BFB Discounts for Schools & Co-ops!

Do you run a school, a co-op, a charter or magnet school? At BFB we are here to help you! We're here to make book acquisition easy and less expensive. Just visit the dedicated section of our website here for an application and bid list. We offer great discounts on titles we publish as well as any other in-print book! We respond quickly, offer great discounts, and personalized service.

We would love to hear what you think! Chime in below in the comments section and share your thoughts. Don't forget to check out our Facebook and Pinterest pages.  To learn more about Beautiful Feet Books, click here.

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BFB is now on Instagram! There's a giveaway!

We're really excited to (finally!) be on Instagram. On our personal accounts we've loved following lots of creative homeschooling mamas and are looking forward to connecting with you. You can find us here and our username is @beautifulfeetbooks. We're hosting a giveaway to celebrate, so head on over. Follow us and feel free to tag us in photos! We can't wait to see how you're using our books and study guides. Be sure to enter the giveaway.

We would love to hear what you think! Chime in below in the comments section and share your thoughts. Don't forget to check out our Facebook and Pinterest pages.  To learn more about Beautiful Feet Books, click here.

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Friday Encouragement

As homeschooling parents we have such a unique opportunity to use nearly every lesson to motivate our children toward character development; emphasizing empathy when we read history, diligence in those difficult math lessons, faithfulness in subjects that do not always spark joy. I find that in the ideal world of my imagination, these things all work together and my home becomes that much sough-after "atmosphere" discussed in Charlotte Mason circles. But what I'm learning is that it isn't always so straightforward. Many times I get in my own way as I seek to check off items on a list and I put productivity above kindness. Reading through Sarah Mackenzie's wonderful Teaching From Rest has really helped remind me that the most important lessons I teach my sons are the ones that I live in front of them, and that is where "doing good" along with kindness, patience, self-control, and love can really sink in. There is something truly restful about that, right? By putting into practice this discipline of rest, we don't excuse ourselves from faithfully providing an education to our children, but we can step away from the to-do lists, respond to the needs of our children before the demands of a curriculum, and model a life of joy instead of frenzy.

I'm excited to be reading through Teaching from Rest as well as a few other books about restful homeschool and will be blogging about it over the next months. Join the conversation! Are you a "restful" homeschooler? How has the approach changed your home? Do you, like me, struggle with prioritizing productivity?

For your weekend, I thought I'd share a discussion on teen reading from Tom Ashbrook. What do you think of his and David Denby's advice for getting your teens to read? What about the book list? Here's the link.

We would love to hear what you think! Chime in below in the comments section and share your thoughts. Don't forget to check out our Facebook and Pinterest pages.  To learn more about Beautiful Feet Books, click here.

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Come and see us at GHC!

This email from a parent just arrived last week and we wanted to share it with you:

Hi,

I just wanted to send you a message and tell you that we love your books!! I am doing the Early American History with my first grade daughter and she loves it. My three-year-old even listens and enjoys coloring sheets for her own notebook!! I ordered the Primary Character books today and look forward to receiving them! I have shared how much we love your books with several friends!! I plan to use your books with my girls every year for history!! 

Thanks,

Brittany

These are the emails that show us that using great literature to teach history works! It instills a love of learning, encourages curiosity and even brings families together as they explore and learn with one another. Whether you're new to home schooling or a veteran, we would love to talk to you more about our Charlotte Mason inspired approach and we're putting together our 2016 convention schedule, so if you're nearby, please come and see us! Right now, we're confirmed at three Great Homeschooling Conventions: Fort Worth, TX (this is our very first TX convention and we're excited!), Cincinnati, OH, and Ontario, CA. More information is available through the hyperlinks for each convention, but here's the basics:

Where: Fort Worth, TX
When: March 17-19, 2016
Register here.


Where: Cincinnati, OH
When: March 31-April 2, 2016
Register here.

Where: Ontario, CA
When: June 16-18, 2016
Register here.

Registration discounts are available for all the GHCs right now, but prices do go up soon. GHC offers some of the most reasonable attendance fees in the homeschooling convention world, so if you're near one, take advantage as it's a great opportunity to be encouraged and inspired!

We'll keep you updated on other conventions as we confirm them!

Looking forward to seeing you.

We would love to hear what you think! Chime in below in the comments section and share your thoughts. Don't forget to check out our Facebook and Pinterest pages.  To learn more about Beautiful Feet Books, click here.

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Helpful Resources

At BFB we want to make your home schooling experience rewarding and as straightforward as possible. To that end we have several online (free!) resources you may not know about. In order to help you find them, we're featuring them on our blog today. They range from parental support groups to printables, educational articles, and much more. We hope you find them helpful, and if you have ideas for other ways we can help you, please let us know!

Online Support:

There are two places where you can access the expertise of other home schooling parents who use Yahoo Beautiful Feet Homeschoolers group. This is an entirely independent group of home schooling parents who have come together to help one another, provide support, and source materials. It's a wonderful, friendly, supportive group! Samantha is the moderator and she does a lovely job and is a wealth of information. There is another fake BFBUsers Yahoo group that you're going to want to steer clear of as it's just a spam group. If you use the link above, you'll get to the right place.

BFB.

The other place to connect with other BFB users is the "Beautiful Feet" Curriculum ~ Parent to Parent Support group on Facebook. This group had been quiet for a while but has seen a huge uptick in activity in the past few months. It's a great place to post questions!

