Christmas School

Christmas School 2023–The Best Way to Spread Christmas Cheer is Singing Loud for All to Hear

Time to take a look back at this year’s Christmas School!

I had a really difficult time coming up with a theme this year, and I was getting desperate, when an idea hit me…Christmas music! I started by choosing nine hymns (two Advent, six Christmas, and one Epiphany), and after reading the lyrics, we read about their origins and authors in Lutheran Service Book: Companion to the Hymns. (We also read Silent Night: The Wonderful Story of the Beloved Christmas Carol and Christmas in the Trenches on that hymn’s designated day.)

  • “Savior of the Nations, Come”
  • “The Angel Gabriel from Heaven Came”
  • “From Heaven Above to Earth I Come”
  • “Silent Night”
  • “What Child Is This?”
  • “O Little Town of Bethlehem”
  • “Lo How a Rose E’er Blooming”
  • “Where Shepherds Lately Knelt”
  • “As with Gladness Men of Old”

I came up with an original craft project to go with our hymn study. I bought some 4×4 inch wooden craft squares, and we each painted one for each of the hymns we studied. When we finished them, we attached them to a larger wooden square to resemble a quilt block of hymns. I was really happy with how the project went!

I also found a pretty and simple ornament craft that went perfectly with our theme. We didn’t even have to get out the glue gun!

In addition to our hymn study, we also learned about secular Christmas songs in the new book This is Christmas, Song by Song: The Stories Behind 100 Holiday Hits. There is a huge range of songs in this book by a wide variety of artists, and even I, the Christmas Queen, learned some things. We had a good time going through the selections and choosing our favorites to read about.

This week, we focused on reading Letters from Father Christmas, baking cookies, and watching The Nutcracker. In some ways, this was a much more low-key Christmas School than we usually have (since there was one big craft project, we didn’t have the variety of crafts we usually do), and I don’t think we read as many Christmas books (but we read more things from individual books). I didn’t even connect our cookie baking to the songs we read about (although I did try!), so we just baked all of our favorites. All things considered, though, I think it was a really fun Christmas School!

2023-24 School Year–Fifteen

This week we wrapped up a bunch of stuff before Christmas, and also started our annual “Christmas School!” We’re studying hymns this year…I choose two Advent, six Christmas, and one Epiphany hymn to make sure we covered the entire time of Christmas. We’re paining a scene to represent each one on a wooden square, which we plan to assemble quilt-style when all nine are complete. Here’s a peek at some of what we’ve done so far:

On to the regular work…Ladybug learned how to convert from degrees to radians and also from radians to degrees in pre-calculus. She finished reading “The Purgatario” section of The Divine Comedy…she’ll finish the book in the new year. In American history, she read about the events and people leading up the Civil War, including the gold rush, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Seneca Falls Convention, and Sojourner Truth.

Chickadee multiplied and divided with larger decimals in math. She learned about arteries, capillaries, and veins in science, and how the blood travels through the heart to the rest of the body and back again. We continued reading The Hobbit. She learned how to diagram demonstrative and interrogative pronouns in grammar. We read about Richard the Lionhearted, John Lackland, and Robin Hood in history.

We also went to this month’s “History Exploration Day” at the Missouri History Museum, which focused on Holiday Nostalgia and Family Traditions. It was a lot of fun, even if seeing what is counted as “nostalgia” these days made me feel old!

Next week is more Christmas School…we have five more hymns to study, plus some secular Christmas carols. We’re also planning on watching as many version of The Nutcracker as possible, and hopefully we’ll bake some Christmas cookies, too!

2022-23 School Year–Christmas School

Fröhliche Weihnachten!

