We have always based a lot of our curriculum around the seasons and holidays and Christmas has always been a month long unit for our family. This year I took a bit of a different approach. While the little ones still did the group binder with its worksheets, drawings and colouring pages the twins were in charge of their OWN notebook. Surprisingly enough, with some whining and complaining we still managed a project that we ALL feel proud of. Lots of independent mini reports were written up and even ideas of things to paste in their books on their own were brought forth!

Of course I have a long list of resources and I am going to share them for my benefit as well as others… Movies first!

• the Muppet Christmas Carol, I found a great worksheet set thanks to IPA Productions that deals with the original story for the twins that tied in nicely with the movie. We used the movie as an accessible medium to introduce the story and then they read the condensed version in these worksheets HERE. There is a cute colouring page for the movie HERE from Coloring Wallpapers.
• Veggie Tales – Saint Nicholas, A Story of Joyful Giving
• Veggie Tales – It’s a Meaningful Life
• Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Books! (sorry no links… but hopefully with name and author you can stumble upon them… this post is simply too late as is!)

• The Legend of Saint Nicholas by Demi. This was a great introduction the origins of Santa without ruining the magic for anyone as the book ends with the tradition being continued on after Saint Nicholas’ passing by a boy in the village who was chosen to continue his work.
• Christmas by Trudi Strain Trueit
• Christmas Around the World by Emily Kelley. We love this book, each of the twins chose THREE countries and summarized the traditions they have into on brief paragraph that I spell checked and then they copied into their notebooks.
• Christmas by Natalie M. Rosinsky
• O Christmas Tree by Jacqueline Farmer
• Christmas by Alice K. Flanagan
• Celebrate Christmas by Deborah Heiligman
• A Short History of Christmas by Sally Lee
• Merry Christmas Everywhere! by Arlene Erlbach and Herb Erlbach
• Twelve Days of Christmas in Minnesota by Constance Van Hoven
• Christmas Traditions Around the World by Ann Ingalls
• Christmas Trolls by Jan Brett… this was a random mid unit find at the library. The art is AMAZING!
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas! by Dr. Seuss
• The Legend of the Candy Cane by Lori Walburg
• What Star is This? by Joseph Slate
• City of Snow, The Great Blizzard of 1888 by Linda Oatman High
• The Berenstain Bears Meet Santa Bear by Stan and Jan Berenstain
• A Child Was Born by Grace Maccarone
• The Heron Christmas Carol by Frances Tyrrell
• My Penguin Osbert by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel
• What is Christmas? by Michelle Medlock Adams
• The Christmas Story by Jane Werner
• A Very Shiny Christmas by Debbie Guy-Christiansen
• A Pussycat’s Christmas by Margaret Wise Brown
• Santa’s Snow Cat by Sue Stainton
• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer by Barbara Shook Hazen
• Santa is Coming to Texas by Steve Smallman
• A Porcupine in a Pine Tree by Helaine Becker
• Christmas Is… by Gail Gibbon
• A Kenyan Christmas by Tony Johnston
• The Nutcracker by Bethany Snyder
• The Gingerbread Man by Dawn Bentley
• Recordable storybooks read by Gammie – Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and The Night Before Christmas
• And a lovely British book mailed by a friend of Favourite Christmas Stories from Brown Watson publishers

Hanukkah, while not the most important Jewish holiday IS the one closest to Christmas and the best known generally so we did cover it briefly. Here are our books.

• Hanukkah by Rebecca Pettiford
• Hanukkah Around the World by Tami Lehman-Wilzig
• Hanukkah by Lisa M. Herrington
• Chanukah Lights Everywhere by Michael J. Rosen

You can find some terrific printables on Teacher Vision HERE and a Hanukkah mini book thanks to Family Education HERE.

Of course we covered Polar Express, both the book and the movie. The little ones did parts of a lapbook I had purchased years previous but we supplemented with worksheets… pages from a party kit by Houghton Mifflin Books HERE, Scholastic.com had some resources HERE, and activities and lessons by Busy Teachers Cafe HERE.

• The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg

We covered a lovely range of topics from symbols to world traditions and including Santa Claus and reindeer. A supplementary fact page about reindeer HERE thanks to Kids Play and Create. I also have some resources I have acquired from Currclick:

• The History of Candy Canes HERE. We also watched how candy canes were made on The Kid Should See This HERE
• Christmas Symbols Lapbook HERE

Want a little info about Boxing Day? We got ours from Ducksters HERE.

I hope these links are helpful… late as they are posted!! 

Even with illness off and on all month December was good to us. We had family and friends to enjoy, good food and amazing gifts. I cannot thank everyone enough for being a part of our world, of our story and of our future.

December has always been an important month for us. It is a chance for us to share our thanks to all of you with gifts and letters, phone calls and visits. These fingers worked over time and in all honesty are still working on a few belated gifts. I plan to share pictures of most of the items I have made this season in a later entry.

A sneak peek… some of my starched snowflakes

Of course we did a full Christmas unit only slightly hampered by illness this year. With our usual laundry list of education and entertaining books and links. A couple lapbooks to enter into our binder this year as more notebooking pages than anything and lots and lots of pictures. Most importantly, after not having an Activity Village Advent calendar last year we had one this year! A whole series of train cars! Even Echo had her set done…  larger sized and then hole punched and put into a duotang instead of cut out.

I am so proud of how the kids are managing to work on a balance of working independently and in small groups. We are still finding our stride with noise and close quarters, but I think that will be a continuing battle for as long as we homeschool. Sometimes personalities just clash! Or sing really loudly in the middle of class.

We had TWO concerts in December – our Christmas pageant AND the daycare one for Evan. Evan’s was all songs and very cute.

The choir director even threw a mini party on their last Wednesday practice before Christmas. Trinity was sick so the boys brought her back her very own treat from the party!

We spent a lot of our December with family story time. Emanuel and Trinity worked together to do an illustrated page for each and every story and we all enjoyed revisiting some old favourites and a couple new ones! Gammie sent us a new story that she recorded herself reading – this time Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Echo especially spent TONS of time sitting there listening to the story over and over again.

Don’t forget themed worksheets and stories about the season!

Of course we had Christmas with the Schwartz family and after Christmas Renee even took the twins out sledding. They had a blast with Nathan and Evan on the hill while Ken and I took the others to the dollar store.

We finished off our first set of swimming lessons with all 5 having them. No movement up to the next level for anyone but all 5 have learned new skills and enjoyed it enough to want to be registered in the new sessions that start up again in January. Thank you so much Nana and Baba for being the ones to instigate and continue these. One of the best gifts ever!

Christmas itself was a quieter occasion with the cousins in Florida but I think the kids had a blast and all their wishes seemed to be answered. You can see our Christmas Day HERE.

Christmas Eve Dinner

We even had snow! No where near as much as last year but with that minor disappointment for the kids was paired a lovely lacking of those lengthy freezing cold days we experienced the previous winter as well!

I always enjoy the creativity that comes immediately after Christmas with new presents and new eyes for the old ones.

I have to say now that December feels a distant memory. I am sure that if I HAD been on the ball this entry would go on and on but I have to admit, checking back months later.. thinking about events and people and checking through the pictures has given me a chance to relive a rather amazing month. I think 2015 is going to be a year of counting blessings as I reflect back on each month to share our experiences and joy with the world around us!

 PHOTO OVERFLOW…. HERE.