The Big Kids are finally old enough that I can give them a kit and they can follow the instructions to complete a nice-looking project--and even more, they can guide the younger kids step-by-step alongside them.
We gave them a kit to make paper suncatcher stars for St. Nicholas Day, and they have been busy folding and gluing stars during their free time for extended family members. They are loving it! I'm thinking of making this a tradition: having their St. Nicholas gift be a craft kit of some sort that they can work on together during Advent for Christmas gifting.
I now have more kite paper on my shopping list because the kids are begging to make more. I think this would be a lovely and appropriately-themed Epiphany gift too. And bonus: it can serve as continued "handicrafts" for the term!
They received an origami butterflies kit as well, and they already have plans to decorate the house for Easter with them!
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It's the third week of Advent! Gaudete Sunday and St. Lucy's feast day were yesterday. We usually take a trip around town to see the Christmas lights of St. Lucy's Day, but it was absolutely pouring here, so we spent a cozy afternoon in.
We have always tried as much as we can to keep the season of Advent in our home and let Christmas have its own time and traditions.
I got caught up on some blog reading over the weekend and read a couple great recent posts on this topic that I thought I'd share for those also working to live liturgically:
On Keeping Advent
Celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas
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The kids spent last week finishing up their cards for the For All the Saint's swap--they had so much fun making them, as usual! Then they lined them up and had Daddy play "Guess the Saint." :)
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| that's Vincent's row at the top, then Gianna's, then Cate's |
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Right after the baby was born, I took a couple weeks off from Morning Basket--actually, I took a couple weeks off from joining the kids at the breakfast table at all! ;) That was our first real break from Morning Basket since our last baby was born since we do a lightened version over the summer too. And wow, we missed it! It was so nice to get back to our family readings these past couple weeks.
Hillyer's A Child's Geography of the World is such a huge favorite. I'll have to write more about it soon because goodness, that book is a gem! It's helping us forge all these connections among our readings in other subjects, from previous years, and just from life itself! From sermons the kids have heard at Mass, to songs from their piano lessons, to stories told by relatives, to little bits from free reading...it seems like we're all constantly saying, "Hey, it's like in Hillyer's Geography!"
One of our most recent connections is from George Washington's World--we were reading about how frustrated the Spanish were over the fact that the English had a fort on Gibraltar. "The nose of Europe!" Gianna practically shouted with glee. So fun.
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I've got lots more to share, but that will have to be all for today! I'm hoping to get a post up on Big Books of Nature that I've had in my drafts folder for ages later this week. Hope you're having a great December so far!
This is a random question, but could you write a post about favorite baby/toddler products and gear? (I've got ten under ten.) I always enjoy seeing what other simple/frugal minded families use in the age when everything out there seems to be a must/essential.
ReplyDeleteYes, I will! Though I'm guessing with ten under ten (!) you have quite a bit of experience to share too! ;)
DeleteWhat ages do you recommend for the Hillyer book? Thank you!
ReplyDeleteHillyer is scheduled by AO as an option for Year 5, along with Halliburton. I didn't want to miss either one, so I decided to add in Hillyer as a family read and save just Halliburton for Year 5. My oldest kids are 9yo and thoroughly enjoying it, and my 6yo thinks its fun too (though she's not getting nearly as much out of it). So I would put it at upper elementary, though early elementary students and middle schoolers will likely enjoy it too.
DeleteDo your kids narrate back geography books? Or do you include map work with your readings?
DeleteUsually yes, they narrate their geography books AND do accompanying mapwork. This year, my Y1 student is doing so with Paddle to the Sea and my Y4 students have two geography books: Minn of the Mississippi and The Cruise of the Artic Star. Those are all narrated and mapped. Since Hillyer is an extra geography reading I have added to our Morning Basket time, they are not narrating it--just reading and enjoying. :) (Generally speaking, we don't narrate MB readings.)
DeleteKits, kits, kits! Between you and Brandy I feel like pasting a giant clueless sticker to my forehead because I did not think of this sooner. I am not a crafter and do not want to be making/cleaning crafts during Advent. But I have children that strongly desire to make gifts (which is wonderful) and we never get them all done before Advent. Kits! Love the one you linked to and so will my daughter.