Articles: With topics ranging from education approaches, why we believe in teaching American history first, how our educational system is letting down boys, curiosity, and much more, this archive is a wealth of information for everyone who cares about education.

Online Resources:

FAQ: We have a whole page of answers to FAQs on our website. Check it out here.

Company History: Don't know much about BFB? Start here.  

Getting Started: A quick-start guide to using BFB is available here.

Free Downloads: Many of our study guides reference printable activities such as maps, illustrations, etc. Those are all available here.

Study Guide Sample Pages: Samples from all our study guides are available here. This page only provides one sample page from each guide, but if you're interested in seeing more, you can see multiple sample pages on each individual study guide website page, found here.

Discounts

School and Co-op Discounts: Run a school or a co-op? You can purchase all your books through BFB at a great discount! Information here. 

We hope this little guide helps you find answers and guidance. If you ever have any question, please call us at 800.889.1978 or email us at letters (@) bfbooks (.) com. We love talking with you and are happy to help you walk through a plan for choosing your home school curriculum.

We would love to hear what you think! Chime in below in the comments section and share your thoughts. Don't forget to check out our Facebook and Pinterest pages.  To learn more about Beautiful Feet Books, click here.

And if you've enjoyed this, please feel free to share using the buttons below!

Benefits of Reading Aloud

One of the most common questions we hear at BFB, is "Should I continue reading aloud to my children once they know how to read?" This question takes various forms including, "Should I still read aloud to my teenager?" or "How much of this curriculum should be read aloud?" And our answers are always, "Yes!", "Yes!" and "As much as you can!"

While it may seem counterintuitive to read aloud to your students and children once they're able to read on their own, experience has shown us that the more children are read aloud to, the better readers they become. Some parents fear that reading aloud too much can hinder their children's reading development, but we've found just the opposite to be true, especially with children who are struggling to read! The video below is an excellent primer in the benefits of reading aloud, especially in regards to allowing children and teens access to stories. When a story is read aloud it becomes much easier for the listener to engage in a meaningful way with the story which, in turn, creates the desire to read more. The video is only 10 minutes long, but well worth your time!

We would love to hear what you think! Chime in below in the comments section and share your thoughts. Don't forget to check out our Facebook and Pinterest pages.  To learn more about Beautiful Feet Books, click here.

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Fixed vs. Growth Mindset

Over the past couple of years I've been reading and hearing a lot about fixed versus growth mindsets and am fascinated by the topic. If this is the first time you've heard of this, I am so happy to be able to share the following 10 minute video from RSA Animate. It is the most straightforward introduction to the topic I have found and I think everyone (really!) can benefit from watching it:


Having grown up in the self-esteem boosting 1980s, my mindset was definitely influenced by praise that affirmed intelligence over effort and that worldview is definitely not something I want to pass on to my children. Therefore, I have been personally challenged by all my reading on the topic. Changing the language we use when praising the youngsters (and adults!) in our lives can be really challenging but I think that it is essential if we're going to help our kiddos become life-long learners. Of course, some people have cultivated a growth-mindset and some families are already great at encouraging effort and curiosity. In my interactions with thousands of families over the decades, I must say that I find growth-mindsets to be the exception rather than the rule. It is so easy to slip into praising naturally intelligent children for their smarts. Encouraging a child to work through a difficult math problem or diagraming a complex sentence takes a lot more time and patience. Even trying to get my two-year-old to not give up when his block towers fall over can be exacerbating. It's so much easier to just quickly build him another tower and restore his sunny spirits. Sitting out his tantrum, encouraging him to build the tower again, praising the fact that he hasn't given up, this takes more time. Yet, those 10-15 minutes of patience are more than rewarded when you see something "click" in his mind and he starts stacking those blocks, pride beaming in his face.

Children are all brilliant at seeing through empty praise. While trying to use growth-mindset language, it is important to not fall of the other side of the horse and praise every effort. Not all effort is praiseworthy and saying "Good try" at every turn will not encourage a child. Instead there should be an emphasis on future challenges. Angie Aker provides two great examples in her article on Upworthy:

FIXED MINDSET: "You finished that puzzle so quickly — what a smart kid!"GROWTH MINDSET: "I'm sorry I wasted your time with an easy puzzle — let me find another one that will give us a bigger challenge. I know we can do it!"FIXED MINDSET: "You got an 80% on your test." (And then moving on to the next chapter immediately.)GROWTH MINDSET: "You got an 80% on your test; that means you are well on your way to knowing this stuff! If you review the ones you missed and take the test again tomorrow, I bet you'll get closer to a 100%."

In choosing curriculum, I believe that it is important to look for programs that encourage this growth mindset. Charlotte Mason-style approaches naturally encourage inquisitiveness as does notebooking. When you get away from rigid standards that rely on simplistic answers and instead encourage reasoning, discussion, and the development of analytical skills, you will develop students who are much better equipped to succeed.

I would love to hear from you! Have you heard the terms growth mindset and fixed mindset? Have you implemented some of these practices in your homeschool? Did you grow up in an environment that encouraged the development of one type of mindset over another? Comment below!

We would love to hear what you think! Chime in below in the comments section and share your thoughts. Don't forget to check out our Facebook and Pinterest pages.  To learn more about Beautiful Feet Books, click here.

And if you've enjoyed this, please feel free to share using the buttons below!