It is our favorite time of year for homeschooling! In December we slow things way down and do Christmas Schooling. I set up our school room shelf so that each activity is wrapped in a gift box for the girls. Right now our girls are 3 and 6. Some of the activities are just for Lilly Belle, some for just Lucy and some for them to do together. Most of them this week were for them to do together. Last year I gave you a look inside each of the boxes and activities and am doing the same again this year.
Here is a peek at what our girls worked on for the first week of December!
They did not do every single activity here on the shelf so for this week I am just going to share what they enjoyed. Last year I shared it with all of you before they used it so I wasn’t able to give a review on how it all went. I’m excited to be able to show you their favorite activities from the week!
Lilly Belle loved this. She worked on it every day this week. We’re going to be hanging it today. I cut strips of red and green construction paper and had them in this box for her with a stapler and extra staples. I taught her how to refill the stapler and she was off on her own with this the entire week. She created the most beautiful paper chain and she’s very proud of it. I may actually get a bin this year where we can keep her paper chains for next year. They make such fun decoration!
This was a hit with both the girls! I found these fat quarters of Christmas fabric at Walmart for just $1.49 each. We already had small embroidery hoops, embroidery floss and tons of buttons. Lilly Belle sewed buttons onto her fabric hoop and Lucy used Mod Podge to glue the buttons on. It was great for handicraft work. They will for sure be making more of these this coming week. They want to send them out to family as gifts.
This activity is from our Christmas Learning Pack 2.0. Lilly Belle had to sort the R Controlled Vowel presents to the correct tree. There is a recording sheet with this so she was able to 100% check her work and work on this independently while I worked with Lucy. She loved that it was work she could do alone and enjoyed it. I will be having this out again for her this week because she got a few wrong yet.
Our girls really love play dough so this was for sure a hit! These play dough mats come from our Nativity Learning Pack.
This was their favorite activity last year and again a favorite this year. This was one of the few things I needed to purchase this year as most of the supplies for this week’s boxes I already had in our school room or from last year. Michaels had all their craft ornaments on sale 50% off so I grabbed a huge container of them. I also picked up a ton of jingle bells, sequins and red and green craft poms. The girls sit and fill up the ornaments and then go get a hook from our shelf and hang their ornament on the tree. We have so many of these from last year and now have a bunch from this year as well. I’m excited to have these every year. They turn out so colorful and fun!
This was an activity left over from last year that we never got too. The girls loved this and I am so happy this little kit includes 12 stockings. This week they each worked on one and I’ll get this out on the shelf for them to do again this week.
New this year I purchased the girls a small Christmas tree for them to practice decorating. Lucy is still trying to figure out how to hang the ornaments and they both really loved this! I also included some silver and red chains of beads for them to string on the tree as well. This weekend I will be taking all the ornaments off the tree and putting them back in the box so that they can start all over again.
We love Annie’s No Prep Packs. This is the December First Grade No Prep Pack. Lilly Belle works on this while Lucy and Liam are napping and while I’m working. She sits at the table with me and can work on these independently.
Both the girls have been having fun with this! In our Christmas Learning Pack 2.0 I included some letters to Santa stationary. The girls have each written letters to him daily.
Another fun activity from our Christmas Learning Pack 2.0 is our Montessori Tree Tower. Lilly Belle worked on putting together a Christmas Tree with these different sized strips of paper. She did a great job taking her time and focusing on this. Lucy (3) was not interested in this activity yet.
Lucy is really into learning how to use a scissors right now and when I saw this at Home Goods I grabbed it! I knew Lucy would love it and I was right. She just sat there pulling thread and cutting for a good 10 minutes. I will have this out on their shelf again this week but we are going to use it for a project.
Another for Lucy and her love for scissors. These are the stamps that go along with the Santa Stationary from the Christmas Learning Pack 2.0. I cut them into strips for her and she just cuts out each of the Santas. This week will practice gluing them onto envelopes as well.
Lucy played with this a LOT this week. Liam (8 months) really enjoyed playing with this as well. Lucy sat there playing with this for at least an hour each day. Not all at once, but on and off. You can find this Nativity set on amazon.
Lilly Belle worked really hard on this and I’m excited to hang it up with her today! I found the felt paper chain tutorial on Pinterest. It was so easy to put together. Lilly Belle made this all on her own!
RECAP
It was an amazing week of school together. We also read all of our Christmas books as Lucy unwrapped each of them. We watched Christmas movies together. The girls went to their Montessori two mornings and did lots of “ho ho ho work” there (as Lucy calls it). We played outside as much as we could and even drank hot chocolate for breakfast one day. They met Santa at Disney Springs and we visited Disney’s Grand Floridian to see the life size Gingerbread House. Christmas Schooling is my favorite!
This coming week we will be continuing with our Christmas Schooling fun and also adding in some Let’s Play School Subscription goodness because our theme is Baking. This weekend I’ll be gathering tons of supplies for Christmas Cookies and we’ll be doing a lot of baking together. It’s also the week we are going to make gingerbread houses together. I’m off now to put the shelf back together. I have some fun new boxes I’m adding from our Christmas Learning Pack 2.0. I didn’t get a chance to put those together last weekend so they’re going to be so excited to have that out!
Merry Christmas Schooling!