A Christmas Curriculum

I'm not going to over-plan this year, as I have done in previous years.  In fact, I am going to under-plan in the hope to avoid the frenzy of Christmas preparation.  The basket pictured below contains most of what I hope to cover in the three weeks before Christmas:

With luck, we shall have some space and time this month to focus on enjoying one another's company as a family (as opposed to busily running around to achieve 'goals' or 'targets').


English, History:
1.  For the month of December, we will be reading through Dickens' Christmas, which contains the story, A Christmas Carol, in addition to all the other Victorian traditions surrounding the Christmas festivity.

Although we have read A Christmas Carol last year, this year we shall read it again and use the related back issue from The Boomerang to support our reading, in addition to learning more about Victorian Christmas in general as part of our history study of the Victorian era.

2.  We are most likely going to have Christmas-themed teatime in December, so we will be looking at a few Christmas poems while enjoying some homemade seasonal food such as:

• Christmas gingerbread men
• Christmas biscuits
• mince pies with homemade mincemeat
• Christmas cake

Maths:
I expect to use the following book over a few Decembers so we will be working through one or two maths problems together each day.

The Arts
1.  Although we tend to celebrate Christmas in a secular manner, I feel that Tiger ought to be familiar with a few of the well-known carols, so we will learn to sing three of them this December:

• Joy to the World
• The First Noel
• Silent Night

2.  Over the course of three weeks, we will look at three pieces of nativity-themed art work:

• Jan Gossaert - The Adoration of the Kings
• Geertgen tot Sint Jans - The Nativity at Night
• Sandro Botticelli - Mystic Nativity

3.  We will also be keeping our hands busy with the following crafts while listenening to Bach's Christmas Oratorio:

• Christmas cards
• Christmas ornaments
• Christmas lanterns
• Snow globe

I shall be very pleased if we manage to do everything on this list by the end of the third week in December, leaving the week of December 22nd to enjoy the Winter Solstice and to do some last-minute shopping before we get together with the rest of the family for the big day!


This post is linked up to:

1. Hip Homeschool Hop - 11/18/14
2. Finishing Strong - Homeschooling the Middle & High School Years Week 38
3. My Week in Review #14
4. Collage Friday - A Flexible Homeschool Schedule
5. Weekly Wrap-Up: The one before winter break