A few years ago,  I wrote an editorial piece on things homeschoolers didn’t do well.  We’ve all heard about stunning victories by homeschooled students in the National Geography Bee, the Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee, science fairs, essay contests, and goodness, even the Heisman Trophy.  Isn’t there anything homeschoolers find challenging? some might ask.

Well, there are a few things.  One I’ve heard from college instructors is that homeschoolers, for all their great academics and real-life socialization, don’t have very good handwriting as a rule.  To be fair, I’ve also heard that nobody seems to have good handwriting any more.  We’re so tuned in to our laptops, even for taking notes in class, that we let penmanship slide.  I admit that my own handwriting changed a few years ago when I got a Palm PDA and had to use the Graffiti alphabet for input!

Penmanship can be a particular challenge for boys. We usually teach children to write at a time that boys find it much easier to use big muscle groups than small. The struggle they face in the early years sometimes colors the whole subject for them and they never learn to enjoy writing by hand. Boys love to do things for a reason – a real world reason, not just for an assignment. You can take that trait and make things like handwriting more amenable to them. Some boys learn to have attractive handwriting by learning calligraphy – perhaps you can encourage him to make a scroll proclaiming his knighthood or a dispatch to give the King news of the battle he just won.

Today’s celebration freebie is hosted by Bogart Family Resources!

The Bogart Family have graciously offered to share something that may help us teach our sons handwriting! Their Copying the Hymns series provides handwriting practice that encourages reflection on hymns of the faith. What a great idea! My boys always think the sentences for handwriting in our penmanship books are lame… this is so much better! They are giving us Copying the Hymns: All Things Bright and Beautiful – Traditional ZB Style Cursive, Level 1 as a free gift! But, what about the children who aren’t ready for cursive? If you sign up for their newsletter, you can get the Manuscript book free, too!! This is a lovely giveaway, folks! Grab ’em up!

Download your free copy of Copying the Hymns: All Things Bright and Beautiful here!

Today’s contest is sponsored by Proclaiming God’s Faithfulness!

Hal and I have always been planners. We like to think things through; to know where we’re going. One of our New Year’s traditions is to spend time as a family reviewing all God’s workings in our lives over the past year and then look forward to the year to come and make plans. Now, don’t get me wrong! Quite often, the Lord completely changes our plans! What is most important is to know why you are planning, to clearly have a mission and goals in mind for your family.

Phyllis Sather of Proclaiming God’s Faithfulness has graciously offered us THREE copies of her Purposeful Planning eBook bundles (that’s the ebook, the handbook ebook and the mp3s!) to giveaway – a $17.95 value! This set sounds like just what you need to start planning together as a family. Here’s what her website says about it:

Do you need a plan to keep your family moving in the direction the Lord is leading you? Perhaps you don’t know where the Lord is leading you. Phyllis takes you step-by-step through the process of planning a time together for your family to help determine the path the Lord is choosing for each area of your life. Her family has followed this format for over 12 years and has found that it provides the compass they’ve needed to plan and stay on course.

A winner will be chosen from those who comment on this post. I’d love to hear how you heard about Raising Real Men and if you have read the book yet or plan to. You’ll get another entry for every time you post about the celebration or Raising Real Men on the web linking back here: on your blog, forum, email loop, Facebook, Digg, Twitter, a review on Amazon, anywhere! 🙂 Just tell us so we can count them! Thanks for helping us spread the word!

Another winner will be chosen from our newsletter list and the third from our Facebook fans!  Sign up on the right sidebar …