Epiphany - Three Kings Day - 12 Days of Christmas Lapbook - FREE

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  I made a simple lapbook on the Epiphany to do with my daughter tonight (you may have heard of the epiphany referred to as Three Kings Day or 12 Days of Christmas).  I'm happy to send it to anyone who e-mails me and asks - solagratiaclassicalacademy@gmail.com.    We wrote in our own "Blessing" and the Latin and English meaning as well as the traditionally accepted "names" of the wise men.  The lapbook has the referred to names of the Epiphany, a recipe for king's crown cookies, a Bible Treasure Hunt with the 12 days relating to the Bible, information on the 3 gifts from the Magi, Information on King Harod, the Star and the lyrics to We Three Kings song (which we sang together as we did the labpook).  I was lazy and didn't fold the file folder in as I probably could have.  :)

There are lots of ways to learn about the Epiphany and a couple different takes on it depending on what Country you are in.  We did the lapbook tonight and we are going to make crown cookies and have a Bible Treasure Hunt on the 6th.  While we aren't Catholic, I enjoy learning more about the world I live in and those who worship around it.  I want to pass that love of God and his worshippers to my daughter and son.  I also think it creates a better awareness regarding those around us and increases my children's grammar of the world they live in as well.

I got many of the links with photos and information from this website and it's various links:  http://livingmontessorinow.com/2011/01/06/celebrating-epiphany-with-your-child/

Here is the link to download this lapbook for FREE  EPIPHANY LAPBOOK

Keeping it Focused -Christmas 2012

Christmas has officially come and gone.  It was a blessed season overall.  Despite not being able to travel to see my family, God in His goodness, brought blessings through friends and time spent with them in Celebration of our Savior.

I strove to really keep this Christmas season focused on Christ.  I purposed to step out from the "traffic" of commercialism and refocus my family on what the Season is really about.  I re-evaluated my priorities before this Holiday Season began and realized that even those things that seemed really good, spiritual or held at Church, in the past, have taken me away from Him and focus on what really is most important.  In the fall, I had done a Bible study on my own called Becoming a Woman of Simplicity by Cynthia Heald.  She wrote "My concern is that we live in a world where doing, communicating, and possessing so rule our lives that we have allowed even good things to overtake our time and distract from the best."  I was guilty and determined to make this Season different this year for not only me but more importantly, my children.  I wanted them to truly take in the reason we celebrate, shift their focus from school and getting "stuff" to Christ.

Luckily, I have never been too hard focused on "stuff" -so my kids are good about that aspect.  Though we have certainly been blessed with plenty of it - like most Americans.  However, the pull on my children's hearts is there by just being in our society as it's everywhere we looked - television, stores and with people we encounter in our lives on a daily basis.  Everything screaming - buy more stuff!  Cynthia writes "Noise and words and frenzied, hectic schedules dull our senses, closing our ears to his still, small voice and making us numb to his touch."  So we slowed down this year.  We said no to lots of "good" things but saved our selves for the "best" thing - time and presence with our Savior.

So how do you "step out from the traffic" of the Christmas season?

How I did this was to begin with a King Jesus Tree.  We kicked off December 1st as we refocused why we decorated a tree - we read and discussed who came up with the idea and how does it reflect Christ?  (google St. Boniface)  We then made a tree that "announced Christ Jesus as King" -to the world that would enter our home and to our hearts for the season.  See my full post on this process of making a King Jesus Tree in December 2012 posts.

Next we decided to do begin our Jesse Tree.  Here is a good one to use Jesse tree ornaments and instructions.  Each day we would read the selected passage and hang our ornament on the "tree".  I decided to use a couple of "branches" that we went out and scouted.  The reason I used the branches is because of Isaiah 11:1 "Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit."  I used it to illustrate the idea of tracing the branching lineage of a family and to be true to the text on "a branch from his roots will bear fruit".    Here was our final Jesse Tree completed.

We also weekly did our Advent wreath.  We would read the text, discuss the information presented and then make a craft related to the week's lesson.  We hung them on our Jesse branches.  :)  You can google advent practices and find lots of different ones and ways to celebrate Advent.  We chose to do the Names of Jesus and this focused on 4 different names for Jesus related to his coming.  I can't for the life of me find it again on the web - however, I do have it if anyone wants it they can e-mail me and I'll forward them the pdf file.  

We made a lapbook for the 12 days of Christmas.  This lapbook covered the traditional singing element but then it also intertwined the Christian meanings of each of the 12 symbols.  It was very fun and we enjoyed it.  Here is the link for that.  http://www.homeschoolshare.com/twelve_days_of_christmas.php 

We borrowed multiple books from the Library one week and spent the week reading a couple a day - things like the Living Nativity (story of St. Francis of Assisi) and others that reflected the true origins of the celebration we call Christmas.  

We also did a Christmas Party for the kids focused on the various traditions celebrated in various Countries.  This was a really fun event and we did a skit called "Is Jesus Better than Santa?"  which punctuated the contrast of the season.  

We made lots of homemade ornaments, hand and footprint Christmas crafts which I blogged previously and we made homemade cards.  We took homemade ornaments and cards around to our neighbors who were a single Mom and a widow.  

Lastly, on Christmas day we started with our Jesse Tree - reading the final text and hanging our final ornament.  Next we made homemade french toast with Panettone bread.  We did our Advent Wreath after breakfast and made a birthday cake for Jesus to celebrate later with friends.  We then opened our limited gifts.  We had close friends over and celebrated with dinner and a birthday party for Christ ending our day with singing and eating cake together.  It was one of the most joyful Holiday seasons that was truly focused on Christ that I have had and I'm so thankful that I began the Season purposeful to make it a true celebration of Jesus Christ.

