crafts

2012-13 School Year–Week Twenty-Two

We had another fun, busy week of school! Of course the highlight of the week was Valentine’s Day. In addition to making traditional Valentines for our loved ones, we also made Valen-“swines!”

P1230417

We read about the real St. Valentine, and had a Valentine’s Day tea party, as well:

P1230426

We did do some actual work in school this week, too. We learned about the liturgical year and the liturgy in religion, just as a refresher before the beginning of Lent, and started our Jesus Tree. Turkey and Bunny continued to work on geometry in math, did a fun writing assignment that took all week to perfect, and worked on some easily confused words in grammar. We all finished the lesson on the nervous system in science, and got to World War I in history. Ladybug continued her two-week study of the letter “O,” and has moved on to capital letters in handwriting.

Only a month until our next big vacation…is it wrong that I’m already looking forward to it?

2012-13 School Year–Week Sixteen

We only had three days of school this week. We couldn’t be normal and do school Monday-Wednesday, though. We had school Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. I know, we’re weird. Monday was a regular day of Christmas school, because I had six days worth of lessons for Christmas in England, so we couldn’t cram everything into one week. That day’s theme was Christmas in present-day England. We read The Jolly Christmas Postman and A Child’s Christmas in Wales, as well as looked through Christmas in England, to compare a modern English Christmas to our own (they’re very similar!). We had math and writing assignments, as well.

Tuesday was our annual “Nutcracker Day.” We read what is now my favorite picture book of the Nutcracker…I’m so glad I borrowed it from the library! We already had one very short picture book that is also short on details (but does have nice illustrations), and one full version of both Nutcracker stories, which is a bit ponderous to read in one sitting, but is very detailed, and lacks illustrations. I’ve looked at many other versions in bookstores, and never found one I really liked, but I grabbed this one at the library, and it’s just what I wanted. The length of the story is just right…it took about a half-hour to read, which meant I still had everyone’s attention at the end, but it was full of good detail. And the illustrations were wonderful! I’ll be adding this to our permanent collection before next Christmas, I’m sure. We also read The Day Before Christmas, which is a bittersweet story about a little girl and her grandfather, who go to see a performance of the ballet together, just as the grandfather used to do with his daughter, the girl’s mother, before she died. The story perfectly captures the excitement of going to the ballet, especially for the first time.

This year, we watched two productions of the Nutcracker, instead of our usual one. Of course, we had to see our standard (and favorite!), version…the San Fransisco Ballet’s interpretation of the classic story. To go along with Christmas School this year, we also watched the Royal Ballet production, which isn’t quite as captivating as the San Francisco Ballet, but comes close.

Today we had our much-anticipated Christmas tea party:

P1210923

We also did our first day of winter activities, which included reading several winter-themed books (I love the copy of Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening we got this year!), and doing a fun craft:

P1210946

Now we’re on vacation for a few weeks…I’m really looking forward to the break! I love Christmas and homeschooling, but when you put them together, it’s exhausting!

2012-13 School Year–Week Fifteen

Christmas School kicked into full gear this week! We kept working on math (Ladybug finished her kindergarten math workbook…I don’t know what she’s going to do next!), and writing, but everything else we did was Christmas-themed.

On Monday, we learned about Christmas during the Elizabethan period, and made a favorite craft…stained glass Christmas trees. It’s been a few years since we’ve made them, and it was the first time Ladybug got to make one, so it was a lot of fun!

P1210389

Tuesday’s theme as a Georgian/Colonial Christmas. Since we read about the use of pomanders at that time, I got out the cloves and an orange, and we made one  of our own. Bunny and Ladybug have decided we should always have one around, because it smells so good, and I can’t say I disagree with them!

P1210381

Wednesday we learned about Christmas in Victorian times, and how those celebrations influenced how we still celebrate Christmas today. We read The Christmas Bird, which is a Christmas legend explaining how the robin got its red breast. Robins are a popular Christmas decoration in England, maybe because of this legend, or more likely because, during the Victorian era, the postmen wore bright red coats, and people used to call out, “Here comes the robin!” when they saw one. We made a robin craft, as well. I’m pretty proud of this one, because although it was simple, it was my invention. We used brads to make the wings and feet movable, and decided to glue the robins to a blue background to make it look like they’re flying.

