Chirstmas Activites

Well the Christmas season is upon us and I realized this weekend while eating more than enough turkey and pie that I hadn't started planning this month's school lessons. After the initial panic of not being prepared, I took a breath and started planning.

Traditionally we focus our school activities around Christmas setting aside traditional lessons during the entire month and don't take anytime off until Christmas Day. Some activities are the same every year like tracking Santa's Christmas Eve trip around the world at NORAD Tracks Santa and Advent Bible reading But I try to incorporate new ideas each year like next year I plan on being more prepared so we make a Jesse Tree.
One year we completed 2 (yes two) Christmas Lapbooks. One was all about Christ's birth where I took bits and pieces from several resources and we put them together in one huge lapbook, and the other one was the Twelve Days of Christmas. (I know the twelve days of Christmas doesn't really represent Bible stuff but it is a great way to learn a bunch of Bible facts.)
This year, Little G is able to do some fun preschool activities and the older kids are wanting to do something completely different than normal. So this month proves to be a fun adventure just waiting for us.

Here are just some of the resources I am pulling from this year.

NORAD Tracks Santa ~ My kids have never believed in the big guy but we love tracking his flight every Christmas Eve. This turns into a huge geography lesson every year as we follow his flight path around the world. There are also activities to do throughout the month that are pretty fun too.

DLTK's Christmas Activities ~ I absolutely love DLTK's sites. All of her sites are full of all sorts of ideas. We have done the Advent Color Pages in the past and this year we are going to do more from this site or one of her sister sites for sure.

Christian Christmas Advent Calendar ~ This calendar has a Bible reading, activities, crafts, recipes and songs for each day of December. I am really impressed with this calendar.

Christmas Around the World ~ Learn about other countries traditions every day throughout the month.

Advent Bible Verse Chain PDF (1) and Advent Bible Verse Chain PDF (2) ~ We have done this particular chain of verses the past two years. Overall it is a really great collection of verses to help prepare for Christmas.

Koch Snowflake ~ This is so cool, if you love math. I love math and think in numbers and love everything symmetrical. This lesson will be so much fun to teach the kids.

Advent Wreath History ~ Veritas Press has this PDF full on information, scripture and color pages along with how to make your own Advent Wreath.

Birth of Christ Lapbook ~ Veritas Press also has a free LapBook. A few years ago we did a Christmas LapBook and used several elements from this resource.

And if you want more lapbook or Christmas ideas, you can check out my Christmas post from 2008. There are so many links to some really fun activities, lapbooks of all kinds and great lessons, I am so excited about all the possibilities for this year.

Now to prioritize and figure out how much I can realistically do before Christmas.