This last year, I have tried to incorporate some more “holiday” school into our family’s homeschooling life. We did a little something extra for Valentine’s Day earlier this year and then we did “Thanksgiving School” last month. It has been such a fun way to learn something new but also set the day apart as something a little different.
Christmas School
This month we have been doing CHRISTMAS SCHOOL. It has been so much fun and a really pleasant addition to our day. We have now become quite accustomed to our TV fireplace going in the background and do our Christmas School right after our family study.
I do so much better when I have a curriculum of sorts to inspire and guide us and then I can build off of that. We have been using The Mindful Heart’s Joy to the World guide and it has been fabulous. It is just enough to add a lot of magic to your day but not enough to be overwhelming.
We mostly just did the “Heart and Soul Time”. This included a hymn, poetry, (we skipped the mapping), artwork, music, listening and journaling, folk songs, and a read aloud.
If you use this guide, there is also a section for “Heart and Mind Time”. This is meant to work as a full curriculum so this goes into some language arts, math, history and science. We only did random things within this but it is a great resource if you want it. In this unit the focus for the different subjects was:
- History: Christmas
- Language Arts: Parts of Speech
- Science: Astronomy – Stars
- Math: Money
There is a list of supplies (which are mostly books) but since we were only doing the Heart and Soul Time we didn’t need any additional supplies. It all came with it – WIN!
It also gives you some great ideas for additional activities or field trips that go along with unit.
Hymn
The hymn we learned was Far, Far Away on Judea’s Plains. At first I thought this was a strange choice (I suppose just because it’s not one of the popular ones I think of) but there was such a sweetness to it. When it was played earlier this month in our church service – the kids were SO excited! We sang it every day at the beginning of our Christmas school and it was the best.
Poetry
The unit comes with six poems and they were so sweet.
Carols ‘Round the World
Nearly every day, we got to listen to a carol from somewhere in the world. The kids loved trying to guess the location each day. Some videos were definitely better than others but it was really neat to see other cultures and language. We went to:
- Bethlehem
- Egypt
- India
- United States
- Ireland
- England
- China
- Hawaii
- Germany
- Russia
- Australia
- Ukraine
- South Africa
- Mexico
Videos
We watched a lot of great videos to put us into the spirit of Christmas, including:
- The Christ Child: A Nativity Story
- Christmas Truce of 1914, World War I
- The Legend of Babushka
- Little Gretchen and the Wooden Shoe
- Christmas in Nigeria
- African Christmas Carol
Art
This unit also comes with a “Picture Pack” with beautiful artwork. These were great to accompany the lessons and display in our room throughout the month.
Journaling
We haven’t done a lot of journaling in our schooling before but we did it when we did Thanksgiving School and I loved it so I was happy to see it incorporated again. It is not every day but just enough. The kids journaled about:
- Isaiah 9:6 – What words would they use to describe Jesus? <– easily my favorite journaling prompt!
- The First Christmas in America
- Saint Nicholas
- Father of the Christmas Tree / Symbols of Christmas
- Washington’s Christmas
Musician
We also focused on the musical works of George Frideric Handel. It was fun to learn more about his life and listen to some of his works, including Hallelujah from the Messiah.
Folk Songs
We also learned two “folk songs” in this unit. We didn’t sing these every day but they were another fun addition. We learned We Three Kings of Orient Are and The Friendly Beasts.
Read Aloud
We would read a read aloud from our Christmas library at the end of Christmas School and it was the perfect ending.
Heart and Mind Time
As I said earlier, we didn’t use the Heart and Mind Time section much this go around. But we did do a couple stories where the kids had to give me nouns, adjectives, or adverbs to fill in the spaces to make their own silly stories. They thought this was absolutely hilarious! Bonus: I think it was a great way to cement those language arts concepts in their noggins.
They did two of these stories:
- ‘Twas the COW Before Christmas
- A Guide to Finding the Perfect Christmas Gift
Also for language arts, we read a couple stories that came along in their “Storybook”. SO much is provided for you – it is amazing. We read:
- The Elves and the Shoemaker
- The Little Match Girl
- Christmas Poetry
- The Gift of the Magi
We also listened to some more audio books, like:
- A Kidnapped Santa Claus
We also can’t resist an art project so we did these DARLING stained glass nativities. Maybe our favorite part!
And to top it all off – we made cookies. Because is it even Christmas without cookies?!
Final Thoughts
I would highly recommend this for the Christmas season if you are looking for ways to add a little magic to your days. Each day varied quite a bit time wise on how long we spent – but I would say on average it was about 45 minutes. Yes, it may cut into your regular school time, but in my opinion, it was so worth it. My kids looked forward to it every day and it was beautiful together time.
[…] carols, the crackling fireplace, the stories – it was PERFECT! I did a whole post about our Joy to the World Christmas unit from The Mindful Heart […]