Corning Museum of Glass

When Little Man graduated from kindergarten, he told the audience that he wanted to be an NFL player and a glass blower. Ever since then, we've wanted to take him to the Corning Museum of Glass. Last weekend, we finally made that happen.

We didn't get any pictures of the Hot Glass Show, which was our favorite - we attended two shows, watching the artists make a gorgeous vase and punchbowl out of molten glass. We also watched the Breaking Glass Show and the Lampworking Show, where an artist made an intricate reindeer from a bar of clear glass. We decorated gingerbread men, listened to an all-tuba orchestra play Christmas carols and explored the science of glass - there's more than you might think!

The pictures don't really do this tree justice. It was so striking.

This is a magnifying glass water ball.  

Love the work of Dale Chihuly!

Yes, these are glass.

Me and Little Man and Tiffany

More Tiffany

Definitely a day well spent!

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!

A new nativity!

We own several nativity sets, each cherished for its own unique qualities.

This one was given to us early in our marriage and shares a place of honor on the sideboard with our Christmas cards.

This stained glass set was made by a talented friend and is beautiful with lights behind it.

And our new addition, created by Z-Man and displayed proudly on the mantel! I'm sure you could figure it out, but I thought I'd put titles in, just in case.

And didn't these paper nativity scenes turn out adorable? You can print one (use card stock) at Papertoys.com.

This week: baking, grocery shopping and hopefully some caroling! I hope you are all enjoying a blessed and peaceful Christmas season.

Christmas book science

Last week was a light week here, well, school-wise anyway. We always focus on Christmas-type studies for the two or three weeks prior to Christmas. Things that aren't directly related to our study I try to tweak to make them a little more festive (such as practicing cursive by writing a Christmas list.) I also found a great download of Christmas critical thinking pages - it was only $1.99 at Curriculum Click.

But mostly we just read and do fun stuff. Yesterday, we read this:

Well, not that exactly. We read it in english. The Christmas Train by Ivan Gantschev. Apparently it's out of print and if you wish to buy it through Amazon, it will cost you $252.68 (or $98.84 if you can read German). Wow. It's good, but not two-hundred-dollars-good. I'd check the library first.

ANYway, it's based on a true story (LOVE that!) of the author's aunt in Bulgaria who, as a child, bravely and selflessly made a signal fire of her own Christmas tree on Christmas eve to warn an oncoming train of a rock slide, saving all inside. Her father always said that if there was an obstruction on the tracks, make a signal fire 400 yards ahead of it. Z-Man realized that this is the equivalent of four football fields and we got talking about momentum and why it takes a train so long to stop. Aha! Sounds like a science experiment!

We made a ramp out of a table leaf and a "brake" out of an empty box at the end of the ramp. We sent our little tykes truck down the ramp and measured how far it pushed the box (32 inches). Then we added weight - 3 heavy bolts, one at a time. Each made our truck take a little farther to stop. The most impressive result, however, was when we added speed - starting our ramp on the kitchen chair instead of the small step stool. And, you guessed it, the high ramp (speed) and the three bolts (weight) sent our truck the farthest - almost seven feet before it stopped!

I'm so thankful that we found the Five in a Row curriculum when Z-Man was younger. This book isn't in it, but I credit FIAR with enabling me to find lessons in the other childrens books we read. Before we started FIAR, I just didn't think that way. Thank you, Lamberts!

Christmas books we love

We just read the most wonderful, inspiring book! It's moving to the top of my list of beloved Christmas books.

Through a series of God-ordained "coincidences," a pastor and his family help bring about the reunion of an elderly Jewish couple separated decades earlier in the holocaust. It really drives home the point that God is in control and that He cares about us.

Another great Christmas book we found last year is Bright Christmas: An Angel Remembers, the Christmas story told from the perspective of an angel.

One we just found this year and I'm so glad we did:

One Wintry Night by Ruth Bell Graham. A boy gets caught in a snow storm and ends up spending the night in an old woman's home. She tells him the Christmas story - from the beginning - as in Adam and Eve! This book basically summarizes the Bible up through the birth of Christ. One caution: the illustrations are very well done but a couple (Goliath in particular) might be a bit too intense for very young children.

And finally, the utterly hysterical and ultimately heart-warming The Best Christmas Pageant Ever! Oh my. We just love this book. Our whole family looks forward to reading it. Last year, we read through it twice (only 7 chapters).

Happy reading!