The First Week of Christmas School

 We had some . . . ummm . . . events.

*Mister Man broke his arm.
*Beowulf had a bizarre violent outburst that broke the other arm of our couch (he broke the first one some weeks ago).
*The teen car went to the shop for repairs and will not come out for a while.
*Pixie had an MRI for a suspected bulging disc.  (It's not, and she'll be seeing the chiropractor often for the foreseeable future).
*Pixie's car slid into a parked car on her way to school.  She missed a test because of it.  The officer in charge could see that she did everything she could to prevent the accident, but it was still "her fault."
*Brother had a couple of tense days.
*We had a birthday!
*Church activities for all 8 kids

Other than that, we had a rather restful week.

Christmas school is going well.  We covered Mexico, Russia, Sweden, Italy, and Germany this week.

We read these books:



















And we did the following activities:

*made and broke a pinata
*baked Russian Christmas cookies (pryaniki)
*made straw star ornaments
*baked Italian Christmas cookies (amaretti con pignole)
*made dried fruit people

Monday:  Mexico









Hands down, the best decision I made that day was to have the kids decorate their own collection bags.  It gave everyone something to do and have complete ownership of while they took turns helping with the piñata.








(Of course, I could have made collages and reduced the number of individual photos in this post, but I'm tired of dealing with tech today.  It's easier to just upload.)

Tuesday: Russia




I mixed the dough early in the morning, then the kids helped roll it, and then drizzled icing over the baked cookies.  It was just the right amount of kid involvement.

Wednesday:  Sweden










Thursday:  Italy

The almond paste took forever to break up!!





As it started to break up, little flecks flew all over the kitchen!


Eventually, we put my little hand mixer away and pulled out Little Princess' workhorse of a stand mixer.  It made short work of the almond paste!

The cookies were too sweet for some of us, too almondy for others.  But we all agreed that the chewy texture was awesome!


Friday:  Germany
















These funny creations make me smile every time I enter the dining room.  I have to admit that I will miss them when it comes time to throw them out. :)

We finished The Christmas Cat, and we listened to several more chapters of The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (Amelia Houghton).  I have The Life and  Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum waiting in the wings, but I figure we should finish one Santa biography before beginning another. 

(And given how much Santa/Saint Nicholas reading we've been doing, my younger kids should really be asking questions about Santa's veracity!) 

We managed to only read one day's worth of our dinner-time advent book.  I'm not sure how much effort we'll put into making up the loss, but I hope to do better in the week ahead.

Temperatures rose above normal this week, so the kids have spent well over their required 2 hours a day outside.  They've been racing up and down the street on bikes and skates most days (all but poor Mister Man!).

Little Princess spent all of her non-Christmas-school hours working on her Engineering unit.  She also was promoted to Cadet Technical Sergeant at her CAP meeting this week.

Nature Angel is hidden away preparing handmade Christmas presents for everyone almost all of the time.  I've had a preview of one or two, and they are A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!

In the week ahead, we have 2 psych appointments, our weekly visit with our case manager, a CAP field trip for Little Princess, an ortho appointment, a podiatrist appointment (Sir Walter Scott), and hopefully we will pick up a mended teen car from the repair shop.

We're also covering Japan, the Czech Republic, Kenya, Spain, and Costa Rica in Christmas School.

It's gonna be a full week!

Comments

  1. DawnDecember 24, 2023 at 7:41 AM

    "Other than that, we had a rather restful week"...you amaze me with your creative teaching on top of a very full life.
    Blessings, Dawn

    ReplyDelete

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