Christmas Schooling

I had big hopes for Christmas schooling this year. Every year, I plan to take the month of December off from some of our normal schooling and instead focus everything on the seasonal activities. This year, we had so many things to read--for history and daily advents and language arts--along with crafts and celebrations.

I had all our Christmas journaling things ready to go, lots of baking to do, and even some Christmas themed math to replace our normal math activities.

But, as happens every year, real life seems to get in the way. There are just so many things that we can't really quit to make room for all the fun, and it ends up not all happening. Art classes and piano and swim lessons don't go away, and this year, the first couple weeks of the month were scout heavy as the boys were finishing up their requirements for the goals they'd set before the end of the year. There's also the hustle and bustle of shopping and planning for Christmas that starts to creep into my schedule.

But it wasn't a complete loss. We managed a Poetry tea time breakfast one morning, where we read our advent reading for the day along with some seasonal picture books.

And we're enjoying our read aloud, which is set at Christmas. When I got a cold and lost my voice, we got a little slowed down, so we won't be finished before Christmas, but the book will still be fun after as well.

We did throw in some activities that we haven't had time for this fall--Peanut got to open one of the many Little Passport envelopes that I've been saving for him, and we put together the scratch off globe I picked up at a thrift store this summer so he can keep track of which countries he "visits". 

Bug also got to do one of his Eureka crates once he was done with all the scout stuff. He saw this one come a couple weeks before and has been chomping at the bit to get to it.

It's a table tennis machine so you can practice returning the ball--so fun!

And we did have some fun field trips this month. Besides the book binding, we also went to a local fire station for a tour.

The tour was cut short, by two different calls during the hour we were there, but the kids still got to see the station and it's kind of fun to see how fast they can be ready to go!

And finally, we hosted a Christmas Party School morning. We learned about the history of a few different Christmas traditions, like Christmas trees, candy canes, and all the good food, and then did activities to go along with each. We had a German Christmas market for lunch (all thanks to Bug--this kid is still a crafting cyclone when he gets an idea in his head.)

All the families contributed foods and Bug had them all set up for the kids to get from each of the stands.

The vegetarian welsh sausages were delicious!

I think a big part of the appeal of any homeschool gathering is the chance to hang out with other kids for a couple hours. They all enjoyed the lunch break where they could just chat. And we got so lucky with the weather. It was cool, but sunny and dry so we could get outside for a little while.

After we learned how candy canes are made, we played around with our candy canes. Heated at a low temperature for a few minutes, they become flexible again and can be twisted into different shapes. 

The kids noticed that after cooling, they were even more brittle than before, which got them into a discussion about why that might happen.

After learning about some of the traditional foods, we decorated gingerbread men. I kept it simple--just white frosting and then some little candies to embellish, but it was just right for 10 kids.

 

(They can still do a lot of damage with just one color of frosting, haha.)

So, while the month hasn't been quite as relaxed and cozy of a Christmas schooling as I'd hoped, it's had it's moments. We have only journaled twice and are days behind on our advent reading; we have felt rushed and hurried and have only baked gingerbread men, but I'm trying to just go with it and be okay with whatever we have done. There's just no sense in letting the fun turn into chores. And maybe we'll get to some of the activities after Christmas. Or not. It's all good. 

Gladiator School

As soon as we started reading about Ancient Rome, Bug asked if we could have a gladiator party. I was glad he was excited about something for school this year--we've had a hard time getting really into much of anything--so of course I said yes. I also kind of love throwing themed parties, whether they are for birthdays, or for homeschool.

Bug did most of the work for this one. I decided we should do it as soon as possible so it wouldn't take over our life for weeks, so he had about 10 days to work on researching the types of gladiators, making their weapons, and deciding what food gladiators would have eaten for their last meal.

And then it was time to party! Or fight, if you want to be precise.

We invited 3 other families of homeschool kids, held the party in the afternoon so my two school-going kids could participate, and sent them to gladiator school. Bug and Bean had it all planned out, so the kids got their gladiator roles when they came in, made bracelet name tags (to represent the slave collars, which I didn't think would be safe), and were auctioned off to the different slave owners who then sent them to be trained as gladiators.

Bean, acting as a retired gladiator, led the training. They learned how to use their weapons, stay on their toes, and fight the strawman.

