10 Christmas Craft Ideas from the Young Hosannas

1. Felt gingerbread men

2. Hand sewn felt robin in a frame

 



 

3. Stuffed robin

 

4. Hand sewn felt snowman in a frame

 



 

5. Stuffed snowman

 

 

6. Felt Christmas trees

 

 

7. Lollipop stars

 

 

8. Clay stars

 

 

9. Nativity sun catcher

 

 

10. Bible verse paintings

 

 

 

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given:

and the government shall be upon his shoulder:

and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God,

The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."

Isaiah 9:6

 

Our Week: Autumn Days

We started the week with a lovely walk in the country, collecting colourful autumnal leaves to bring home to identify, and armfuls of apples that we made into apple pies.

 

At home, we printed trees from our handprints and then decorated them with finger paints to represent the colours in spring, summer, autumn and winter.

 

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I used these prints to make bright covers for the children's topic books.

 

 

We made prints with the leaves we found on our walk,

 



 

measured and identified them. We revised the names and order of days of the week, months and seasons of the year.

 

 

As we hadn't done any sewing in a while, the children enthusiastically worked together on an autumnal tree, taking turns to sew on buttons to represent the leaves.

 

 

Miriam, age 3, enjoyed wrapping some yarn around these cut out leaf shapes.

 

 
 
We investigated some of the products that come from trees and the children were particularly interested to find out that rubber and maple syrup does! They decided what their favourite season was and had to give reason for their choice. Winter was the clear winner!


In our daily Bible time we have been singing the Harvest hymn We Plough the Fields and Scatter.

 

"All good gifts around us, are sent from heaven above,
Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord
For all His love."

Our Week

Our morning routines are the same every school day. After breakfast, chores and quiet reading we have our Morning Bible Time. At the moment we are studying the book of Mark together.

 



 

We then move onto workboxes for Nathanael, Tabitha and Abigail, which are prepared with their maths, literacy, spelling, phonics and handwriting activities.  Some of these tasks are designed to be done independently whilst others need my input and support. In this session Nathanael also does some piano practice and Tabitha reads aloud to me.

 

 

This week the weather has been really lovely, so we have made the most of the sunshine and visited some local parks.

 

 

We have been given a tent, which we tried out in the garden, and we are planning an overnight family camp at a local site. We are not anticipating much sleep! Picnic lunches outside have been so much more exciting under canvas. Afternoons have been spent listening to 'The Secret Island' by Enid Blyton which I have read aloud to them. It was a favourite of mine as a child and the children have enjoyed it as much as I did!

 

 

On Wednesday we attended a superb music workshop at Gateway called "Sounds Like . . . The Far East". A hands-on musical journey around China and Indonesia.

 

 

As well as listening to music from those countries they had the opportunity to compose their own tunes. 

 

 

At the workshop we watched a clip showing an Indonesian shadow puppet performance and the children came home keen to make their own version of it.  They made a puppet theatre following these instructions. The children found it interesting that the shadows became smaller when they held their puppets further away from the light source.

 

 

The shadow puppeteers...

 

 

In History the children are currently working on a World War I project to mark the centenary year.

 

History books - War in the Air.

 

 

Art Bots

Today we attended our second Maker Fun workshop at a local library. This is a non-profit club that aims to get children designing and making for fun, using traditional craft supplies and more modern digital materials.

 

The packs included a motor, motor holder, offset weight, battery holder, plastic disc, wire covers, bolts and nuts, sticky pads and a set of instructions. The craft materials were provided separately.

 

Following instructions, the children made their own robots,

 

 

checked they worked

 

 

and then decorated them!

 

 

To make them into Art Bots, cotton buds were inserted into their legs and they were dipped into paint. The children turned them on and watched them paint their own masterpiece!

 

Here is a video of Tabitha's Art Bot painting a picture!

 

Our Year in Blog Posts!

I have really enjoyed my first full year of blogging. It is lovely to be able to look back at what the children have achieved over the year and all the different places we have visited.
Here is our year in blog posts!

 

 

We welcomed our fifth child, baby Elisabeth into our family just before Christmas last year.

 

We got out and enjoyed the snow in January and I blogged on some of our favourite things, Postal Bible School and Morning Bible Time.

In February we completed our House Project and I blogged about the children's favourite lesson of the week, history with their Daddy!
 

 

 

Nathanael turned 6 in March and we celebrated with a trip to Legoland Discovery Centre. He also had fun making a lapbook on Cowboys.

In April we worked on our Spring project

 

and in May we completed our science unit on the Human Body.

 

 

We had a lovely family day in June to the beach in North Wales and this inspired a mini project on Jellyfish.

 

 

Miriam turned two in July and we enjoyed our best day out of the year to Formby beach. Daddy and Nathanael spent some special time together on a Father and Son camping trip.
 

 

Tabitha was very excited to turn 5 in August and she competed an All About Me lapbook and Abigail made an ABC lapbook. I also posted on our Curriculum for 2013-2014.

 

In September we had a few days away at a Christian Home Educators holiday in Wales and when we returned the children started a new Ancient History unit and we had a trip to the Ancient World's Exhibition at the Manchester museum.

 

In October we had a Windy Day, completed a project on Autumn, took Paddington to see the sights of Stockport and I wrote a post on days out in and around Manchester with children.

 

In November we started our science unit on Water and I blogged about sewing with young children.

In December Elisabeth turned one and Abigail four. I attempted to write a post a day on Christmas crafts, and failed miserably!
 

 

What a year! Not every day has been blog worthy; we have had our ups and downs and challenges along the way, but God has been good and we are very blessed.
 Looking forward to 2014.





^"It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him."
Lamentation 3:22-24