Hello dear ones! I want to share with you the inspirational Christmas books we read during Advent and the activities we did with them. Also a link to the free Christmas Around the World lapbooks we’ve been doing in homeschool. Well, all but one of these Christmas books talk about Jesus’ birth. Enjoy and I hope you’re having a merry Christmas season!
1.The Gift of the Christmas Cookie
This delightful story tells how the tradition of Christmas cookies came about. It is a story about sharing God’s love with others. We made Christmas cookies to go along with it.
2. The Message of the Birds
This cute story uses birds to share the news of Jesus’ birth. For the activity I taught Mom and Michael how to draw cardinals. Then they used waterpaint and finger paint to finish.
3. The Candymaker’s Gift
This is one of my favorite Christmas books. A grandfather uses the candy cane to teach children about Jesus. We made a couple candy cane ornaments. Then we made candy cane hearts to eat! Links will be at the end of this post!
Crushing the candy canes
Before adding the vanilla almond bark
Sprinkling the crushed candy canes into the melted candy
Voila!
4. The Legend of the Christmas Tree
Why do we decorate Christmas trees? A tree salesman shares the origin of Christmas trees and how the church has used different trees to share God’s story through history. I learned something new myself when we read this. Michael made a picture ornament and a cornstarch ornament tree.
5. The Little Matchgirl
This is the only story that doesn’t mention Jesus. It is a bittersweet tale by Hans Christian Anderson. The poor matchgirl lights a match to warm herself as she sells matches in the freezing cold. But everytime she lights a match she sees a warm vision. This is one of my favorite classics. It’s sad but also happy…depending on your point of view. I would use this story to talk about helping others and also being thankful for what we have. We made mistletoe luminaries for this story.
We used mason jars, red & green tissue paper, modge podge, and epsom salt. The epsom salt gives it the snowy effect.
6. Mortimer’s Christmas Manger
This adorable story is about a mouse who finds a home in the manger. By the end of the tale he’s given his new home back to the baby Jesus. Then God provides Mortimer with another home, a gingerbread house. So I allowed Michael to start nibbling on the gingerbread house him and his dad made earlier this month. He has until New Year’s to finish it.
I hope you enjoyed this post. You can find these books on Amazon and Christianbooks.com (except my version of the Matchgirl. It’s from when I was a kid.) I believe these stories are worth reading every year. They’re fun and they keep the focus on Christ.
Here are the links for the craft and food ideas:
God bless & remember the High King lives! ~Amber Dover
PS: Here’s the Christmas Around the World lapbooks we used.
Free passport:
http://www.guesthollow.com/homeschool/lapbooks/lapbook_country_and_culture.html
Lapbooks:
http://www.homeschoolshare.com/christmas_around_the_world.php
I used the above link for all but Asia. I wanted to explore countries besides the Phillipines. So I used three other links for Russia, China, and India.
http://www.123homeschool4me.com/2012/10/christmas-around-world.html
http://perciousperks.blogspot.com/2011/12/christmas-in-russia-free-mini-unit.html?m=1
http://www.whychristmas.com/cultures/
We did not make any of the crafts or food this year. But the nice thing about lapbooks is that you can save them and pull them out next time. Maybe next Advent season we will have time to do more.
Michael stamped his passport each time he learned about a country.
I apologize for the poor quality of these photos. My camera hasn’t been the same since I dropped it.
Also Michael learned how to play “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” on the piano. We looked over the lyrics to the song and watched several versions online. I used several Susan Paradis worksheets to go over his notes. They all had a Christmas theme. You can find them at this link:
amberdover 