Reading Together - How Children Succeed - How to Build Character

"So what do you call the quality exhibited by Segal’s go-getters, the kids who exerted themselves whether or not there was a potential reward? Well, here’s the technical term that personality psychologists use: conscientiousness. Over the past couple of decades, a consensus has emerged among personality psychologists that the most effective way to analyze the human personality is to consider it along five dimensions, known as the Big Five: agreeableness, extraversion, neuroticism, openness to experience, and conscientiousness." (page 70, Kindle Edition)

"And yet we know— on some level, at least— that what kids need more than anything is a little hardship: some challenge, some deprivation that they can overcome, even if just to prove to themselves that they can." (page 84, Kindle Edition)

"The problem, as Randolph has realized, is that the best way for a young person to build character is for him to attempt something where there is a real and serious possibility of failure." (page 85, Kindle Edition)

"Here’s one way of looking at character: It can function as a substitute for the social safety net that students at Riverdale enjoy— the support from their families and schools and culture that protects them from the consequences of occasional detours and mistakes and bad decisions. If you don’t have that kind of safety net— and children in low-income families almost by definition do not— you need to compensate in another way." (page 103, Kindle Edition)

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Reading Together - How Children Succeed - How to Fail (and How Not To)

"What matters, instead, is whether we are able to help her develop a very different set of qualities, a list that includes persistence, self-control, curiosity, conscientiousness, grit, and self-confidence. Economists refer to these as noncognitive skills, psychologists call them personality traits, and the rest of us sometimes think of them as character."
(location 80, Kindle Edition)

"As a result, children who grow up in stressful environments generally find it harder to concentrate, harder to sit still, harder to rebound from disappointments, and harder to follow directions."
(location 480, Kindle Edition)

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Christmas Music Activities

Enjoy the Christmas season with your students!

Swingin' Nutcracker

Nutcracker Activities

December Activities

Lots of Christmas Printables

Christmas Games and Activities

Free Online Christmas Sheet Music

Free Christmas Guitar Tabulature Sheet Music

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Sheet Music - Silent Night (Beginner Guitar)

Silent Night is a simple arrangement of the traditional Christmas song arranged for beginner guitar in the key of C major. Not TAB.

To order, click here.

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How Children Succeed - Reading Together

Welcome to the newest Reading Together series. I'll be posting a summary about our reading each week on Tuesdays. Come join us!

We'll be reading How Children Succeed by Paul Tough. You can get a copy from your local library, or pick up a copy from Amazon.

We'll be reading one chapter per week.
I'll post about the first installment on Tuesday, November 22. That means you have three weeks to get a copy of the book and to read the first chapter.

The great thing about this program is that it allows us to read works together that can help us in our professional development as well as providing a level of accountability and the added interest of comparing notes as we read together.

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