Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Daily Christmas Activities

The last couple of years we have had some Christmas traditions with the kids.  This year I am starting a new one.  I'll try to post them daily so that you might be able to use some of it too.  It did take hours of preparing but I think it will be worth it in the long run to be able to teach and spend good quality time with the kids.  And we can reuse them from years to come.  It only takes about 10 minutes each day (although preparing took hours).

One thing we have done since Reece was born, is our advent calendar.  It's a magnetic board with numbered boxes surrounding it.  In each number, there is part of the nativity scene that they unwrap and place on the board.  Since I have two children, we rotate who takes it out each day.  They are exicted to do this as soon as they come down in the morning.


The new thing I am starting has to do with the alphabet plus parts of Christmas (mostly biblical some not).  If you have noticed, there are 26 letters in the alphabet and 24 days of December - before Christmas.  You could start it November 28th or you could double up on a couple of days.  I have to double up a lot because I started it late (due to all the reseach).  Since it is December 6 we should already be on letter F...so I will double up the next few days to catch up.

Today we did A and B.  I found a power point on line (Pinterest) that I used to come up with the cards.  I printed them and pasted them to cardstock/scrapbook paper.  I researched each subject, wrote info on the back, and then found stories/scripture, and activities to go with each. 

A is for Angels.  There is a picture on the front of the card and then on the back it has verses and info to go with Angels and any resources I will be using...such as "read from Christmas book page 42-49 " which is all about angels.  Then I found an angel craft online and even a color sheet.  I also have A tracing dry erase cards and sheets from a curriculum book we use sometimes (this is more for Brody since he doesn't know his letters).


B is for Baptism and also Baby Jesus and Bethlehem (I used a baby Jesus for the craft since it was more interesting than Baptism, at least for the kids).  We talked about Baptism and read the story about John the baptist and when Jesus was baptised in their "Read with Me" Bible page 286-289, reference Matthew 3 and Mark 1 if you don't have this bible. 

 Coloring their Angel crafts...
 Angel craft and Baby Jesus craft complete.

I am doing these each kind of day by day but I have some started in advance.  Tomorrow we will be doing C - for Church (card picture) and for Christ, talk about Christmas and we will do a candy cane craft (one that relates to Christ - candy cane upside down is a J - Jesus and what it stands for).  I also have a book about how the Candy Cane came to be (Legend of the Candy Cane).  I also have a Christ color sheet that I found on Pinterest (see likes on my pinterest).  We'll end with having a sweet peppermint bark treat from Ghiradelli :) Or maybe just a candy cane...

D  - we will look at being a disciple. Looking at the story of when Jesus calls the disciples (Matthew 4:18-22 Mark 2).  Reading it out of our "Read with me Bible" page 290.  D color page with the disiples on it.



Friday we will just do E because we have a busy day.  E is for Eternal life.  I wrapped up a small cross for both of my children to open and we will talk about what all that means - haven't done all the work on that one yet. 

Saturday we will look at F.  We will focus on Family on this day.

I am also going to start this wall hanging thing, where we can hang these all in order.  I will show a picture of that once I get it up and going. 

I feel like I have done more researching and preparing then actually teaching...is this how it feels to homeschool?  I realize that using this next year, it won't be as hard but still.  I feel guilty taking all this time to prepare and then it only takes 10 minutes to complete with them.  So I apologize in advance that these are only the "clif notes" versions but I am not as good as some bloggers who link to everything.  I don't know how they have time to put it all together, teach it, and share it with others.  You might have to do a little work on your own but if you are really interested in something I have on here, just ask and I can send the link, document, etc.  Some of it is a work in progress.

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