Raising Good Humans: A Mindful Guide to Breaking the Cycle of Reactive Parenting and Raising Kind, Confident Kids


Hunter Clarke-Fields - 2019
    In Raising Good Humans, you’ll find powerful and practical strategies to break free from “reactive parenting” habits and raise kind, cooperative, and confident kids.Whether you’re running late for school, trying to get your child to eat their vegetables, or dealing with an epic meltdown in the checkout line at a grocery store—being a parent is hard work! And, as parents, many of us react in times of stress without thinking—often by yelling. But what if, instead of always reacting on autopilot, you could respond thoughtfully in those moments, keep your cool, and get from A to B on time and in one piece?With this book, you’ll find powerful mindfulness skills for calming your own stress response when difficult emotions arise. You’ll also discover strategies for cultivating respectful communication, effective conflict resolution, and reflective listening. In the process, you’ll learn to examine your own unhelpful patterns and ingrained reactions that reflect the generational habits shaped by your parents, so you can break the cycle and respond to your children in more skillful ways.When children experience a parent reacting with kindness and patience, they learn to act with kindness as well—thereby altering generational patterns for a kinder, more compassionate future. With this essential guide, you’ll see how changing your own “autopilot reactions” can create a lasting positive impact, not just for your kids, but for generations to come. An essential, must-read for all parents—now more than ever.“To raise the children we hope to raise, we have to learn to become the person we hoped to be…. This wonderful book will help you handle the ride.”  —KJ Dell’Antonia, author of How to Be a Happier Parent   “Hunter Clarke-Fields shares her wisdom and personal experience to help parents create peaceful families.” —Joanna Faber and Julie King, coauthors of How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen

Genius Denied: How to Stop Wasting Our Brightest Young Minds


Jan Davidson - 2004
    Gifted children forced into a "one size fits all" approach to schooling find themselves bored or frustrated, which can lead to underachievement, behavioral problems, or depression. Without sufficient challenges and resources, say Jan and Bob Davidson, America's brightest young minds languish, never reaching their full potential. Society can't afford that loss. In Genius Denied, the Davidsons -- founders of a nonprofit institute that provides assistance to gifted children -- offer hope and practical advice to parents and students alike. Through their own experiences and those of the families they've worked with, the Davidsons show parents how to find an appropriate education for their children, when to go outside the school system, and how to create a support network with school authorities and other parents. Genius Denied shows that with commitment and creativity, gifted students can get the education they deserve, one that nurtures their talents and minds.

The Spark: A Mother's Story of Nurturing Genius


Kristine Barnett - 2013
    At nine he started working on an original theory in astrophysics that experts believe may someday put him in line for a Nobel Prize, and at age twelve he became a paid researcher in quantum physics. But the story of Kristine’s journey with Jake is all the more remarkable because his extraordinary mind was almost lost to autism. At age two, when Jake was diagnosed, Kristine was told he might never be able to tie his own shoes. The Spark is a remarkable memoir of mother and son. Surrounded by “experts” at home and in special ed who tried to focus on Jake’s most basic skills and curtail his distracting interests—moving shadows on the wall, stars, plaid patterns on sofa fabric—Jake made no progress, withdrew more and more into his own world, and eventually stopped talking completely. Kristine knew in her heart that she had to make a change. Against the advice of her husband, Michael, and the developmental specialists, Kristine followed her instincts, pulled Jake out of special ed, and began preparing him for mainstream kindergarten on her own. Relying on the insights she developed at the daycare center she runs out of the garage in her home, Kristine resolved to follow Jacob’s “spark”—his passionate interests. Why concentrate on what he couldn’t do? Why not focus on what he could? This basic philosophy, along with her belief in the power of ordinary childhood experiences (softball, picnics, s’mores around the campfire) and the importance of play, helped Kristine overcome huge odds. The Barnetts were not wealthy people, and in addition to financial hardship, Kristine herself faced serious health issues. But through hard work and determination on behalf of Jake and his two younger brothers, as well as an undying faith in their community, friends, and family, Kristine and Michael prevailed. The results were beyond anything anyone could have imagined. Dramatic, inspiring, and transformative, The Spark is about the power of love and courage in the face of overwhelming obstacles, and the dazzling possibilities that can occur when we learn how to tap the true potential that lies within every child, and in all of us.

