Christmas ideas

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  • christina
    Member

    With Christmas drawing near, one of the wonderful things about homeschooling is all the activities and things that the kids can do and make for people! Do you have any ideas you can share about special things your homeschool is doing to celebrate the Christmas season, either through studies, or art, etc?

    Shanna
    Participant

    We are starting a new tradition in our family this year. We are going to celebrate the Advent season. I am so looking forward to this. I did it as a child in church.

    I really think it will allow us to begin a Christ centered tradition in our home for the season.

    We are going to do the Advent Wreath as well as a Jesse Tree.

    Here are the links we are using to help us plan. We will do the Jesse Tree Devotionals each day and the Advent Wreath Devotionals on Sunday.

    Jesse Tree Devotions

    http://www.rca.org/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?…1628&srcid=1600

    Jesse Tree Ornaments

    http://images.rca.org/docs/discipleship/jessepatterns.pdf

    Making a Jesse Tree

    http://www.rca.org/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?…1625&srcid=1602

    Advent Guide

    http://www.markdroberts.com/htmfiles/resou…adventguide.htm

    We will also be taking some ideas from Stacy McDonald’s latest blog to add in.

    http://yoursacredcalling.blogspot.com/2007…-christmas.html

    Christie
    Member

    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. 🙂

    Bookworm
    Participant

    We have always had “Christmas school” in December. We stop most of our other regular school activities (we usually continue scripture reading and anything I’m afraid they’ll forget if we don’t do it for a month—Latin and math practice, etc.) We have done many things—prepared unit studies, we spent several years focusing on one country’s traditions–the countries our ancestors came from. We often have a drawing-type system—I put the names of all our Christmas picture books on pieces of paper in one little box, and in another box I put craft and activity ideas. Each day we draw one picture book and one activity to do together. Then we spend the rest of the morning doing our baking (we always do a large amount to give as gifts) They help me with the Christmas cards. We are pretty busy and learning lots but it is so different that it’s just the change we need after working hard since August or September. Every year I propose doing something different in December, and every year the kids hoot me down, insisting on Christmas school. LOL

    Some things that we’ve incorporated:

    Lisa Whelchel’s The Adventure of Christmas

    Arnold Ytreeide’s Jotham’s Journey and two others

    http://www.easyfunschool.com/IndexChristmas.html

    http://www.athomeschool.com/unitstudy/christmas_symbols_index.html

    Our favorite Christmas picture books are The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey, and Uncle Vova’s Tree by Patricia Polacco.

    HTH you have a terrific CHRISTmas season in your homeschool!

    Michelle D

    christina
    Member

    WoW!!!! These are fantastic, and exactly the type of ideas I was looking for!! Thank you so much for taking the time to share your ideas and thoughts!!!! =)

    skeen
    Member

    Hi ladies! You all gave me some great ideas for a picture study for Christmas so I thought I would ask for some good literature suggeations. 🙂 I already have A Christmas Carol and The Polar Express. Now I am drwing a blank….

    Thanks in advance!

    Sharon

    Gem
    Participant

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

    Gem

    Bookworm
    Participant

    Oh, we love Christmas books! 🙂

    The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski (this has also been made into a short video)

    The Other Wise Man, by Henry Van Dyke (also made into another movie)

    The Candle in the Window by Grace Johnson

    A Tale of Three Trees

    We LOVE the story Uncle Vova’s Tree by Patricia Polacco. It’s a DON’T MISS!

    We have a book on the origin of Silent Night that we like, and also a lovely book called Silent Night, Holy Night on the “Christmas truce” during WWI. My boys like it a lot.

    Henry van Dyke has another tremendous story called “The Mansion” that we all love.

    We love Christmas stories!

    Michelle D

    skeen
    Member

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

    Sharon

    Suzq
    Participant

    I thought I would share this website by the teaching mom. She has a wealth of information and sites to look up. Plus Christmas book lists and Christmas movie lists.

    http://www.teachingmom.com

    I just went to the site but she is updating at the moment — I don’t know when it will be running again. I hope it works for you.

    Suzq
    Participant

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

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

    Crystal Wagner
    Participant

    Bookworm – Do you happen to have the craft ideas that you put in the box where you could list them here or send me a message?

    I think we are going to do that dea this year. I would love to not start from scratch. 🙂

    Kelly Bond
    Participant

    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.

     

    Crystal Wagner
    Participant

    We have a book on the origin of Silent Night that we like, and also a lovely book called Silent Night, Holy Night on the “Christmas truce” during WWI. My boys like it a lot.

    Do you have the author’s name and the title of this book?  I tried a search and didn’t find it.

    Thanks!

    artcmomto3
    Participant

    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!

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