Week 16 in our schooling was all about CHRISTMAS. Surprise, surprise!We did all the usual Christmas-y activities including cookie baking and frosting, decorating the house, trimming the tree, and making ornaments.
Another beneficial Christmas activity we partook of was caroling at a local nursing home. I dressed up the kiddos in their Christmas best and we sang with a few other families from our homeschool group. Then we gave out homemade ornaments to the residents. Let me tell you, those old folks LOVE seeing little kiddos! Their faces beamed with joy and their pains were momentarily relieved. What a blessing to be able to spread some joy and remind them of the miraculous baby Savior born so long ago!
We hammer it into our kids that Christmas is the celebration of Jesus' birth. Along that line, we did a countdown paper chain as well as a Jesse tree to further emphasize and anticipate Jesus' birthday celebration.
Additionally, we read myriads of nativity centered books and watched portions of The Nativity Story. We sang Christmas carols, made a timeline of history leading up to Jesus' birth and sang the song Matthew's Begats way too many times. (Check out this fabulous Christmas album too by Andrew Peterson. Along the same lines as the Jesse Tree, the songs travel throughout the Old Testament showing the foreshadowing and expectation of Jesus throughout history. There's also a book that follows the song Matthew's Begats that is a fun and helpful visual aid.)
Lastly, we learned a readily applicable Bible verse for the Christmas season. "It is more blessed to give than to receive." Not sure that lesson sunk into their little brains yet. But it is SO TRUE. It truly is more fun to give than to get!
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