Homeschool Corner

This month, most of our Homeschool things will be based on our Christmas Activities.  I'm sharing our Book Advent activities on Saturdays in a post but everything else will show up here.  We've made  it through one week - this is what we did.

Our daily Grinch Countdown
This is the one thing I'm REALLY trying to do daily since it is, well, a countdown.  I've tried to keep this super simple (and cheap) but still fun for the boys.  The gist of it is simply that the book "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" is broken up over 24 pockets.  Each day we pull a card, read the story, and pull out the item in the pouch.  The items include a little treat, a simple craft, an activity or a small toy.  I tried to plan ahead such things as going out to see Christmas lights or going to the movies to see something fun in order to make THAT the activity for the day.  We also have a Birthday and a Birthday Party to celebrate as well.  We normally do this every day after the extra kids leave - it is something fun to do before dinner and usually gives the boys something to do :-)

This is what we had this week:
December 1st - Opened their special ornament to put on the tree
December 2nd - Lego Men
December 3rd - Finger Tip Light Sabers (these were a HUGE hit!!)
December 4th - Make Door Hangers
December 5th - Magnetic Snowman Puzzles
December 6th - I had planned to take the family downtown to the Parade but two things happened 1)Mama got the stomach flu and 2)It is super duper cold so instead they boys opened . . .Matchbox Cars :-)
December 7th - See a Christmas movie at the Theatre
December 8th  -Tootsie Roll Bank (what is Christmas without one of these?)

After looking at what I wanted to get done in December, I decided that the best scripture Advent for us was this one :

Verge Network

I really liked the simplicity of it - just paper ornaments to color and hang out our little tree.  I have been wanting to pick up a copy of "The Jesus Storybook Bible" for awhile so this gave me a great excuse to do so (You don't need that Bible - but it does give you the option to use it by giving the pages that coincide with the ready that day).  We do this first thing in the morning before our book advent.  Below are some photos from our first week

I didn't take many photos this week - while the boys were coloring their ornaments, I read the book for our book Advent and then we moved right into our craft :-)

In my "December" Homsechool post I mentioned doing some unit studies . . . well, after looking at the items I have planned I realized that to add one more thing was too much for any of us so we are sticking with the Book Advent for learning; Grinch for Fun; and Scripture Advent for bringing us back to the reason for the season.