Awakening Wonder: A Classical Guide to Truth, Goodness & Beauty


Stephen R. Turley - 2015
    S. Lewis observed how modern education was changing our conception of what it means to be human. By cutting off students from the transcendent values of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, modern schools ceased cultivating virtue in students and instead communicated a mechanistic vision of the world that viewed students as products to be engineered. Lewis believed that in seeking to control nature, modern “conditioners” would also seek to control humans and remake them according to the preference of the conditioners, since any appeal to Truth, Goodness, or Beauty had been rejected. Lewis argued that we must recover these transcendent values in order to prevent the dehumanizing tendency in modern education and renew the cultivation of virtue in our students.With Awakening Wonder, Steve Turley demonstrates that it is precisely such a recovery that is at the heart of the current classical education renewal. Once again, Truth, Goodness, and Beauty are celebrated as those objective values that are essential for cultivating students as flourishing human beings. In these pages you will discover the history and development of these transcendent values and how they redeem our senses and sanctify our imaginations. Teachers will also learn how to incorporate these values into their teaching to awaken awe and wonder in both themselves and their students.

A Child's History of the World


V.M. Hillyer - 1924
    Written shortly after World War I by Calvert School's first Head Master, Virgil Hillyer, this history storybook combines charm with facts to stimulate young minds and leave them yearning for more information. This volume of A Child's History of the World contains 79 stories that start at the beginning of time and reach to the present. With many illustrations by Carle Michel Book and M.S. Wright.

Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom


Kerry McDonald - 2019
    

Teach Like a Pirate: Increase Student Engagement, Boost Your Creativity, and Transform Your Life as an Educator


Dave Burgess - 2012
    You'll learn how to: - Tap into and dramatically increase your passion as a teacher - Develop outrageously engaging lessons that draw students in like a magnet - Establish rapport and a sense of camaraderie in your classroom - Transform your class into a life-changing experience for your students This groundbreaking inspirational manifesto contains over 30 hooks specially designed to captivate your class and 170 brainstorming questions that will skyrocket your creativity. Once you learn the Teach Like a PIRATE system, you'll never look at your role as an educator the same again.

Calm and Compassionate Children: A Handbook


Susan Usha Dermond - 2007
    From nature activities to conscious quiet time to tips on daily routines, CALM AND COMPASSIONATE CHILDREN provides practical guidance to help grown-ups model behavior and suggests dozens of activities to foster children's joy, wonder, kindness, and love. A parents' and teachers' guide to developing children's concentration, self-discipline, and compassion, as well as heartfelt qualities like openness and enthusiasm.Includes more than 90 techniques and exercises drawn from the author's experiences as a teacher and director of the Living Wisdom School, a nonprofit elementary school that emphasizes nonsectarian spiritual principles and practical skills for living.Recommends books, music, games, and other resources to help grown-ups nurture calm and compassionate kids.

How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading


Mortimer J. Adler - 1940
    It is the best and most successful guide to reading comprehension for the general reader. And now it has been completely rewritten and updated. You are told about the various levels of reading and how to achieve them – from elementary reading, through systematic skimming and inspectional reading, to speed reading, you learn how to pigeonhole a book, X-ray it, extract the author's message, criticize. You are taught the different reading techniques for reading practical books, imaginative literature, plays, poetry, history, science and mathematics, philosophy and social science. Finally, the authors offer a recommended reading list and supply reading tests whereby you can measure your own progress in reading skills, comprehension and speed.This a previously-published edition of ISBN 9780671212094

Norms and Nobility: A Treatise on Education


David V. Hicks - 1981
    David Hicks contends that the classical tradition promotes a spirit of inquiry that is concerned with the development of style and conscience, which makes it an effective and meaningful form of education. Dismissing notions that classical education is elitist and irrelevant, Hicks argues that the classical tradition can meet the needs of our increasingly technological society as well as serve as a feasible model for mass education.

