Christmas Book a Day

Another fun activity we are doing along with our Jesse Tree Advent and What God wants for Christmas is a Christmas Book a Day.  I've seen lots of lists out there. Our books are toddler/ preschool faith focused. They all point back to Baby Jesus in different ways. I didn't want 30 something renditions of Luke 2, but I did want the truth in every book. I haven't come across one yet that Munchkin doesn't ask me to repeat later in the day. Definite favorites- reading 6+ times in a day- so far as been J is for Jesus and Christmas with Boz.

I bought enough books to start the day after Thanksgiving and go through New Year's Eve. These were taken Sunday. We completed day 13 today. The books after the ones with the stars are not in the order they will necessarily be read. I make the decision the night before based on what we've been talking about or  activities we might be doing then. For example, we started with the "Pine Tree Parable" and "Jesus, Me and My Christmas Tree" first since we were talking about putting up the tree. Munchkin screaming through the upstairs staircase after he woke up from his nap that we had our own tree was priceless! Daddy and I put it up while the boys were sleeping.  Day 11 was "J is for Jesus" since that was the beginning of our Letter of the Week focus for J. Mommy gave them a candy cane with their breakfast to tie in with the book. It was a big sticky mess, but man they had fun :-)

Books 1-20

21- 38

The red box is what Munchkin opens every morning to see what new book we'll be reading. With our schedule this year, wrapping them individually wasn't going to work for us.  The last picture is all song books that play the songs when you press a button or open the book. They include "Silent Night", "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing", "The Little Drummer Boy", "Joy to the World", "Away in a Manger" and "Little Town of Bethlehem"

Review - Week 14

Week 14 of 36

Learning Poster

Books to read again

Letter recognition and sound

Hannah Prays for an Infant

I did it. I was out of storage space on my account for blogging so, I bought storage space today. Man, I must like this blogging thing ;-)

Week 13 of 36

learning poster

visuals

books of the week

number books

Hannah story board

Hannah songs

Advent 2012- The Jesse Tree

We really enjoyed our Advent activity last year with the Names of Jesus ornaments, coloring pages and paper chain.

Over this last year we came across The Jesse Tree Advent. We decided to share this activity with several friends who wanted to participate. Each family took one ( or more) ornaments and made an ornament and we all swapped. All 20 of us have this beautiful array of ornaments starting with Creation and ending in the Birth of Christ. Our family definitively scored on this one as we knew everyone who participated and now this wonderful tradition is interwoven with the incredible relationships and each persons individual and unique take on how to represent that bible story of prophesy.

Jesse Tree






Book Resources we used:
 










There are several online resources as well. Free devotionals, coloring pages, etc.
I'll post more as we go along starting December 1st

Christmas Movies 2012

Here are our favorites this year :

Christmas Eve staple:

Becoming a parent really does change everything.  Since having children we've becomes more intentional, focused and purposeful. We are defining Christmas movies not by the winter season or the symbols but if it points back to and includes the birth of Christ. There is enough in our media, music, tv and stores that are a distraction. We aren't adding anything else in our home during an already busy time of year. 

While I support the heart and historical origin of Saint Nicholas, I think the current rendition of him and his elves, reindeer and location steal too much time, focus and attention. The heart of giving, sacrifice, charity, love and forgiveness is at the heart of our celebrations. As unpopular in mainstream culture as this is, we have chosen as a family to not lie to our children in any way, not even in fun. We simply can't reconcile giving a fictional character credit for real life activities. We can have fun with him on December 6th which is observed as St Nicholas day remembering he was a Christian and gave purposefully out of the love Christ had for him. The Advent season including December 25th is for preparing for and celebrating the birth of Christ. We pray the heart is what our children will carry with them through out the rest of the year, not just a gift they will outgrow but of the sacrifice God made for us by sending Christ to become human flesh so we would know we weren't alone. He know we needed a role model to look up to and emulate. I pray our children know God as our creator is our only source of true unconditional love, forgiveness, and acceptance. He is the ultimate teacher, protector, guide and parent.