  

Making Wise men Christmas Cards

So we decided to make wise men Christmas cards.  Supplies you need are:  Brown paint, paint brush, gold stars (about 1"), purple paint, beige paint, black paint, gold glitter glue, toothpick and colored construction paper.  The first thing we did is paint a hand with brown paint (this will become the "camel" they ride on).  Once you've painted the hand, make a handprint upside down to the fold and then flip it over once dry.  You will add 2 purple finger prints one on top of each other (this is the wise man's robes).  Next you will make a beige fingerprint on top of the purple to become his face.  Add a tail off the left side of the handprint, but some feet on the bottom of the fingers and an eye and a little extra around the curve of your handprint (see picture).  This gives it a "camel" like appearance.  Next take a toothpick and dip it in black paint and make an eye and a mouth on your wise man.  

Lastly, add a gold crown with the gold glitter glue and stick your gold star in the upper corner.  

Christ in Manger with Footprint Craft

We made Christ in Mangers for the Holiday on Canvas to give as a gift.  This is a beautiful and easy craft to do on a canvas as a neat keepsake for a Grandparent or Parent.  You need an inexpensive canvas (found mine at Ollie's), gold glitter glue, brown paint, yellow paint, blue paint, off-white paint, white paint and black paint.  Medium and fine paint brushes work well.  I also had gold stars from Michael's that were about 1" in size.  We first "painted" the bottom of a foot with brown paint.  This is fun and ticklish for the kids!  Then I helped them carefully apply their painted foot to the canvas.

Next I lightly drew a swaddled Jesus for them to paint inside the lines of.  We painted an X on the bottom of the foot for a base.  We then painted yellow in the upper left corner after adding some white to make it very pale so it became a "glow" background for our star.  We mixed blue with white to come up with baby blue for the baby Jesus' blanket he was swaddled in and then off white for his face.  We hot-glued straw for his manager and added our star in the corner.  Lastly, I wrote Luke 2:12 for them to trace in black paint.  They "signed" their artwork and put the year in the bottom corners.

Classical Conversations Week 13 - Africa

In keeping with the start of Week #13 - we made African Masks for Wonderful Wednesday's.  I bought the masks from www.orientaltrading.com.  We then looked through a large picture book of Africa that had pictures of all the people groups in the countries of Africa.  The kids then used paints to create their masks.  Once painted we used some sequins and then hot glued straw on the top for those who wanted to do that.  This was their final product!

Classical Conversations Week #13

Today we started Week #13 for our Wonderful Wednesday's group.  We wanted to get at least 2 weeks ahead of our CC Community Classes going into the next half of the school year.  This enables our kids to be ready for Memory Master come testing around week 22.  We did our lapbooks like usual and then for our project we made a model of the earth.  I used cardboard pieces I cut out for the kids to mount their project to.  I always keep any boxes that we got from things we order.  They make great mounting boards for many of the projects we do!  Just use a utility knife to cut the size square you need for your project!

I found a link to a cool website that had the 4 systems (biosphere, lithosphere, atmosphere & hydrosphere) at Link to 4 systems and then I made tags for the kids to identify which one went with which.  Next we glued circles for the crust and mantle down.  Then we took a small round ball of playdough and flattened it to put in the center for the core.  I used two sided sticky tape to mount the playdough to the construction paper circles and the label to the playdough.  The rest of the tags we just glued down.  Next we made an earth model out of playdough.  We used Red for the inner core, Yellow for the outer core, Orange for the mantle and blue for the crust.  We then put green "shapes" that resembled continents for the final touch.  We cut them in half with a sharp knife sawing back and forth so they don't "squish" down.  We mounted these with two sided mounting tape.  Very easy to do and the kids definitely know their layers of the earth and spheres!

Making Reindeers!

We decided to take our Nature walk and make a Christmas craft from it.  We gathered twigs as we walked and then when we got home, we painted feet with brown paint (very ticklish and lots of laughing and fun for this activity) and hot glued our twigs to become antlers then with a few fingerprint eyes and a thumbprint red nose - viola!  We had Rudolph from our foot prints!  Lots of fun for both kids!

Around the World Christmas Express!!

Today we celebrated Christmas Around the World in 8 Countries!  We began our trip with what everyone needs to travel.....luggage, passports and boarding passes!  I made the "luggage" out of paper bags.  I turned them inside out and replaced the handles after folding the bag down 1/3 of the way.  I got the boarding passes, passport and logo from "Holly" online but her document doesn't have any webpages listed and I don't remember any longer where I found it to give proper credit...

Next we headed to the Airport to go through "security" in order to make our way down the "gingerbread escalator" to the "gate" and "check-in"!  

Next they entered the Gate and "checked" their bags and paid for their flight and handed their boarding passes in to get their seat assignment.  

Then we "flew" to our first Country - Israel!  While they were in-flight they had foods served to them by our "Flight Attendant" that were specific to that Country's celebration (ie; potato latkes for Isreal) and I read them information concerning that Country's Christmas traditions.  The children then "got off the plane" - retrieving their bags from baggage claim and taking them with them to "Customs".

 Saint Lucia crowns and cap....

 Christmas caroling....

Mary and Joseph Procession.....

 Mexico pinata!

 Once we were done in that Country they would fill out a "customs" sheet that was essentially a quiz about what they just learned about that Country both by way of geography and features as well as traditions for Christmas.  They would turn this quiz in to "customs" as they took their bags back to the check-in and boarded the plane for the next Country.

We glued, glittered, wrote, de-riddled, colored, designed, opened, caroled, ate, processioned and whacked!  In the end, here is what "souvenirs" they came away with from their 8 Countries!

What a blessed day of learning and fun!