Christmas School Year Three

Sophie looks forward to Christmas School every year. In past years we've spent most of our time between Thanksgiving and New Years working on Christmas School, which essentially is school time spent hand-making all our gifts, baking cookies, learning about holiday traditions and meanings, and watching and listening to Christmas music and movies.

We usually spend a day making our lists and deciding what to make whom. We work with a calendar and look through our supplies and make a good plan, keeping in mind shipping and early celebrations and the cost and difficulty of the crafts we choose.

The dining room table becomes the hub of our Christmas crafting and I usually have at least three or four detailed lists of what needs to get done when. We have spent the last two years enveloped in Yuletide cheer for this month of homeschool and it's been fun and rewarding.

This year is a little different. Partly, I think, to Sophie's dismay. Not all fun and cheer this year...more "school" but still a lot of Christmas! Lily is out at her own school all day, so her list is shortened and her crafts are simpler and can be easily multiplied. We plan to spend the time Sophie is babysitting next door and weekend time working on her list.

For Sophie's Christmas School the plan for this year is completing 2 instead of 3 7 x 7's a week and spending two days devoted to Christmas School (but still doing the Daily Sparks and NEW! daily poem, plus an original poem written by Sophie). We are watching fewer movies during the schoolday and instead listening to an audiobook of Christmas classics. This week we've listened to Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol.

 One 7 x 7 a week will continue to be "regular" with Math, Science, History (Government for this unit), Latin, Writing, Reading, and Art/Music. Sophie is working on three major, end-of-unit, kinda-review projects for Math, Science, and Latin. She will take a "test" on Government and Important American History Dates in January.

The second 7 x7 each week will be holiday themed. The first 7 x7 will be December 6th and Sophie will learn and write about St. Nicholas Tag and we will celebrate the German holiday at home with German food prepared by Sophie and some fun St. Nick's Tag customs!

Since many of you will be receiving the gifts that Sophie is making, we will refrain from posting too many pictures. But I will post a few teaser pics every week!

Like years past, we will post a follow-up after Christmas with all the pictures and details of all the crafts and cookies we made!