ReplyDeleteI forgot that Brandy was talking about kits earlier this year! I think they even did origami for Term 1? So she and I are really on the same wavelength. :) Yes to kids that like making kits and yes to never getting them done before Advent--that's exactly what happens here. I am a somewhat crafty person, but I am also really short on time (as all of us are!), and I love having it all set up for me. :) I hope you guys enjoy them as much as we have!
DeleteAnd PS - Every time you post about your daughter, I think about how much she and my daughters would probably get along. :)
Ahh, to live in CA. Warm weather and sweet friends!
DeleteI just discovered kite paper a couple weeks ago when my daughter and I were able to go to a workshop where we learned how to make stars like that as well as these really neat woven bamboo stars. I have kite paper on my list too! :-)
ReplyDeleteI've often considered Hillyer's Geography but haven't decided to spend the money on it (and if you somehow got it for a song, I'm not listening! *la la la la*) Our first term exams revealed geography as a huge deficiency in our learning. I need to do some reading and figure out what I'm doing wrong - because clearly I am doing something wrong here! Everything else was good to great, so at least there's that... but the geography was just plain embarrassing!
Wow, that workshop sounds so much fun. And I actually have bamboo to make stars sitting in the garage! When I have extra charter school funds to use, I often go through the Dick Blick lesson plans online and make a shopping list from there--bamboo stars were included. :)
DeleteI did get Hillyer for a deal years ago--I won't say how much. ;) Geography is a tricky subject for us too, and I think it has to do with it being somewhat parent-involved until the habit is trained? At least that is where our difficulty has been in the past. I'm now doing something a bit different where I'm having them casually keep maps of all their readings, so after each chapter they read that involves history or geography, they make notes onto their maps and century chart right away. It's quick but I find they're retaining more and making more connections. But it's still not a perfect system. :) I will say, though, that Hillyer is definitely giving them a good overview of all parts of the world, which the Kirby's The World at Home did the last couple years...I think that kind of reading is really useful in giving them the "flavor" of the various countries that they can draw on to make visuals while they're reading. (If that makes sense! I'm rambling a bit. :))
Amber, I do not know if you have ever tried this, but I bought our copy of Child's Geography and one of the Halliburton Geography books from Etsy. I could not find a copy of either of those in a good condition at a price I could afford. So I just googled them randomly and they popped up on Etsy. One for $10 and one for $15.00 (that included shipping). Both in really good condition. They were not even on bookseller Etsy shops. On was a decorating Easy shop and on was a vintage Etsy shop. I never would have thought to look there, but the random google search proved profitable. Might be worth a try!
DeleteI've been doing a lot of work with the globe and our big US wall map - pointing things out, having them point them out, and not doing much with paper maps. I think having a black and white paper map set in front of them really threw them, particularly my Y2 student. In hindsight I can see that a globe or a colored wall map is very different from a paper map, but it really hadn't occurred to me before I saw their deer in the headlights look. They clearly need to be working more with paper maps too. I like how you are having them make century chart notes and map notes right after their reading, that's a good way to handle it. And what you say about having a flavor of different countries and areas makes a lot of sense!
DeleteVirginia - good to know, thank you for the tip! I will definitely keep that in mind. Now-ish is probably a good time to look too, since most people aren't really in homeschool book buying mode now and for the next couple of months. I know I was able to get Halliburton's Complete Book of Marvels for a good price by buying in February.
That is a great point, the difference between colored and labeled globes/maps and an outline map. My daughter was saying just the other day that she thinks of the countries in terms of their color--meaning the color on our wall map. So certain kinds of visual learners would probably have more trouble making that leap from one format to the other. My kids spend time a couple times a week working on outline maps, and I have them pull the information for those outline maps from the wall maps (and their binder map, which is also in color), so maybe that helps? I hadn't thought of that pitfall before and it makes me even more inclined to be looking things up and recording across formats. Good insight!
DeleteAnd Virginia, that is a great tip about Etsy.