"This is beautiful and surprisingly affordable stuff!" -- TOS Magazine

Are you looking for some high quality materials to use to place a greater emphasis on character in your homeschool, church, or other organization? Well Focus on Character offers curricula for elementary students, middle and high school students, family resources, as well as seminars and workshops. One of their selections is a program entitled Character First! This program was developed by Thomas Hill, a businessman. He developed a character initiative, initially for use in his own company, an oil and gas valve manufacturing plant. Seeing the success of the initiative in his own company - an increase in productivity and moral, physical and mental health - Mr. Hill sought to offer these materials to other businesses, schools, and government leaders. He established the Character Training Institute in 1996 to promote good character through its training and resources.

And what lovely resources they are!

We were able to look at several other samples of materials that Focus on Character distributes. The first were two gorgeous hardbound books. The first is The Power for True Success: How to Build Character in Your Life. A number of character issues are discussed, such as the source of character, how character is different from religion, and how character produces success. The rest of the book is devoted to explaining character qualities from Scripture. Examples, Biblical references and self-examination questions are offered. This volume was published by The Institute in Basic Life Principles.

Achieving True Success: How to Build Character as a Family is published by a division of Character Training Institute and is a family friendly version of the above. This is more secular in its orientation and is used to introduce municipalities to a character training initiative. It is chock full of systematic ideas for building a character family and has a certificate at the end of the book for the whole family to sign and display.

In addition to beautifully illustrated character cards to hand out to children and mini-posters to display, they also offer colorful, meaty booklets and brochures. There is even a CD of character building songs!

For example, the brochure "How to Develop Attentiveness," defines attentiveness, talks about what God says about attentiveness, discusses the ear and its role, looks at illustrations of attentiveness in nature and throughout history, and gives the student some practical application on how to be attentive to God and your conscience.

Smaller parent preview brochures are also available. They include colorful illustrations as well as the words to the character song that accompanies each character quality.

This is beautiful and surprisingly affordable stuff! For purchase information on these or other fine character products please contact www.focusoncharacter.org.