Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Photo Catch-Up

Okay, so this will be a catch up on old photos as well as this weeks update... Lets start with Halloween. We spent the evening at our church doing Truck or Treat. The kids had a great time playing on the moon bounce and eating LOTS of candy. At one point when we did not know where they were, I found them all in the van stuffing their little faces with candy :) LOL

Here is Lulu, my little bumble bee! She didn't fuss once about her costumes and was the hit of the party toddling around. She said "ease" (cheese) for the first time when someone snapped her picture, too cute!

The Thanksgiving Feast at Max's Preschool. Max went as a Pilgrim. There are three boys and six girls in Max's class, both of the other boys were absent this day!




Regan, Max and Micah in the Tee Pee at Max's preschool Thanksgiving feast.

Regan, Micah and Max. Max's Teacher, Mrs. Beaman, was nice enough to make room at the table for Regan and Micah to join the feast too. Lulu ate Lima beans for the first time and LOVED them! Who would of thought?





Micah's Birthday party on December 1st (his Birthday is the 3rd). He's 5 years old now, hard to believe!





So now we are caught up to this past week. I told you last week that we were reading the Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Well, all on their own, the kids decided to act out the Christmas Story. Regan acted as director, costume and set designer and Mary. Lulu was the Angel of the Lord, Micah was Joseph (don't know what happened to his costume) and Max was a Shepherd (You can't tell from these pictures, but Max did have a sheep with him :) The part of Jesus was played by Regan's doll,Lily.


They even had a stable and a manger!They have also been working on puppets for a puppet show of the Nativity Story, but Lulu got into them the other day, so that might not be happening this year!
All the kids have been sick, so Sunday, Phil went to church and the rest of us stayed home and watched the Best Christmas Pageant Ever, movie. It was fun to watch it again, it has been awhile, and I think the kids enjoyed it (although they said they didn't because it was too short)! If you have never read the book or seen the movie, it is a great story of how the birth of Christ can change lives, even for the worst kids in town.
So we have officially ended our Christmas unit and are now getting back into our regular studies. I hope that all of our reading and plays and projects serve to remind the kids what Christmas is really about for years to come. Santa and presents are all fun, but sometimes we get so caught up in the rush of the holiday that we lose sight of the Awesome gift that was given to us some 2000 years ago. The next few weeks will be busy for us, so I cannot guarantee that I will post again before the new year. So, just in case, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from our family to your!

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Shazam. out of the black night!

Well, a lot has happened since I last posted. We spent the Thanksgiving holiday visiting our families up in Maryland and were excited to see most of our family and a few friends as well. I am not sure how it happened but we are now well into the Christmas season!

I don't remember if I have mentioned it before, but I have been exploring different options for our curriculum for next year and I have found one that I am really excited to try. It is a Unit Study curriculum and the units are based on character traits of God. Konos is the name of curriculum for anyone who is interested. With this in mind, I decided to branch out a little this Christmas and do a short unit study (two weeks) on the book "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" by Barbara Robinson. This was my all time favorite Christmas movie growing up, I looked forward to watching it every year and so far it has been fun to revisit it with my kids! We are half way through the book and have been doing small reports on the characters. The kids are making puppets to do their own Christmas pageant when we finish next week. We have been learning about plays and acting as well as reading through the Christmas story in Luke daily. Of course it can't be all fun and games, or can it? Our new math curriculum has lots of games and the kids are begging me to play "Go to the Dump" and "Old Main" all the time. Regan and Micah both continue to improve in their reading. Micah finished reading the last of the kindergarten reading books(from our curriculum) before Thanksgiving and so now I am looking elsewhere for reading material for him.

We will be traveling a lot the next few weeks so school will be a little here and a little there. I plan to jump right back in to our Sonlight curriculum as soon as we return from Paula's (Phil's little sis.) wedding on the 15th. and then we will probably take Christmas week off. Hopefully I will have some more pictures to post in the next week or so.

P.S. The post title is one of my favorite lines from The Best Christmas Pageant Ever :)
 

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