Tis the season...

With Christmas a couple days away, I thought I would share a portion of the many activities and lessons we've done throughout December, including fun with gingerbreads, reindeer and Nativity events.
Oaklahoma Homeschool put together this wonderful Christmas Unit Study

Homeschool Creations has this amazing resource, a Unit Study based on The Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett. It's fantastic. My daughter has loved playing all the games and the lessons, including practice writing Gingerbread, sorting and matching gingerbread people and the animals in the story.
The Sand Lake Library held an event we registered for to make our own gingerbread houses, but my kids had colds that morning, so we made our own. You can use graham crackers to make it easier, or follow this Gingerbread recipe from allrecipes.com

My kindergartner enjoyed quality art time with grandma this month as they painted giant outdoor reindeer decorations made by papa in his workshop.





A to Z Kids Stuff has fun preschool reindeer activities we used to follow-up, with songs, snacks and more links. And here are some more Christmas-related worksheets for math and games.

Of course the reason for the season goes much further than gingerbreads and Rudolf. (See my recent post for fun ways we like to give back )
We have a few different Nativity scenes, one I had growing up and another I like just to change things up and teach that no one really knows what Jesus, Mary and Joseph looked like.



Also, we made our own this year with these felt templates at DLTK. My kids especially enjoyed this and it was so simple to do, it would make a great Christmas Eve activity.
DLTK also offers this free Advent Christmas story coloring book.
To accompany our Nativity studies, we were lucky enough to go on a small field trip to The Critter Barn for their Living Nativity. I was so glad to find a live Nativity during the day, and also in a heated barn. Top it off with ALL the animals they had, along with an educational room with photos from Bethlehem, it was an awesome day and wonderful learning experience. As we walked up to the donkeys, my daughter was telling my son how Mary rode a donkey and Joseph walked. Then she turned to me after seeing them and said, "Mom, I didn't know donkeys were this big!" And that, I thought to myself, is reason enough for our trip. I cherish those learning experiences!













That night we went home and watched "The Very First Noel", which is a marvelous animation narrated by Andy Griffith that follows the journey of the three wisemen. It was our first time seeing it, and it is defintely a classic for our home now. Our entire family LOVED it! I really recommend it! After the movie, my daughter was sitting on her dad's lap asking about the Christmas tree. "All the lights there on our tree," he told her, "are like all the stars in the sky. And the big star on top, that is like the one the wisemen followed to find Jesus." That night I happened to find out Currclick was giving away this nice "W is for Wisemen" themetic pack by i360, so that fit in nicely the next morning.

Needless to say, we've been busy preparing for the holiday. Making crafts and decorations, things like homemade gifts, paper snowflakes and baking cookies.



Merry Christmas!!

Peanut Butter Popcorn

Looking for a new spin on a movie night snack? It's that time of year to snuggle up and watch the classics, old and new... everything from It's a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street, to Elf and Shrek the Halls! Try making this simple peanut butter popcorn as a treat for your kids this holiday season and beyond!

Simply melt a tablespoon of peanut butter with a tablespoon of butter and pour it over a batch of prepared popcorn, toss to coat! Let it cool for approximately 5 minutes and munch away!

Give onto others...

Service to others is an important virtue in our house, especially during the holiday season. Every year we make the memories of our service projects stand out just as much as the memories of boxes and bows on Christmas morning.
I love hearing stories of families volunteering at shelters or soup kitchens on December 24, as my kids get older I hope to incorporate more. Here is some of the cheer we've spread this season, please share what you do as well, so we may continue to inspire and rejoice in God, as well as teach our children the values of good citizenship.

Dress the Dolls, through United Bank, is one of our favorite traditions this time of year, and this year we participated with other members of our homeschool group, which was a lot of fun. The kids dress dolls for children in need and they are distributed through a local service center's Christmas gift basket program. Read more about it here: Dress the Dolls. My daughter loves dressing a doll for another little girl who doesn't have any dolls, it makes her so happy, you can truly see the joy of giving beaming through her.



This year we learned through friends of another fun service project, Operation Christmas Child, through Samaritan's Purse, where the kids fill shoe boxes to send overseas to children in conjunction with a word of God outreach program. We filled one for a boy and one for a girl, ages 2-4. The kids had so much fun picking out all the goodies to fill the boxes and wrapping them. Also, we found this video to watch about it, which helped them visualize who they were helping. Operation Christmas Child.




The local daily newspaper just headlined an article about Black Friday on the front page that I was quoted in. Daily News Article. Perhaps those filling their carts with gadgets they can't afford this time of year will pause to give second thought about the reason for the season and rethink what they get swept up in this time of year, you never know who God is trying to reach through little avenues. My monthly column, Mercy in Mamahood, touched on the issue of Black Friday last year: Happy Holidays, not Hectic Ones.

Another recent program we've enjoyed is one I just started up this fall for our homeschool group, called "Mondays at Metron" where the kids meet monthly with the elderly residents of the local retirement center and do seasonal crafts. We're coming up on our third trip there and it has been going well so far, I think over the course of this school year the kids will be more and more comfortable and familiar with, as my kindergartner says, "other people's great grandmas and papas". Also the residents seem to light up seeing the little ones and having visitors. My friend Marya expressed the benefits well in this article about it: Homeschoolers meet with Metron residents article.


Never think your kids are too young to appreciate the meaning behind service opportunities. Just as with the start of any traditions, decorations, activities, etc. the memories build on each other. Each year they'll get more and more out of it. Children will find joy and excitement in helping others when they see that excitement reflected in you. As parents, we have the ability to lead by example and show through our actions where the emphasis of the season should be placed. Santa is fun, (just as the tooth fairy and other tales are) and in our house he has a place amongst the festivities, but he shouldn't outshine lessons of character, Agape, service and citizenship. It doesn't have to be all or nothing, with minimal effort, you can strike a great balance between it all.

Fun Thanksgiving Books

Thanksgiving at the Tappletons by Eileen Spinelli is a cute story where a series of mishaps leaves a lovable family of wolves with empty expectations for their traditional turkey & trimmings, but a thank-filled Thanksgiving nonetheless as they count their blessings in each other.
Also, Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende & Harry Devlin is a sweet tale revolving around a Grandmother’s secret cranberry bread recipe. At the end they include the recipe, turning the story into a great activity to cook together!

Halloween Fun!

We had a great Halloween this year, trick-or-treating and pizza as always with another family we're close with. The kids loved it and so did we. This year, (their choice!) my children were Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip. My son will initiate playing Sleeping Beauty on a daily basis, believe it or not. He puts on the vest, grabs his stick horse and brings my daughter her dress. She pretends to sleep under the kitchen table and, after slaying the dragon with a stick, he crawls under there to give her a kiss. Yep, it's melt-your-heart adorable.




And this pumpkin from our garden was feelin' a little green...