This year’s Christmas School theme was Christmas in Germany (and Austria). Everything came together in an amazing fashion, so that we had lots of experiences, read lots of stories, did lots of baking, and made some cool crafts. But first, an ornament craft to remind us of our summer vacation…memory spheres:

Back to Christmas in Germany. We got to meet the Christkind (an angel who is often the present-bearer in Germany) when we were at Christmas Traditions in St. Charles, MO:

We made five different German Christmas cookies that we had never made before…Lebkuchen (German-style gingerbread), Vanillekipferl (vanilla crescents), Pfeffernusse (spice cookies), Kardamom Plaetzchen (chocolate dipped cardamon cookies), and Zimtsterne (cinnamon stars). We got to try some new baking techniques, which was a lot of fun, and the house has smelled amazing!

We also made five crafts inspired by Germany or of German origin…painted hearts inspired by Lebkuchenherzen (gingerbread hearts), a Weihnachtspyramide, ornaments inspired by the German flag and printed with words related to Advent, Fröbelstern (elaborately folded paper stars named for Friedrich Fröbel, the creator of the first kindergarten in Bad Blankenburg, Thuringia, Germany), and the German classic, Zwetschgenmännle (prune people).

Here’s a look at the Weihnachtspyramide in motion…I think it was our favorite craft!

We visited our town Christkindlmarket several times this month:

And we even got to attend a Weihnachtsgottesdienst (German Christmas service)!

It’s not often that Christmas School comes together this well, and provides us with so many fun opportunities…I really enjoyed it!

Chickadee Thursday

On Sunday, we attended a German Christmas service. It was the perfect accompaniment to our our “Christmas in Germany”-themed Christmas school (full details on that to come!).

2021-22 School Year–Christmas School

This week was a lot of fun, because it was Christmas School! Once Ladybug took her science test, and Chickadee finished up her science assignments as well, all we did was read A Christmas Carol and Letters from Father Christmas and bake cookies, do crafts, and watch The Nutcracker.

On Monday we watched the Dutch National Ballet Nutcracker, made traditional paper snowflakes, and baked Christmas Island coconut macaroons:

On Tuesday we watched the Royal Ballet Nutcracker, made popsicle stick snowflakes, and baked chocolate Madelines:

On Wednesday we watched the Bolshoi Ballet Nutcracker, made beaded snowflakes, and baked Filipino puto seko:

On Thursday we watched the Vienna Staatsoper Nutcracker, made q-tip snowflakes, and baked Czech poppyseed cookies:

Today we watched the San Francisco Ballet Nutcracker (my favorite!), made 3-D paper snowflakes, and baked chocolate crinkle cookies:

Several of the snowflake crafts we made could be used as ornaments, but we also had a specific ornament for the year…painted clay ornaments cut out with Christmas cookie cutters I bought just for this project:

In the end, we tried three new cookies recipes (plus a variation on Madelines we had never made before) and two new craft projects. It was fun to have both and old new things to try, and it was nice to have a relaxing week of school!

2020-21 School Year–Christmas School

Hymn of the Week–“Where Shepherds Lately Knelt” (Lutheran Service Book #369)

It’s been a long time since we’ve dedicated a week to “Christmas School,” but if ever a year needed it, it’s 2020. So this week was spent making ornaments, baking cookies, reading Christmas stories, and watching different versions of The Nutcracker.

I was especially excited about the ornaments. I had originally planned for the children to make them two years ago, but that was the year I broke my ankle, and I just didn’t have the energy to deal with it. Last year I found ornament kits that I really wanted to make, so these beautiful sequin ornaments got pushed back one more year. We had lots of options for colors and sizes:

They were definitely worth the wait (and the seed beads that may be rolling around the kitchen forever!), because they are beautiful!

We also decorated gingerbread houses, something we have done in the past, but it’s been a few years, and I’ve never had a house for each child (the mansion was a group project).

Speaking of gingerbread houses, we did get out of the house to see the gingerbread creations in the store windows on Main Street. We might not have been able to do most of the Christmas activities I had planned this year, but it was nice to do one familiar thing!

