Christmas Lapbooks, Cookies, and Family Fun

Here is our lapbook, The Arrival of a King, from A Journey Through Learning. We still need to fill in the blank spots with some stickers or artwork.

Decorating cut-out cookies

Church Christmas program -- 4's and 5's Class

Recital at Great Grandma's




Santa Grace



"What did you get, Jacob?!!!"




Mom hard at work in the kitchen. She is wearing an original, granddaughter-made
necklace.



Our new quick and easy Christmas decorating ideas

Merry Christmas!

Unto us a Son is given, unto us a Child is born!

For our Bible times this month we went through a little book by Michael Card, The Promise: A Celebration of Christ's Birth. The book accompanies his Christmas CD. Here are some of the main points that we learned.

*Christmas is the celebration of the keeping of a promise.
Christianity is founded on a promise. Faith involves waiting on a promise.
Our hope is based on a promise. God promised He would be "with us", not as an unseen ethereal force, but in the form of a person with a name: Jesus.

*Christmas means finding in a place where you would least expect to find anything you want, everything you could ever want.

"He will be called WONDERFUL COUNSELOR,
MIGHTY GOD, ETERNAL FATHER, PRINCE OF PEACE"

All this, and infinitely more, alive in an impoverished Baby in a barn.


*An ancient Latin motto, Vicit agnus noster cum sequamur,
means, "Our Lamb has conquered, Him let us follow."

We discussed the paradox of weakness being strength, defeat is victory,
and poverty is wealth.

"Christmas, the celebration of the first Coming of the Lamb,
looks back to the humble stable and the simple shepherds.
The setting is a dark, fallen world. He has come to expose through
His weakness the impotence of what the world calls power. he has come to show
us that it is we who are upside-down. "

*Christmas is a preparation for the celebration that will be the Second Coming,
of the Lamb triumphant.

My prayer is that the truths of the Incarnation of our Immanuel, God with us, will be hidden in our hearts and drawn upon throughout the coming year.

The Week Before Christmas

This week is one of my favorites of the entire year! It just keeps getting better each year as the kids grow. We all work together to make all of the fun extra things happen. Today Kayla and I baked Christmas cutout cookies together and had such a special time together.

Saturday we hosted our Christmas gathering with Dave's side of the family. The kids have so much fun when they're all together!


Caitlin's Giant Christmas Cookie



A Family of Musicians -- Sharing Christmas Songs




Pile-Up on Caitlin!

Roman Feast

Last week we completed our unit on ancient Rome and celebrated with a Roman feast! Here you can see the family enjoying their meal, Roman-style, in our triclinium. The meal consisted of roasted peacock (actually chicken!), salad, figs, pears, grapes, and a round loaf of whole grain bread. Dave was the Emperor and I was the household slave serving the meal. We had such a memorable time! After we ate, Kayla entertained us with a lovely dance to harp music and Jacob and Grace recited the Bible verses from Romans that they had been working on since the beginning of the school year. It was a just a little bit of effort to put together, but a super way to conclude our unit!

Our Friendly Emperor (such a good sport!)



The Young Orators

Family

I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will utter dark sayings of old,
Which we have heard and known,
And our fathers have told us.
We will not conceal them from their children,
But tell to the generation to come the praises of the LORD,
And His strength and His wondrous works that He has done.
For He established a testimony in Jacob
And appointed a law in Israel,
Which He commanded our fathers
That they should teach them to their children,
That the generation to come might know, even the children yet to be born,
That they may arise and tell them to their children,
That they should put their confidence in God
And not forget the works of God,
But keep His commandments.

Psalm 78:1-7

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for teaching me God's law and for impressing upon my young heart His wondrous works. Thank you for showing me that my God -- the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob -- is my strength.

I will not forget His works and will tell them to my children.

Oh, the providence of our Heavenly Father!

Slave by John MacArthur

The Demographics of Low Birth Rate

Here is a link to a post about

"the unintended consequences of the culture of abortion, birth control and having fewer children" from the National Center for Family-Integrated Churches.

Matthew 28:18-20

"And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in Heaven and on Earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen.

Field Trip to Old World Wisconsin

Last week we spent a day together at Old World Wisconsin. It was a beautiful day! We learned all about the early settlers in our state and about the hard work it took to build a new life in a new country. Here are a few pictures from our day.

New Portraits

Dave here...I've been trying out a new lens and some new backgrounds...here's our little cutie pie.

Living Books

Oh, how we enjoy "living" books! Our study of the Roman army was greatly enhanced with these two books. The author, Peter Connolly, has reconstructed the life of Tiberius Claudius Maximus, a Roman soldier who served under Emperor Trajan. The books trace his military career which began around AD 85. It is amazing how all of the bits of information about this man were pieced together from archaeological finds such as tombstones and original Roman papyrus documents preserved for centuries in the sands of Egypt. We highly recommend these books!

Weeks 4-6 Summary

It's definitely time for our school update. We have covered a large amount of material over the past three weeks, so this will be a brief summary!

Kindergarten studies included leaves, apples, and nests.

We went for nature walks and collected leaves.


We had an apple taste test with Daddy.


We baked apple bread. In this case, our little Kindergartener ate the bread while big sister helped with the kneading.


We made a cute little bird's nest craft.



Our Rome to the Reformation studies are still centered around Rome and will be for several more weeks. The kids and I are learning so much! We've entered into the time of Octavian as Augustus Caesar. The history is fascinating to most of us, but one of us fits in a nap whenever we pull out Augustus Caesar's World:


We have also been studying the human brain and nerves using The Human Body for Every Kid.
This is a highly interesting book and the experiments are simple -- and they actually work out, which is a bonus for me!

We studied Roman arches and bridges in week 6.

How many soldiers can a straight bridge support? Arches make much stronger bridges!



The great pudding box arch! I was skeptical, but this actually worked!