of us this month.  While we did spend a good deal of time engaging in kith and kin related activities; unfortunately, these activities were not as purposeful as we had hoped.

We did engage in the hike the kids had requested, created a shelter in the living room, answered countless random questions, and built many a fire; we (dad especially) sought to engage in some level of structured learning experiences as well.  This is where we feel we have continued room for growth.

Because of this, we have decided to stick with this value family for another month.  The activities we are most interested in focusing on this next month include:

*Hiking (using jet boil, animal tracks, map reading, etc.)

*Educational activities (reading, puzzling, lego building, etc.)

*Engaging in supportive relationship building/growth as siblings/kind people

We will commit to planning at least one activity weekly, with the kids input, for at least one purposeful, meaningful growth activity per week.  (with the hopes of continuing to encourage kith and kin and growth throughout the week.)

We hope we can find a way to integrate the busy holiday season and our goals of living our values daily (so many ways to give during the season, but also so many ways to get lost in the materialism.)