I'm tempted to say we've accomplished nothing this week, but I suppose that is all in perspective. We are taking things a little easy for the month of December. I always plan some wonderful unit study and then beat myself up about not finishing it all. But the truth is, the kids (and I) are ready for a break. So we've plugged along.
Monday- We started our Christmas Around the World lapbook with a study of Argentina. We are marking each location on the map and discussing the Christmas traditions of each. Yes, it's a little young for the older kids to be doing, but I love these family studies, and I'll do it as long as we possibly can. Some homeschooling friends came over midmorning, and the kids played, ate lunch, and then we broke out the cookie dough and made Christmas cookies! This is a tradition that started in my family when my niece and nephews were small. We would gather every year for a cookie day. By the time my kids were old enough (they are much younger than the cousins on that side), we didn't have too many years before the cousins started drifting off. College and jobs and now marriages have come into play, and we've adapted the tradition over the years making cookies with different homeschooling friends. Everyone always get super messy, but it is loads of fun.
Tuesday- Our lapbook country was Australia. We like to read about Australia because one of the familys of missionaries we pray for regularly are in Australia. Perhaps the funniest thing we learned was that the Australians have a Christmas carol about old, gray kangaroos pulling Santa's sleigh. It is called Six White Boomers, and we listened to it on YouTube. We laughed quite a bit and there was definitely some dancing and singing involved.
Thursday- We skipped our lapbook and headed out to our youth group's Homeschool Hanging In at Chick Fil A. The older kids hung with some friends and played board games; the littler crew played on the playplace with friends, and I enjoyed talking to other homeschool moms. The kids just did independent work that afternoon.
Friday- Today I shared some books with the kids. A few were from the reading list at Schoolhouse Teachers.com. This past month's list was about music and conductors and I was excited to find some about Bach, the composer we've been studying. I had those and some Christmas Around the World books requested through inter-library loan, and I was able to pick them up yesterday. So instead of moving on to another country, we enjoyed those books today. This afternoon we went to the bowling alley and bowled a game with the homeschool teen group. I didn't bowl, but all four kids did. Kathryne won which was surprising because she usually doesn't even like to play!
In other news this week: I am an official reviewer for The Old Schoolhouse Review Crew. I have wanted to be able to do this for a while. I love reading reviews. I love writing reviews. And I love getting great products to try. This week I completed my first review for Schoolhouse Teachers.com, a site I've actually been using for a while now. You can read my first official review here.
Next week we are going to keep on with a few more countries in our lapbook, but we are also going to homeschool days at Great Wolf Lodge- our very favorite vacation place!
For more Weekly Wrap Ups visit Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.
A great idea about having friends over for cookie baking! I think I'll have my daughter call her friend and see if she would like to join us! Congratulations on your first review! We had a lot of fun doing TOS reviews last year, but our crazy life makes properly reviewing products very difficult so we opted to suspend reviewing this coming year. You'll have a great time! (I can't seem to leave a comment without signing into Facebook, but I'm Jessy from Our Side of the Mountain.)
ReplyDeleteThank you, Jessy. We really do love our cookie days with friends. It's been a fun tradition.
ReplyDeleteI love the cookie baking! How nice to have good homeschooling friends to share it with. You are blessed to have an active homeschool community for even your older children. The Christmas around the world study sounds great. I have heard so much about Great Wolf Lodge. It isn't far from us (we are in PA outside of Philadelphia), so perhaps one day we will join you there! :-) I also am new to the "Crew" this year and am excited about it. Have a great weekend. Thanks for visiting my blog and for your kind comments. Blessings, Lisa http://our4kiddos.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteLook at that cookie mess! So fun!!! We're pretty good at making messes here too. :) Following you now from the Crew and http://www.raisingleafs.blogspot.com/.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the Crew! Love your Christmas lapbook idea. Thanks for reminding me about the Six White Boomers song - I haven't heard it in ages, and I bet my daughter would get a kick out of it.
ReplyDeleteWe surely got a kick out of it. :-)
ReplyDeleteWonderful activities!! Great memories in the making. And welcome to the Crew!
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of doing lapbooks for Christmas around the world. Recently, I've been doing some studying of Christmas history and found some intriguing ideas that perhpas it was the pagans who tried to steal the date from the Christmas. Not sure how accurate that is but it was interesting! Advent is such a beautiful time of focusing on WHY Christ was born. Merry Christmas!
ReplyDeleteIt is an interesting idea. Merry Christmas to you too!
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