We've got you covered Jesus

I thought the nativity looked a little different when I walked by today...

"Stable has been secured!"

"Repeat, the stable is secure. Over."

Christmas plans

As we do each year, we're changing our homeschool focus a bit during the Christmas season. We do a little less seat-work, a little more reading and a little more crafting.

Doing dot to dots with the beloved football pen

In past years, we've done Christmas unit studies like the 12 Days of Christmas and the names of Jesus. This year, we're just doing a bunch of different "Christmasy" things:

• Reading the prophecies of Christ's birth and the verses that show their fulfillment, and hopefully making a chart of everything
• Completing a timeline of the events of the nativity using classic artwork and looking at another from the Met here.
• Learning some beautiful Christmas carols
• Reading LOTS of Christmas books - some are listed below.
• Memorizing Matthew 1:21 and Isaiah 9:6
• Going to a local "walk through Bethlehem"
• Visiting the Festival of trees
• Making gifts and ornaments

Check out this really cute nativity set to color and wrap around toilet paper tubes.

Little Man doing some nature study from inside the nice, warm house. We could actually examine individual snowflakes on the window sill!

Christmas books we love:

Bright Christmas: An Angel Remembers by Andrew Clements

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson

The Christmas Tapestry by Patricia Polacco

And some new Christmas books we'll be reading this year to go along with our American history studies:

Christmas in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

An Early American Christmas by Tomie DePaola

Miracle in the Wilderness: A Christmas Story of Colonial America by Paul Gallico

Enjoy your Christmas season!