Christmas ideas

I simply love this time of year! And last year, for the first time, we celebrated Advent…this was really neat, and brought us all closer together and helped all of us keep in mind the TRUE reason for the season…it was wonderful! I even had the kids gather up the greenery and berries to make the wreath with, which of course turned into a “nature walk” up in the woods behind our house! We also did a “unit study” I guess you could call it, on a Victorian Christmas and made several different victorian Christmas tree ornaments, crafts, and recipes we found by checking out a book from our local library on a Victorian Christmas. Another time we read several of Tasha Tudor’s Christmas books, and found a really neat movie filmed at her home, Corgi Cottage, at Christmas time. It was fascinating to see how she lives so simply without the conveniences of modern electricity and such. We have studied Christmas around the world (although we seem to always gravitate towards England!!), and how each country celebrates so differently. It is also neat to study a particular Christmas hymn/song and find out it’s origin.

For copywork I have had the kids copy some of the Christmas songs, or Christmas recipes, Christmas poems, or winter poems, or perhaps a passage from a Christmas story we have read. They do written narrations on the books we read, or illustrate a poem or Christmas song for art. I have had them compile all of these in a three ring binder and decorate the front of it with beautiful Christmas cards, stickers, or just a picture they have painted or colored, and they write in their neatest italics handwriting, which produces a nice notebook to show to all of the family when we all get together at Christmas. Some of our favorite stories at Christmas we have read are: London Snow, Tailor of Gloucester, A Christmas Carol, A Cup of Christmas Tea, any of the Tasha Tudor Christmas books, The Chrismas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey, Martin the Cobbler, The legend of the Candy Cane, The Polar Express, The crippled lamb, Room for one More, The Snowman, Silver Packages, and One Wintry Night, just to name a few, WE HAVE TONS!! We also like watching the Little House on the Prairie movie called ” The Christmas They Never Forgot”. OH- and for those of you mom’s out there who love to read ( like myself ) and if you can find the time, I have been reading Miss Read’s books since last yr. when I discovered them, and they are wonderful. She has three Christmas books that are so delightful to read, so comforting, called: “Village Christmas”, “The Christmas Mouse”, and “No Holly for Miss Quinn”. I just recently found that now all three books come in one book now called “Christmas at Fairacre”, which you can order from Amazon, or CBD. They are all set in a fictional village in England. Vivaldi’s Four Seasons is a good one to listen to and learn about this time of the year too! OR Handel’s the Messiah. For art we created a whole Victorian Christmas Village on the wall of our “school room/dining room” using construction paper, Christmas cards ( we cut out houses, churches, sleds, etc….)glitter, holly and berries, and of course we all pitched and added our own artistic touches to it! It was really pretty! Grandma Moses is a neat artist to study and learn about. She has alot of pretty winter paintings. We always make wassail, apple cider, and peanut butter fudge too! This year, I subscibed to this neat magazine that had the recipes to prepare “A Dicken’s Christmas” dinner in it, and I might try this out this year! But we like to keep it fun, and kind of a little more relaxed around Christmas, not doing as much “table work” so to speak, and just learning , and enjoying the family.

I could suggest alot more, but I won’t for now! I hope these suggestions helped some. 🙂

We have a treasury of Jan Brett’s Christmas/winter books which we enjoy alot. I highly recommend it!

Gem

Thanks so much! I will look for some of these at our church library in town.

Sharon

Oops! Here is her advent page — it should work better.

http://www.teachingmom.com/features/advent.html

My best Advent ever was last year…up until then, it was all about Christmas day. Last year, I reserved enough books through the library to get through Advent and the entire Christmas season. Every night after dinner, before we even got up from the table, I’d read one of the books. (They all had to do with Christmas in some form or another, but not all specifically about the birth of Christ.) Many times I’d make hot cocoa or some special dessert. We’d light one of our Advent candles and do a scripture reading relating to our Jesse Tree ornament. If there was a special saint to celebrate that day, we’d incorporate that, too. It was such special time! I really missed it when the season ended which told me I had found a neat tradition to continue.

I have gotten wonderful book ideas from the following resources: Honey for a Child’s Heart by Gladys Hunt; Books that Build Character by William Kilpatrick and Gregory and Suzanne M. Wolfe; and most especially from A Picture Perfect Childhood by Cay Gibson. If you love to read to your kids and/or your kids love to read, get a copy of this last book! It is full of booklist after booklist for many different occasions or seasons.

So glad to find this thread!  I am going to do like Bookworm and take off most of December from our regularly scheduled activities to focus on Advent.  I love the idea of calling it Christmas School!