Weekly Wrap Up December Week One

Our theme this month is...Christmas!  Shocking I know!  We are also on a bit of a light learning this month.  Focusing on Christmas books, Christmas movies, Christmas songs, and using Christmas printables from around the web.  Here's what we used this week:

Christmas Books:

Santa's Favorite Story-A great way to start out the season, taking the focus from Santa and putting it on Jesus.  And who better to help out, then Santa himself!

The Night Before Christmas-Illustrated by Mary Engelbriet.  Lots discussion possibilities with this one.  We started with discussing Mary's artistic style. She hides her signature flower design in all but the very last picture in the book.  Sometimes, it is a bit hard to find, but we made a point to find them!  We also discussed rhyming words, and some of the unusual language such as 'coursers' AKA the reindeer.

The Very First Christmas by Paul Maier-It was just a wee bit cold this week to drag the kids out all the way to town for church, so we read this book together.  The text is directly from the book of Luke, with questions from a little boy to help the kids understand better.

Christmas Songs:

I have realized that since my children are not participating in Christmas pageants at school (or at our church-they don't have one), my kids do not know the words to Christmas songs.  At first it was cute, but when your 8 year old still messes up basic songs, it starts to get a bit much.  SO, I realized I needed to teach them the words (and motions if they exist).

This week the songs were:

Away In a Manger.  We did the motions and I was impressed that even Explorer got them.

The 12 Days of Christmas.  I found free printables from 123homeschool4me and used them to help remember the words.  Mostly, the kids knew this one...but a partridge in a pear tree had some interesting ideas :).

Christmas Movies:

We used our own stash and what was on TV.

Charlie Brown's Christmas, Frosty the Snowman,Yes Virgina, Polar Express,Veggie Tales-St. Nicholas, and Super Book-The First Christmas.

Christmas Printables:

Using free printables from around the web, I have been making work packets geared toward each child.

This week I used two packs from 3 Dinosaurs:  The Nativity Pack and Polar Express Pack.

We did a little bit of our 'regular' work, but for the most part this was it.  We also went family roller skating with our AWANA club this week.  And, since I can't roller skate right now, Daddy went along.  We had a ton of fun!

How was your school week? Did you do any fun Christmasy stuff?

Thanks for stopping by!!  Don't forget to enter my current giveaway while you are here!

Lisa

(disclosure:  The widget below is an affiliate link, thank you for any purchases you make through it!!)