Home Sweet Simple Home

School and Thanksgiving

For the week of Thanksgiving we will be putting aside our Sonlight curriculum and doing a little bit of Amanda Bennett's Thanksgiving Unit Study (3 days worth). I am looking forward to this very much. I have some wonderful Thanksgiving books to pull out- choosing which ones to use will be the hard part!
We'll be modifying other parts of our schedule- 1 page of math per day instead of 2 and no science for that week. Instead we will be busy in the kitchen cooking and crafting and celebrating together.
For the month of December we will be using Amanda Bennett's Christmas unit study and taking extra time for crafting and cooking. It is our family goal this year to strive for at least one special CHRIST-centered activity per day.
One thing I really want to do is for us to make our own Advent wreath. I am leaning towards a real evergreen wreath but am wondering if it might not be better for us to make a wreath from clay and such- adding touches . . . . .
So I am posing a couple of questions:
Do you do Advent with your family? Anything special about how you do it Do you make your own Advent wreath and what does it look like?
I am hoping to post some of our Christmas traditions to share here- especially those that bring Christ to the center of it.

Hello!

2:40 AM, 2006-Oct-28 .. Posted by Ashli

I've been a shadow reader on your site for awhile, but for this post I've decided to step into the lovely light to talk a bit. I hope you don't mind :)

We like Advent here much more than I imagined. With my children I thought age would be a consideration, but my daughter loves it more than most of us, and she's only 4. I think it's magical to her, and that is so special to us.

We do a wreath each year. We also do a calendar. We cover the table. We make cookies. We celebrate each day in some manner to, well, celebrate!

This year I decided to work on the Jesse Tree. I found a few activities with it and involved around it and wanted to bring it into our celebrations. We'll be making one, we have scriptures to read, and greens to work with.

I have also considered a Chrismon Tree because that can cover the entire Advent and give us a lovely decorated tree, and cover scriptures, etc..

We'll be deciding on all of them or some of them very, very soon :)

Most of our ideas came from on-line and searching for new ways to enjoy the Advent. Sometimes extra help always comes in handy, and boy does the internet help if you look in the right place!

God bless, and celebrate!

Untitled Comment

10:25 AM, 2006-Oct-30 .. Posted by happymama

Thankyou for taggin me!! I got my picture posted, not a good one, but oh well. Where do you get these unit studies? Can you order them online? They sound so neat, and I would love to do them with my kiddos!
Blessings, Rossie

Advent wreath/unusual youth group outing

2:06 PM, 2006-Oct-30 .. Posted by Lynne

Amy, We have never made an advent wreath, but there is one with a candle lit at the church services.
My youngest daughter, age 11, goes to church service and Sunday school on Sunday mornings. She is then back at the church for youth handbells at 4pm, then chooses to attend the 5pm "contemporary" service by herself, then my other daughter joins her from 6-8pm for youth group. Last night at the contemporary service, when the minister asked if there were any prayer requests, she asked for prayer for our dog who had knee surgery this week. Our minister included our dog in his prayer that followed. I wasn't sure what to say about this. Of course our dog is a part of our family, and we are concerned about her. I just didn't know if it was appropriate when there are other people there with issues like yours and the burn victim. My youngest daughter is usually quiet, and I was surprised she spoke up. Your thoughts?
I thought you, as a youth minister, would be entertained by what happened at their youth group meeting. The youth minister had them come in halloween costumes. They then walked to downtown Annapolis (the historic waterfront district, restaurants, shops, US Naval Academy) to hand out small bags of candy to passers-by. The bags had a label on them stating this was from Calvary United Methodist Church, the name of the youth group, the church's address and phone number. Most people would not accept the bags. One person turned away and said "I don't do drugs", others apparently wouldn't accept them because they thought a donation would be requested. They were finally able to give away the bags, but it took some time. My girls thought it was really funny that someone thought they were "drug dealers." I thought it was all kind of sad that people were afraid to accept a small gift from the youth group. Our youth group usually has about 40 kids attend, and they split up into smaller groups to hand out the bags.
Another small note...this year our youth have dinner together every Sunday night at youth group. The parents provide the meal on a rotating basis. So far this has worked out great. A lot of the kids are coming directly from sports, and they (especially the boys) are always really hungry. Out attendance is way up since we started providing dinner.

Untitled Comment

10:57 AM, 2006-Oct-31 .. Posted by HandsNHearts

Several years ago we picked up a book from the local Christian shop about the Advent lamb...or something to that effect. It had selected readings for each day of the week and a special on for each Sunday during Advent. It was a good thing for our family and everyone looked forward to it.
At any rate, we picked up a nice sized wreath at the craft store, we added things here and there to it as time passed....one year it was simple colored balls for those miniature trees, one year the children cut out their own decorations pertaining to different stories and parables from Jesus, etc. We bought the Advent candles at the shop as well and picked up on of those round candle holders -- we set the wreath on top of it, sort of, so we could ut the candles in it and still not quite see it, kwim? We used a votive holder with sand in it for the center candle.

Deanna

Bennett

12:57 PM, 2006-Oct-31 .. Posted by kas

I haven't been to your site for a bit, so thought I would stop by and say hello. I just heard the name Amanda Bennett at a field trip the other day. Now I am curious.