We have taken the last two weeks off from school. The time has just flown by. We've enjoyed our time off so much! The first week, we hung around the house, went to the Science Center downtown, played games, just enjoyed one another's company. The second week, we went to Disneyland for three days, celebrated Thanksgiving with our family, and went down to the bay to ride our bikes and play touch football for a few hours.

Ah... but tomorrow, it is back to reality. Eddie goes back to work tomorrow, and we will get back to school.
However, I have decided that we are going to change things up a little bit in our school days, starting tomorrow and going to the end of the year. I'm really looking forward to it and I think the kiddos will enjoy the change of pace as well.

I thought I'd share our new planned school day schedule and some of the things we will be doing. Feel free to use any of the ideas you think would fit into your school day. Also, feel free to post a comment if you have other suggestions that you think would enrich our December school time studies. :)

Though the following schedule does have times listed, please know that those times are merely a tool to help me stay on track. Rarely do we stick to the exact times on a schedule. We might be a little ahead or a little behind. The key is just to keep moving and do the next thing. So without further explanation, here is our planned schedule for December:

7am - 8:30am ~ (Same as before) Kids up, dress, chores, breakfast, brush teeth and hair, etc., music practice.

8:30-9am ~ Walk (my way of getting some needed exercise in; the kids usually ride their scooters and I walk quickly in order to keep up with them)

9-9:45am ~ Bible and Read Aloud Time. For our Bible time, we are going through The Narrow Way. During this time, I will sometimes read a chapter out of the Pearables Kingdom Stories. We are in Volume One right now. If we have time left, I will read to them from various literature stories. If we are all cozy and enjoying reading time, then we may go over our planned stopping time here. Flexibity. :)

9:45-10:15am ~ Math for everyone. Can't leave this out or they will all forget what they've learned so far! :)

10:15-10:30am ~ Break..... get a drink, run around outside; I can change the laundry; I can check my email.... it's a break. :)

10:30-noon ~ Science and/or Christmas Unit Study. We are finishing up studying the human body for science using Considering God's Creation, so we can start Apologia in the new year. See below for details on our Christmas Unit Study. :) I'm guessing we will probably finish this part of our school day before noon; however, in case we have a fun project or something for our Christmas Unit Study, I wanted to have that time.

12-12:45pm ~ Lunch / outside play

12:45-1:00pm ~ Vocabulary books and/or English review (my daughter will do some of her English PACES during this time; the boys will be given review English pages and/or use Wordly Wise)

1:00-1:15pm ~ Creative Writing journal/prompts. I give a topic or start a sentence, and they write....

1:15-2:00pm ~ U.S. History / Geography. They are learning the names of the states, their capitals, and abbreviations. They will be creating their very own State Notebook. For history, I will be reading aloud to them from True Stories of Great Americans for Young Americans which is from Lamplighter. This particular book was originally published and printed in 1898!! I *love* Lamplighter books!

That will officially be the end of our school day. If we have a particular science project to do or if the kids want to continue creating pages for one of their notebooks, then we will do that. We shall see!

To give a little bit more detail about my plans for our Christmas Unit Study:

Each child will create his or her own notebook. They have always enjoyed notebooking. I enjoy seeing what they create to add to their "book."

Some things that we are going to study are:

• Names of Christ ~ since Christmas IS about Him!
• Christmas Around the World ~ How do other countries celebrate Christmas?
• Caribou, deer, reindeer ~ Are they the same thing? What's different about them? Why are reindeer associated with Christmas?
• Symbols of Christmas ~ Candy cane, holly, mistletoe, etc.

I've checked out lots of books from the library related to Christmas. Many of them are just fun fictional literature books. Some will be nonfiction, like when we learn about deer, etc.

One of my HK sisters shared this great website called Jesse Tree Calendar. I'm don't know yet if I will do everything suggested on that site, but it's a helpful starting point. This site also has a suggestion for books to read related to Christmas, and many of them I found at our local library!

For ideas on learning about how Christmas is celebrated around the world, I have Galloping the Globe to help get me started. I also did a quick Google search and found all kinds of websites. I've listed them below. Please know that I have not yet searched many of these websites, so use with a watchful eye.

http://northpole.net/world.htm

http://www.theholidayspot.com/christmas/worldxmas/

www.the-north-pole.com/around/index.htm

http://www.santas.net

http://holidays.kaboose.com/xmas-around.html

So there you have it! Our December school schedule and plans. I'll check in regularly and let you know how it is going here. I'm hopeful that it is going to be a fun month of learning together.

~ Lisa