Our plans for the month of December.

Last year (our first year homeschooling), we attempted to continue school up until the week of Christmas.  This plan quickly became a failure and it just didn't happen.  I soon began to feel like a failure myself and proceeded to beat myself up about it. It soon turned a season of joy into a stressful time of regret.  This year we are trying something different and so far so good. 
I know that December is busy...no...crazy.  Instead of  following a lesson plan like I have been, for the month of December we are focusing the majority of our activities around advent and Christmas.  I am giving the kids a couple of daily worksheets to work on as well as a craft.






The focus this month is Christmas, more specifically, the birth of Jesus.  To keep us on track and REALLY get into learning the meaning of Christmas, we are using The Truth is in the Tinsel.

Some of the ornaments we have made so far

My children LOVE this and to honest, I'm also learning a lot! I love knowing that my children are learning all of this early.  We also created a substitute for our Calender for December.  I had the kids color ornament pictures that have the different names of Jesus.  We are using the pictures to cover up each day that has passed.  The tree is helping to keep track of how many days until Christmas and it teaches the kids the many different names of Jesus.

Our "calender" for the month of December

I sat and came up with a few concepts I wanted to focus on as well such as adding and subtracting, money, counting by 10s, and handwriting skills.  I have a ton of workbooks, so I've been able to use these to reinforce theses concepts.  I also have found so many wonderful resources for Christmas theme printables.

Here are some great places to find Christmas printables:
Living Life Intentionally
Spell Outloud
Bible Story Printables
Jennifer A Janes