They spent awhile sparring--a much longer while than I had imagined they would be interested. Bug had planned the activities out and told me we'd need 3 hours for the party, which I thought was excessive, but they ended up loving it.

They were pretty into the practice.

Ready for battle!

Then, it was time for some nourishment. Gladiators have to keep up their strength.

We served a lentil and barley stew, bread and oil & vinegar, different types of olives, nuts, apples, 

and stuffed dates for dessert, which were incredible! They also each got a small cup of "ash" (cocoa) because the gladiators appear to have drank some type of after-workout sports drink made from ash. A few of the kids figured out that dipping their dates in the cocoa made them extra tasty.

Then, after creating and decorating their armor and shields, it was time for the battles.

They got a final pep talk from their instructor.

(She thought she was hilarious and memorized the coach's pep talk from Rudy which we had just watched last weekend.)

These roman warriors were fierce! I think they all had a great time, and maybe even learned a little about ancient Rome at the same time. I'm so proud of Bug for all the work he put into this, and I KNOW he learned a lot. He's already looking forward to a Medieval feast.

Creeks, Gardens, and a Visit to Ancient Greece

It's my favorite time of year. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous this week and we've had a good old-fashioned week of outdoor time and learning with friends mixed in with our other obligations. It was technically spring break for our charter this week, but with homeschooling, I've found it hard to do real breaks. Bean didn't have math this week, and there was no art class, but we still had swimming and piano. And since we just took a 4 day weekend, and have a couple short trips coming up next month, we still tried to do a few things this week, although most of them look a lot like just playing. That's the best way, anyway.

Park day has moved to the creek this month, but it's been so rainy that this week was only the second well-attended day. The kids all have so much fun here--it's such a great area for open-ended play and exploration. They keep busy creating civilizations, engineering dams and shelters, negotiating business deals, balancing on logs and rocks (and sometimes falling in). It makes me happy that they have a chance to play how I did growing up with the canyon and creek in our backyard. 

We also visited the Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek this week. We had a doctor's appointment up that way and when I saw this was only a few minutes away, decided the trip would feel more worth it if we got to see the spring blooms. 

There were some beautiful flowers there.

It's a dry garden, with lots of succulents,

but in the spring, there are also lots of flowers and blooms. Some are more traditional,

some really unique.

We only had an hour,

but it was nice to be outside and see something pretty.

This week was also our much anticipated Ancient Greek party. The kids, Bug in particular, have been asking for more fun projects and games "how we used to do when we homeschooled". And even though I argued that part of that was because they were 5 and 8, and it was easy to just play all day and feel confident that they were learning plenty, I did start looking into something we could do for fun with what we've been reading about for social studies.

So, we (loosely) dressed in chitons

and invited some friends over for a few activities.

 First, we talked about the Greek column styles that have heavily influenced architecture around the world

and then the kids made columns and saw how many books they could support with just paper and tape.

One sheet of paper!

Bug's style involved a couple sheets of paper, but still pretty impressive that he was able to hold up my college Biology book.

Then, we headed into the kitchen. Some people claim that the Greeks came up with the first pancake recipe, so the kids made a batch of Greek pancakes to go with the lentils, rice pilaf, and hummus that we had for lunch.

We made a couple substitutions (I couldn't find currants at the couple stores I was at this week, so we used Craisins), but they were still different enough from normal that I think the kids felt like they were being adventurous. I'm not sure how much they loved the end product, but I thought they were really good, topped with Greek yogurt, walnuts, and cinnamon (and the kids all added a bunch of honey.)

After lunch came the part I was most excited about. I had found an escape room type lesson plan on Teachers-Pay-Teachers centered around Greek mythology and knew the kids would love it.

It involved reading 4 different myths and then decoding puzzles to get the 4 words that were the "passcode" to get back from a time-travel trip to ancient Greece.

Then, I went one step farther because I knew how much fun my kids had doing the escape room at Christmas.

So I found a couple different containers that I could use our various padlocks and bike locks on and hid part of what they needed at some of the sites.

Then they had to figure out how to get into the locks, which proved harder than I'd thought it would be at a couple of them, but I think the kids had a lot of fun with this.

It beats writing an essay and I actually think that they gave their brains a pretty good workout figuring out a couple of these puzzles. If nothing else, I hope this lived up to Bug's desires for something more "fun" for school. I feel like it's been a pretty good week!