This was also “Cookie Week.” I decided we should bake a different kind of cookie every day, and they should all be cookies we don’t usually bake. On Monday, we made eggnog blossoms, Tuesday was chocolate crinkles, Wednesday we baked kolacky, Thursday we made both Madelines and palmiers, and today we baked spritz.

We did a lot of reading this week, too. We finished A Christmas Carol, and made it through most of Letters from Father Christmas (I plan on finishing that next week). We also read a bunch of storybooks:

  • Lucia Morning in Sweden
  • Lucia: Saint of Light
  • The Christmas Tale of Peter Rabbit
  • Jackie’s Gift
  • The Carpenter’s Gift
  • Fear Not Joseph
  • Madeline’s Christmas
  • The 12 Days of Christmas
  • The Three Wise Women of Christmas
  • The Nativity

It was also “Nutcracker Week.” This is not totally unheard of for us, although this year we were supposed to see a live production. We watched a different version every day:

  • Monday: Ballet Company of The National Opera of Ukraine
  • Tuesday: Dutch National Ballet
  • Wednesday: Wiener Staatsballett
  • Thursday: The Royal Ballet
  • Friday: The Bolshoi Ballet

We saved our favorite, the San Francisco Ballet production, to watch tomorrow. If we have time next week, we’ll watch the Berlin Nutcracker, too…that’s the only one we have on disc that we didn’t schedule for this week.

This was a really fun week of school, but I’m looking forward to taking a break for a few weeks. Merry Christmas!

2019-20 School Year–Week Seventeen

This was a weird week of school.

I had planned for it to be a short week. We were going to have school Monday-Wednesday. And then the snow started.

Usually, snowstorms don’t have much impact on our school schedule. Even when Moose has a snow day, we usually keep going as usual. But this week, in addition to Moose being home from school on Monday and Tuesday, our one scheduled activity, a homeschool day at the Missouri History Museum (that we were really looking forward to), was cancelled. And that threw the whole week off.

So, on Monday, instead of going to the history museum, we baked cookies, made ornaments (really cool “stained glass” ones that baked in the oven, reminiscent of something I made as a child!), and watched three different version of The Nutcracker (something we do every year, anyway, but which I didn’t have planned for Monday!).

Tuesday we did some work, and Wednesday we wrapped up all the tests that needed to be taken before the break, and that was pretty much it. We did get out of the house today for another Advent concert at the Belleville Cathedral and a walk down Main Street to see this year’s gingerbread houses, but that wasn’t exactly the field trip I had planned for the week. It was still fun, though!

See you next year!

Christmas Ornament Crafts Revisited

It’s been quite some time since I last shared the ornament crafts we’ve done over the years, so I thought I’d update the list. In 10+ years of homeschooling at Christmastime, we’ve made 17 different ornaments, and a few of those have had different variations, as well. Many of the ornaments have come from kits, but some of those are easily reproducible with the right materials.

2023–We made a simple but lovely, music-themed ornament from a craft kit to go with our music-themed Christmas School.

2022–We made a pair of ornaments…one to represent our summer vacation (memory spheres), and one to go with our “Christmas in Germany” themed Christmas School (ornaments inspired by the German flag).

2021–Since we had clay left over from making medals for our Tokyo 2020 summer school, we made painted clay ornaments that we cut out with cookie cutters I bought just for this project.

2020–I waited a long time for the children to finally make these beautiful sequin ornaments, and it was totally worth the wait…they add so much sparkle to the tree!

2019–When I saw these “stained glass” ornaments at Joann, I knew this was the project we were going to do this year, because they reminded me of ornaments I made when I was a child!

2018–I needed something simple (broken ankle and all), so we made yarn ball ornaments. They may have been easy to make, but they look so pretty on the tree!

2017–This year, we made bead and button icicle ornaments in both red & green and blue color schemes:

2016–I finally found a Nutcracker Prince ornament kit, which involved painting…a first for us at Christmas!

2015–Mop-n-Glo glitter ornaments in two different shapes!

