In our homeschool this week…
This was the busiest homeschool week I can remember! Our theme letter for the week was “Hh”, so we had a Horse Sensory Bin.
I just used hamster shavings and a variety of toy horses, which we had around the house, so it didn’t cost anything and the kids thought it was a lot of fun.
I had a variety of activities in the kids workboxes for the letter “H” including many from Confessions of a Homeschooler. I also included a great book about horses complete with an audio CD. There were also several horse word searches and worksheets and a few colouring sheets just for fun.
We continued to start our days with a long prayer based on the Armor of God from Drawing Closer by Glen Martin and Dian Ginter. We added to that additional discussion by focusing specifically on one thing each day such as the Helmet of Salvation and the kids completed colouring/activity sheets on this from here. The kids also did one colouring sheet every day from the story of the birth of Christ.
Our memory verse for the week was “Honour thy father and they mother.” – Exodus 20:12.
They are really enjoying their typing lessons using Keyboard Classroom. I will be doing a review on this next week if you are interested in more specifics.
In Story of the World, we did the chapters on Rome Divided in Two and Attila the Hun, the kids did Celtic designs, activity sheets, and tonight, we are having a Celtic feast of roasted chicken, grape juice (wine), berries, and bread where no cutlery will be allowed!
Snuggle Puppy is getting way ahead of Einstein and Miss Optimism in Math U See. That is just a reflection on his natural tendencies towards anything related to math, but I am trying to get the other kids to catch up a bit because it is so much easier to teach them when they are at least in the same ballpark as far as the concepts go.
Places we’re going and people we’re seeing…
Monday afternoon, we went over to another homeschool family’s house and the kids played and made Christmas cards.
Tuesday night, we all went to watch Fred’s band Christmas concert.
Wednesday night, we had a Family Fun Night with a Minute to Win It theme. It was hilarious! You can check out all the details and pictures here.
As someone pointed out in the comments of that post, this theme would make a very fun New Year’s Eve family friendly party.
Thursday morning, we went on the Bethlehem Walk and it was absolutely incredible! It was very interactive. In the market area, the kids were encouraged to taste (dates, meat, nuts), smell (handmade soaps etc.), touch (live animals, pottery, sheep’s wool, etc.). There was a choir of angels floating in the sky in the area before the market and there was a stable full of live animals where Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus were. All the actors were in character and asked the kids questions such as if we had traveled far to get to Bethlehem and if they had ridden in on camels! There was a blacksmith who showed them how to make nails and a carpenter carving crucifixes who spoke to them about the need for a Saviour to come. My kids were excited to tell him that the wait was over…the King had just been born!
Thursday afternoon was gymnastics class.
Today (Friday), I am trying really hard to have an at home day because there are a lot of things that we are behind on and some projects we need to complete such as starting on our Christmas baking. The kids are also going to make some simple gingerbread crafts.
If you are looking for information on making sensory bins, you may be interested in my book. 