In years past we have taken the month of December to do "Christmas School". This means that all schooling centers around the season. The kids write for the Christmas letter. They help bake. We study Advent and read Christmas books/stories......we like to deliver a nativity or many piece by piece. We usually do this for families whose fathers are deployed...but this year we don't know a lot of those on our base....us...but it'd be strange even for OUR family to sneak up and leave a nativity piece on our own doorstep. The kids ARE asking about this, so I need to think it out. There are usually lots of families we know through PWOC, chapel, Mike's squadrons. We write up a letter thanking the family for blessing our country by having dad/mom gone at Christmas, we tell they know us through wherever so they don't worry about stalkers....and we let the adults know that our children want to remain anonymous. LOL Then we stealthily deliver pieces. It was a blast in AK where we had the snow to content with....one resourceful group of boys had walkie talkies out to track us one night. Ah - memories. I really must figure out someone we can do this for this year.
This year we are attempting to do some "normal school". This year, with Mike gone, I don't have as many "must attend" functions. We have a SR. and he needs to be wrapping things up by May in order to have a transcript/diploma. We are trying to be able to take a few weeks off when Mike comes home in the spring....so we will try to continue making progress.
We ARE going to do some sort of Christmas/Advent project. I have looked at the ones to buy and the free ones out there and am not sold on anything yet. I need to decide soon. In looking over our Christmas books (unpacked this week), I've come up with two ways we could go. We could make a lap book out of our Jesse Tree symbols and readings. OR we could make a lap book centered around Christmas symbols. See - I'm learning to have realistic expectations - I'm not going to try to do both! LOL I'm leaning towards a study on Christmas symbols for the younger 3. I love to find lots of hands on/real life object lessons. I like to help the kids make the connections so that when they see one of these things there minds will fly to Jesus. I think we can use the book we have as the basis to study various symbols and make a fun study of it.
Here are the two books I'm considering...I'll let you know which way we go.
*Let's Make a Jesse Tree! by Darcy James* - Brenda, gave us this book years ago when we lived in San Antonio. We used the patterns to make our Jesse banner. OK the GIRLS cut these out and made them! I love child led projects! LOL Each year we read the 26 devotional passages and hang the symbols on our banner. I think it needs some mending before it's packed away this year. I could easily use the symbols in this book for patterns for shape books.....and there would be easy copy work etc.
*The ADVENTure of Christmas by Lisa Whelchel* - I love the artwork in this book. Lisa takes common Christmas symbols and explains a small bit about where they came from and offers ideas on how to help your child make a connection. By following the suggestions in this book one is constantly being reminded of Christ throughout the season. I think Arielle and I are leaning towards a lap book on the symbols of Christmas with this book being the basis of our study and projects.
