School Time: Week 14 (Learning about Christmas)

What a busy week we have had.  Not only did I get some crafts done, I also was able to get our Christmas crafts to connect to our letter of the week, Oo.  We will not be starting a new letter until after the holidays.  We will probably focus on Oo this coming week and then review all our letters thus far.  We have a good selection having followed the readinglesson.com order so that we can actually build some words.

We started out this week with our Christmas Colors Muffin Tin.

Because a wreath is sort of the same shape as the letter O, I wanted to make some sort of wreath to help decorate our home.  I decided on a hand print wreath.  First I taped 2 sheets of plain copy paper together. Then I traced a circle on the paper.  The girls then made green hand prints all around the circle.

Even Hannah had a turn.

Grabbing the paper was her favorite activity:

No, she does NOT like getting cleaned up:

After they were dry I cut them out and the girls glued on red pompoms.

Tabitha's

Amelia's

Hannah's

Our second craft project this week was based on the book Asleep in a Stable by Will Hillenbrand that has been very popular with the girls this week.  You can read more about the book here, where I linked up to stART, Read, Explore, Learn, Kids Get Crafty and The Ultimate Alphabet Craft Collection.

A little summary: The girls made O owls

And the owls were watching over Baby Jesus in the stable.

On Thursday we took a short, cold walk down to the thrift shop in order to focus on the true spirit of Christmas, gifts.  No, really, don't leave!  Not the getting of gifts, but the giving of gifts. The girls used their money that they have earned to buy each other a gift.  So Tabitha bought for Amelia and Hannah, and Amelia bought for Tabitha and Hannah.  I want the girls to know the joy of giving to others, for isn't that what our Almighty Lord did that first Christmas.  God gave us the gift of His Son.  That is what I want the children to understand.  We give gifts to remember God's gift to us.  We also remember the gifts of the wise men to Jesus.  Of course there was also the lesson on money snuck in.  While we were there we saw our friends from play group who were buying gifts for their cousins!

On Friday we headed over to Story Time, almost the last one of the year :(

The girls made cute little stockings.

Which were added to the collection on the fireplace mantel to help decorate the children's room of the library.

We have been taking an ornament off of our Advent Calendar each day and then mommy cuts off that days rectangle so we can see how many days are left til Christmas.  Okay, mommy is going to try hard not to panic. Only 2 weeks left!

I realized after I drew the cross that it was actually to wide to match up really well with the tree.  The bottom of the cross is supposed to look like the tree's trunk.  Oops.  I'll remember that for next year.  Now that I realize I can use a small version, I know I can make one every year, instead of having to re-tape a bigger one together every year, as I was doing.

And to end the week on an uplifting (but cold) note, we went Christmas caroling with our church family and then back to our pastor's house for popcorn and hot chocolate. (Hannah officially likes hot chocolate, bad mommy)

I would like to invite you to check out this week's Words of Wisdom Wednesday question.  If you have a chance, I would love to see your child's response.

I'm am linking up to

  >