P1210413

On Thursday, we moved on to the Edwardian era, which, to be honest, isn’t that much different from the Victorian era. We did enjoy looking at An Edwardian Christmas, which has no words at all. It was amazing what the children could infer from the pictures, and the small details they picked up on! Sometimes, it’s nice to just look at a picture book, and let the illustrations tell the story. We also read about St. Lucia on Thursday, since it was her commemoration day.

We moved into a more modern era today, learning about Christmas during World Wars I and II. We’ve read Christmas in the Trenches pretty much every year that we’ve been homeschooling, and it remains a family favorite. To be honest, I had never even heard of the “Silent Night Truce,” before reading that story, but I think it’s one of the most amazing war-time stories I’ve ever heard. We also read some selections from Letters from Father Christmas. The last letter Tolkien wrote fit in especially well with today’s wartime theme.

Our big craft was making a gingerbread house…only the second time we’ve tried doing so. I was smart this time, and actually read the directions beforehand, so I knew to assemble the house the night before so it could set up before the children tried to decorate it. Turkey, Bunny, and Ladybug had a great time coming up with and implementing designs. It was a very fun, although time-consuming, activity!

P1210546

Next week, we’re only having a few days of school. We’ll be finishing our Christmas in England unit with a look at modern English Christmas celebrations, having our traditional “Nutcracker Day,” where we’ll read the story and watch not one, but two different productions of the ballet (one of them being the Royal Ballet, of course!), and celebrating the first day of winter and having our Christmas tea party. After all that, we’re going to take a vacation for a few weeks…I’m definitely looking forward to that!

2012-2013 School Year–Week Fourteen

This was a much better week…of course, Christmas School tends to have that effect on people!

P1210096

For the most part, we followed our regular schedule this week, with Christmas activities added in. We did suspend our normal history and science activities, however, in favor of Christmas history, and the Magic School Bus, respectively. This was partly due to the nature of Christmas School, and partly due to some schedule difficulties this week, including a funeral and a well baby exam that I had to work around. This week also saw us beginning our Jesse Tree readings in place of our regular religion lessons, and of course, those will continue through Christmas Eve.

Spelling and grammar both had review lessons this week, so that’s the last we’ll see of those two subjects before our break. We also finished one read-aloud, Bully for You, Teddy Roosevelt!, and started another, A Christmas Carol, which we’ll finish next week. Jotham’s Journey is another read-aloud that was added this week…much like the Jesse Tree, it’s something we’ll do every day until the end of Advent. We will continue with our regular math lessons next week, as well as writing, but everything else will be Christmas-focused!

Christmas School this week also involved three craft days, two of which were dedicated to making ornaments, both for our home tree, and as gifts. We made both jingle bell wreaths, and paper balls. The paper ball ornaments almost ended in total disaster, but I managed to salvage them by using the materials to make a different kind of ornament. It may not have been our original plan, but I think they turned out OK! I’m about out of original ornament ideas, now, so unless inspiration strikes in the next year (or I find some cool craft kits!), I may have to start recycling some of my ornament projects!

P1210088

 

P1210112

We also made banners for the time of Christmas, that will be hung in our school room. This is part of an ongoing project we’re working on, with the goal of having a liturgically appropriate banner for each season of the church year. We’re enjoying making them…I just can’t figure out why it took me so long to come up with this idea!

Next week, the fun really begins, as we delve into what an English Christmas has looked like and become over the course of the last several centuries, and work on some additional Christmas crafts. It really is the most wonderful time of the year!

Banners for the Time of Christmas

For our first Christmas school craft, we made banners for the time of Christmas. The time of Christmas is broken into three seasons, so we had three banners to make. They were a lot of work, but a lot of fun, too!