Advent Ideas

I have to admit a fascination with Advent activities, numbers, organization etc. With my picture uploading issue still going on, all of these photographs are from the corresponding websites. This site HERE has lots of free ideas linked up on their post.

I'll fully blame Pinterest. I was brand new to the whole site last fall and there were so many stinkin cute ideas, I started 4 this year :-) My name is Lori and someone should change my pinterest password and not tell me what it is. So, I thought I'd share my finds here so I can pace myself and not feel like I have to do every one of them this year. Here is the link to the Advent board where I've pinned resources.

Last year, we did the Names of Jesus ornaments and coloring pages from Bible Story Printables. It was a little stressful sewing 25 ornaments in a week but worth it knowing we'll have these ornaments with the scriptures for years to come!



In the last year we've acquired:

Truth in the Tinsel does a daily scripture reading with a ornament craft.



What does God want for Christmas from Family Life. We got it half off on Cyber Monday :-) It highlights the 7 parts of the Nativity.



The day after Thanksgiving we started our daily new Christmas book reading. Munchkin is super excited now that he understands there is a new book in the Christmas box every morning :-) I've pinned all the books we bought here. Also on that board are several other lists for older kids as our books are all toddler/ preschool focused. Our favorite from this week is:



All of our Christmas books this year:

We'll start The Jesse Tree Advent Saturday that I blogged about the other day. I was very glad to have started the ornament making process in May and also to share the process with dear friends.

Another great one on my radar is:

Everyday Emmanuel from What's in the Bible




I've seen Advent activities ranging from acts of service to daily crafts and activities.

There are ideas on the Promises of God, Christmas Around the World, Symbols of Christmas and the 12 days of Christmas.

There are TONS of free preschool Nativity theme packs online that I pinned on my Happy Birthday Jesus board.

I was very excited to see so many options to have fun and learn while keeping our focus on the birth of Christ.

Homeschool Giveaways

They are giving a TON of stuff on this link today. It's definitely worth a look!

http://homeschoolgiveaways.com/2012/11/black-friday-giveaways-1200-prizes/

God chooses Gideon

Week 12 of 36

This week was light due to a stomach virus that hit all four of us Tuesday in the middle of the night and lasted the rest of the week

Learning Poster

Books of the Week

Books we read

Verses we talked over, applied to life and repeated

 

 Gideon

Felt and bibles for Gideon

Veggie Tales

What's in the Bible

Letter H fun:

Visuals

Leap Frog Amazing Alphabet

Android and Apple learning apps

Letter Fun

Letter Forming Rhyme

Rosey & Rusty ABCs

We read our number book several times. In everyday life, we count everything (pretzels, toys, cars on the road, etc. We also practiced writing the number and spelling it on our magnadoodle

Number Fun

Battle of Jericho

Week 11 of 36 with ABCJLM

Learning Poster

Books of the Week

Bible books for the week

LOTW visuals

Scripture for Joshua

Character trait for the week

Memory verse from My ABC Bible Verses

  

Munchkin often asks me to be Goliath and he's David.

New chip boards phonics

Table top pocket chart to use with our ABC Bible Verse

Felt set up for the week

These are my top three favorite resources each week. We spend the majority
of our time and focus on these three areas

Writing out our verses and learning for the boys

Joshua from "What's in the Bible"

Munchkin on the felt set

We sang the bible song and marched around

We found a video of it on YouTube

Josh and the Big Wall from Veggie Tales

Another Joshua song from our Bible Heroes CD and Book

We used our Lilian Vernon cardboard blocks to march around and shout down

I found these great letter rhymes from Sharing Kindergarten/s Blog.
Munchkin has been enjoying the Number ones form our curriculum

Window crayons for our letter and number formation

Letter formation from a DVD called Rusty and Rosey

More G resources

Number 5 counting and ID

Other fun from the week:

Our first full week in November. We've been moving our trust label
to the current day learning days, months, season and year.
We do the starfall make a calendar at least once a week

Our Thanksgiving Books. We read a couple each day.
My favorite is "Give Thanks to the Lord"

Munchkin really enjoys finding clues