Minimalist Homeschooling: A values-based approach to maximize learning and minimize stress


Zara Fagen - 2017
    Homeschooling does not have to mean a crazy, busy life of too much to do, too much to buy, and too much to plan. You don't have to choose between excellence and sanity while homeschooling - you can have both! "Minimalist Homeschooling" will have you rethinking your priorities and your perspective to create a simple, focused, and meaningful homeschool based on the minimalist mindset and approach. Uniquely, "Minimalist Homeschooling" offers 15 thought-provoking worksheets so readers can purge their tasks, schedule, curriculum, and supplies with clarity and confidence. There IS a way for your children to learn MORE while doing less.

Glow Kids: How Screen Addiction Is Hijacking Our Kids -- And How to Break the Trance


Nicholas Kardaras - 2016
    Like a virtual scourge, the illuminated glowing faces―the Glow Kids―are multiplying. But at what cost? Is this just a harmless indulgence or fad like some sort of digital hula-hoop? Some say that glowing screens might even be good for kids―a form of interactive educational tool.Don’t believe it.In Glow Kids, Dr. Nicholas Kardaras will examine how technology―more specifically, age-inappropriate screen tech, with all of its glowing ubiquity―has profoundly affected the brains of an entire generation. Brain imaging research is showing that stimulating glowing screens are as dopaminergic (dopamine activating) to the brain’s pleasure center as sex. And a growing mountain of clinical research correlates screen tech with disorders like ADHD, addiction, anxiety, depression, increased aggression, and even psychosis. Most shocking of all, recent brain imaging studies conclusively show that excessive screen exposure can neurologically damage a young person’s developing brain in the same way that cocaine addiction can.Kardaras will dive into the sociological, psychological, cultural, and economic factors involved in the global tech epidemic with one major goal: to explore the effect all of our wonderful shiny new technology is having on kids. Glow Kids also includes an opt-out letter and a "quiz" for parents in the back of the book.

Balanced: Finding Center as a Work-at-Home Mom


Tricia Goyer - 2013
    Author and homeschooling mom Tricia Goyer shares her tips for finding balance among all your many hats as a mom.

The Fringe Hours: Making Time for You


Jessica N. Turner - 2015
    And if you go days, weeks, or even months in this cycle, you begin to feel like you have lost a bit of yourself.While life is busy with a litany of must-dos--work, child-rearing, keeping house, grocery shopping, laundry and on and on--women do not have to push their own needs aside. Yet this is often what happens. There's just no time, right? Wrong.In this practical and liberating book, Jessica Turner empowers women to take back pockets of time "they already have "in their day in order to practice self-care and do the things they love.Turner uses her own experiences and those of women across the country to teach readers how to balance their many responsibilities while still taking time to invest in themselves. She also addresses barriers to this lifestyle, such as comparison and guilt, and demonstrates how eliminating these feelings and making changes to one's schedule will make the reader a better wife, mother, and friend.Perfect for any woman who is doing everything for everyone--except herself--"The Fringe Hours" is ideal for both individuals and small group use.

Teaching Montessori in the Home: The Pre-School Years


Elizabeth G. Hainstock - 1968
    This acclaimed guide puts the entire range of the Montessori system within your reach, so you can make the most of your child?s vital years. Teaching Montessori in the Home has already helped thousands of parents with the techniques, exercises, and easy-to-make Montessori materials that are essential for success. It demonstrates how you can develop your child?s sensory awareness and practical life skills, as well as lay the foundation of preliminary reading, writing, and math.The author is recognized as one of the most influential proponents of the Montessori method in the United States and throughout the world due to her concise, accessible writing style. This bestselling book grants you the opportunity to teach your child at home and gain a truly rewarding experience. ?Hainstock takes great pains here to offer the reader a very thoughtful yet concise introduction to the Montessori philosophy.? ?from Lee Havis?s introduction.