The season of Advent (only the first flame is glued to the banner–the rest can be added as Advent progresses):

P1210028

The season of Christmas (to be used for the 12 days of Christmas and the day of the Epiphany):

P1210024

The season of Epiphany (to be used on the days following Epiphany, until the beginning of Lent, as well as the time after Pentecost…all of the green days):

P1210025

We spent a lot of time going through the banner book, choosing designs, colors, and appropriate Scripture verses, deciding where the glitter glue should go, and then putting them together. The whole family got involved! We’ll continue working our way through the church year…we have plans to make banners for Lent and Easter, as well as an Alleluia banner (we already made a red banner). After we’ve made the basic banners, we may move on to specific banners for Holy Week, and other themed banners…we’ll just have to see how it goes. It’s another nice way to tie our church life and home life together!

Thanksgiving School 2012–Day Eight

Today was just a fun day of school. We had one craft…everybody’s favorite, the hand-and-footprint turkeys.

And we read all of our favorite Thanksgiving books (again). Each child got to pick one book for me to read out loud one last time. It was interesting to see what everybody chose!

That’s the end of Thanksgiving School for this year (other than hanging up one more set of “thankful leaves” tomorrow morning)…in another week and a half, we’ll be starting Christmas School!

Thanksgiving School 2012–Day Six

Today, we took a look modern Thanksgiving celebrations, but we also had a bit of review, as well.

We started with Pardon that Turkey. This is a cute book, which, in part, tells the origins of the annual turkey pardoning by the President. The book also reviews Thanksgiving in America, though, starting with the first Thanksgiving, but the bulk of the story focuses on Sarah Hale. This was a nice review after reading Sarah Gives Thanks on Friday, especially since this is the first year we learned about her.

Our other two books focused on that great American tradition: The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Milly and the Macy’s Parade is one of my favorite stories to read every year, and blends fact and fiction to tell the story of how the parade got started. Balloons over Broadway tells the true story of how balloons were added to the Macy’s Parade, and how the balloons work. This was a new book to us this year (it was published in 2011), and we all really enjoyed it. The illustrations are fun, and it was another interesting glimpse into how the parade became what it is today.

Our craft for today was edible–Oreo cookie turkeys. These are adorable and so easy to make…the children loved them! It’s always fun to make an edible craft, too, because it doubles as snack time.

Tomorrow is a fun and silly story day, and then on Wednesday, we’ll re-read a few of our favorites, and make our annual hand-and-footprint turkeys. Thanksgiving is almost here!

Thanksgiving School 2012–Day Five

Today we learned about Thanksgiving in the 1800s, particularly the Civil War/Pioneer era.

One of our favorite books to read every year at Thanksgiving (maybe even one of our favorite books to read, period!) is An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, written by none other than the author of Little Women, Louisa May Alcott. This is a sweet Thanksgiving story about a group of siblings determined to carry on with the holiday for their parents, after they were called away for a family emergency. There are funny moments as you might expect when children are attempting to prepare a large meal, but in the end, they all enjoy a festive dinner together.

We added a new book this year, as well…Sarah Gives Thanks. This story details how Thanksgiving became a national holiday, and focuses on Sarah Hale, who is famous for writing the poem “Mary had a Little Lamb,” as well as editing several popular magazines. This is a good book because in addition to providing the background of Thanksgiving as a national holiday, it also illustrates the struggle a widow had in the 1800s to support her family, at a time when there weren’t many options available to women.

We even learned about a Canadian Thanksgiving in A Pioneer Thanksgiving. The celebration in this story is very similar to American Thanksgivings at that time (and even today!)…if you hadn’t read A Pioneer Sampler, you might even miss the setting of this story, and just assume it takes place in the US. The family is gathered for a meal, everyone has a job to do to get ready, and there is a sense of urgency as they work to get everything prepared. Many of the foods are the same, and, of course, the feeling of thankfulness and family love are just as present in Canada in the 1800s as they are today!

We also did our first turkey craft of this Thanksgiving season. I finally broke down and ordered some craft kits from Oriental Trading…these cute turkey coasters, as well as a few things for Christmas. This was a fun project, and will come in handy when we set our Thanksgiving table…I love a craft that is both fun and useful!

We only have two more days of Thanksgiving School. Next week we’ll be learning about more modern Thanksgiving traditions, as well as reading some “just for fun” stories, and doing a few more fun activities.

