This was out first week back after Christmas break. It was a bit of a holiday round-up! we were finishing our KOI Christmas Bible unit and our Cranberry Christmas FIAR unit.

BIBLE:

Memory Verse:

This was our last week finalizing Psalm 19. The boys practiced all week and recited it a day early.

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Starting Strong:

We continued to read through Starting Strong this week. We learned about disappointment and how Jesus can sympathize with us, because he was disappointed by his own brothers and friends.

The boys added stickers to their Starting Strong lesson pages.

Christmas Lessons:

Cooperation:

We watched a Nehemiah Bible clip from our Cranberry Christmas playlist. we talked about teamwork and learning to cooperate with others.

A recent example was building gingerbread houses on a team. We devised a plan, assigned responsibilities, and got to work. Trusting your team and cooperating with each other is essential.

We added a gingerbread house to our Advent wreath as a visual reminder of our lesson on cooperation.

Kindness:

We watched the story of David and Jonathan. We talked about David’s love and devotion to Jonathan. After Jonathan died, David kept his promise when he showed kindness to Mephibosheth.

We also read It’s a Wonderful life. In this story, George Bailey sacrificed so many things for the benefit of others, but these acts of kindness were returned back to him when he needed them most.

We talked about being angels of kindness, so we added an angel to our Advent wreath.

Righteousness:

We watched the story of Joseph in Egypt and talked about being lights in this world. Joseph shined wherever he was and he always did his absolute best.

I added a star on our Advent wreath as a reminder to be God’s living lights in this world.

Acceptance:

We watched A Charlie Brown Christmas Tree together.

Afterwards, we talked about how Charlie Brown felt rejected by his friends. We even tied-in Parker’s “dialogue” creative writing assignment with this discussion.

Then we watched the story of Zacchaeus together. We talked about how Jesus treated Zacchaeus. He accepted him and set a supreme example for us to follow.

We added a little “Charlie Brown” Christmas tree as a reminder to accept others as Jesus did.

Compassion:

We watched Jesus Feeds the 5,000, as well as other miracle stories from our Cranberry Christmas playlist. Jesus was never too busy to help someone in need. He had the biggest heart of compassion and dropped everything to help everyone.

We added a bandage on our Advent wreath to remind us to show compassion to others.

Contentment:

During our Christmas break, we watched the entire “Why Do We Call It Christmas?” series on minno kids.

Parker also read The Christmas Cradle which was a wonderful story that reminded us of the true meaning of Christmas.

We added a manger on our Advent Wreath to remind us of the true meaning of Christmas.

LANGUAGE ARTS:

Grammar Grab Bag:

I created a Deck the Halls themed grammar Grab Bag (GGB) for this week’s language arts activities.

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Spelling:

I printed Parker’s spelling cards, letter tiles and spelling mat (in GGB).

First, he read this week’s spelling rule.

Using the spelling rule, Parker thought of a word and built it on his spelling mat.

Afterwards, he used the spelling cards to complete his alphabetical order worksheet (in GGB).

The following day, he used his spelling cards to complete his sentences.

Grammar Ace:

Since this was our holiday round-up, I decided to have a Santa themed page layout.

I prepared everything the night before and set them out for Parker.

First, Parker added the sticker title on his notebook page.

Next, Parker matched the “in a nutshell” terms with their descriptions.

It’s Santa, the man with all the toys, representing appositives! This was the same layout I used for Bub!

Personification:

We started our personification lesson by reading a couple of Christmas books that use this writing technique.

Afterwards, he completed his Personification worksheet.

Creative Writing:

After watching A Charlie Brown’s Christmas, we discussed how Charlie Brown felt rejected after all the mean things his friends said to him. I challenged Parker to create a dialogue between him and Charlie Brown.

I brought up a picture of Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree for inspiration. Parker created a dialogue that was honest, but much more encouraging than any of Charlie Brown’s friends.

SCIENCE:

TOPs:

This week, we needed to do our Rice Round Up as well as catch up on the experiment from week 16.

Rice Roundup:

I set out the science supplies needed for this week’s TOPs experiment.

Bub and I really liked this activity, but Parker found it provoking. It was definitely harder than he thought it would be.

After moving a few rice kernels, he understood the process and completed the follow-up questions. Jordan, on the other hand, slowly worked, by trial an error, to figure out how to successfully wrangle the entire bunch of rice kernels.

Bub’s patience during science amazes me. He will try, fail, and start over many times without losing his cool. He has the steady patience of an inventor. It’s fun to watch him work.