2014–Clothespin donkeys:

2013–Spiderweb ornaments to go along with the legend of the tinsel:

2012–Jingle bell wreaths, and our one true ornament failure. I should have known better than to try to make paper ball ornaments, because I was also a failure at them when I was a student, but we tried, we made the best of our mistakes, and we made a memory!

2011–Button wreaths and pipe cleaner starbursts:

2010–Crystal snowflakes and spiral trees:

2009–To be honest, I’m not 100% sure what ornament we made this year…but I think it was probably these snowflakes:

2008–Our first year of homeschooling meant making the two simplest ornaments I knew how…beaded wreaths and candy canes:

And then there are the final two ornaments. I can’t remember what year we made either of them, but I know the penguins were part of a kit from Target…I normally avoid craft foam projects, but these were too cute to pass up! At some point, we also made Nutcracker Princes that were printed, colored, cut out, laminated, and attached at the joints with brads:

Other than hand-and-footprint turkeys, Christmas ornaments are my favorite craft project of the year. I especially love that they are something that we not only keep, but also get out again year after year to hang on our tree…and someday, the children will be able to add them to their own Christmas trees!

Christmas School–The Nutcracker

No school for us this week, because we’re on Christmas vacation, but I thought I’d share some ideas for using the Nutcracker in school or at home. In the last 10 years, we’ve done anything from a “Nutcracker Day” to stretching our studies out over a full week. In that time, we’ve learned the story of the Nutcracker, listened through the entire score, compared and contrasted many different productions, seen a live performance, learned a bit about Tchaikovsky, made some fun crafts, and read about how the Nutcracker came to be a Christmas tradition in America. It’s one of my favorite things about Christmas School!

Nutcracker Stories (It’s up to you whether you choose to teach the story before introducing the ballet. I think there can be value in both approaches, because being unfamiliar with the story before seeing the dance can really encourage students to “read” the ballet, but knowing the story first prepares children and lets to know them what to expect.)

Other Nutcracker Books

Music

Ballet Productions (Of course, seeing the ballet live is the best option, and we’ve been fortunate enough to get to do that twice. But since it’s not always an option, I also like watching recordings of various productions, which also provides a great opportunity for comparing and contrasting how different companies interpret the story differently)

Crafts

  • Nutcracker Prince–We done two different ornaments of the Nutcracker Prince over the years…one made of laminated paper and jointed, and one from a kit, which gave us a chance to paint our own.
  • Waltz of the Snowflakes–Snowflake crafts are so much fun, whether you’re making paper snowflakes or ornaments!
  • The Land of Sweets–We haven’t done this craft yet, but you could do all kinds of fun candy and treat themed crafts to go along with the Nutcracker Prince’s magical kingdom.

What kinds of fun Nutcracker activities do you like to do?

2015-16 School Year–Week Thirteen

This was a pretty light week of school. I decided not to start anything new in math, so our main focus this week was language arts…spelling, vocabulary, grammar, writing, and reading. We also did a little science. We watched several productions of the Nutcracker, as always, as well as The Seasoned Traveler: Christmas Markets and Rick Steves’ European Christmas. We also continued our annual read-through of A Christmas Carol…We still have to read the last chapter, but we got through more than I was expecting after having been sick last week!

As always, we made Christmas ornaments this week. This year, we finally made the floor wax/glitter ornaments that I’ve been looking forward to making. They’re so beautiful…I love the way they look in the lights from the Christmas tree!

IMG_9588

This year, for Christmas Around the World, we learned about Christmas in Poland. We read a fun book, Marta and the Manger Straw. We also had a Polish meal…kielbasa, homemade pierogis, sauerkraut, and kolache cookies for dessert. It was a very popular meal!

We still have a few things to wrap up next week (finishing A Christmas Carol, another craft, and maybe learning about Christmas in one more country), but other than that, we’re done until 2016. Merry Christmas!