Thanksgiving School 2012–Day Three

Today we learned all about Pilgrims and early American colonists!

Our main focus was the Pilgrims, so we read two of my favorite Pilgrim books: Sarah Morton’s Day and Samuel Eaton’s Day. I can’t say enough good things about these books from Kate Waters! I love the photos, which really show what things were like at that time, and we all loved the Old English dialect that the books are written in. Both stories are set in 1627, so after the first Thanksgiving, but when the colony is still fairly new. Samuel is an original Plimoth settler, having come to the settlement with his family on the Mayflower. Sarah came a few years later on a ship named The Anne. Like On the Mayflower and Tapenum’s Day, these have become a staple in our Thanksgiving School every year!

We added Mary Geddy’s Day to our lessons today, as well. This book focuses on colonists in Williamsburg, shortly before the American Revolution. It was interesting to compare and contrast the lifestyles that were represented in the books, and to see just how much things changed from 1627 to the mid-to-late 1700s. We decided that Mary had things a lot easier than Sarah and Samuel, although all of the children agreed that there were things about life at Plimoth Plantation (after that first horrendous winter) that sounded fun…even the chores!

We’ve also been enjoying using some of Scholastic’s Thanksgiving resources, especially Letters from the New World. This is a cool e-mail offering that you can sign up for. Each week, for three weeks, the teacher is e-mailed two “letters,” one from a colonial child, and one from a Wampanoag Indian child. These letters, like the books above, give an idea of what life was like for these two very different groups of people. There’s even an option to listen to the letters (helpful with some of the Indian pronunciations!), as well as additional activities.

Today was also craft day again. This year, we tried something new for the Pilgrims: paper plate pilgrims. It was a fun and fairly easy craft (the boy pilgrim was more difficult to assemble than the girl), and the children enjoyed decorating their pilgrims’ faces. I just love finding a new paper plate craft!

Tomorrow, we learn about the first Thanksgiving itself!

Thanksgiving School 2012–Day One

Every year that we have Thanksgiving School, I organize it a little differently. This year, I decided to do seven days’ worth of themes, since we’ll be learning about Thanksgiving this week, plus two days next week. The themes are:

  • Native Americans
  • The Mayflower Voyage
  • Pilgrims
  • The First Thanksgiving
  • Civil War/Pioneer Era Thanksgiving Celebrations
  • Modern Day Thanksgiving Celebrations
  • Thanksgiving Fun

I’ve selected three read-alouds for each day, and some days we’ll also have additional activities, such as crafts, games, and movies. Our first day was very busy, as we had a craft, a game, a movie, and a special food incorporated into our theme…I wanted to have a wide variety of activities since Moose had the day off of school and was able to join in the fun.

Before our read-alouds, we refreshed our memories about Native American in general by looking at two books: North American Indians and Native Homes. These books reminded us of some of the different North American Indian tribes, where in the country they lived, and what kind of homes they built. After we discussed these basics, we read about three different Indians, two real (Pocahontas and Squanto), and one fictional (Tapenum).

We used the book More than Moccasins for both our game (a game of chance played with sticks), and our ethnic food of the day (Indian fry bread). This is an excellent book that I’ve used for different ideas over the course of the last several years. There are tons of great suggestions for games, foods, and craft projects, usually with a little history thrown in. There are also many other books in this series, looking at different periods of history and different groups of people…they’re great resources to have when you’re in search of something to make a lesson extra-memorable!

For our craft, we made Indian corn decorations. We made two-dimensional Indian corn using a paper tearing technique, but you could also make three-dimensional Indian corn using toilet paper tubes. The paper tearing is optional either way…you could always cut neat squares instead!

We watched the Peanuts Mayflower Voyages special as well. This could have waited until our Mayflower Day (tomorrow), but I wanted to make sure we watched it with Moose, and a decent part of the movie focuses on Squanto, so it still fit with the theme for the day. I’m always surprised by how accurate a children’s show can be, but it is very true to the story of the first Thanksgiving, with a little creative license in the way of characters (especially one well-known beagle!).