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Welcome to another week in the life of unschoolers. I promise our week did not solely consist of reading, but…. a large part of it did. Between our A-Book-A-Day Advent Calendar and the library we were reading maniacs!
The children are taking turns with who opens our advent book each day. I’m really loving this tradition as it is helping the kids to countdown to Christmas and it creates a wonderful bonding moment as we snuggle up to read the day’s advent book. Opening our books in front of our Harry Potter Christmas tree just makes it all extra special.
We read several selections from November that we hadn’t gotten to yet Johnny Appleseed, In November, and Sarah Morton’s Day. Lon Po Po is a red-riding hood story from China that Gabriel picked out. Boogie Knights is an adorable book about dancing knights. Bogart and Vinnie is a sweet story about friendship. Angelina’s Birthday was a favorite of our daughter, Jade. Angelina wants a bike for her birthday. Gabriel really enjoyed this Step Into Reading Hungry Plants book. Moby Dick is one of his favorites too. Everyone enjoyed The Wind in the Willows. It is such a great classic. Maudie and Bear is a sweet book about the friendship between Maudie and her friend bear. One of our advent books this week was Blaze and the Gray Spotted Pony. Both children enjoyed this. Jade loved the pictures of the ponies and Gabriel enjoyed the story. Then there were our Christmas books: I Love Snow, Christmas Magic, Finding Christmas, Hanukkah Bear, and The Night Before Christmas.
Gabriel is still reading Harry Potter and the Socerer’s Stone, How to Train Your Dragon book 1, and he started the book Wonder by R. J. Palacio.
With all of this reading going on Gabriel has managed to read 100 books since August…that’s when I started using the Goodreads App to keep track of his reading. We went to Chipotle to celebrate his success. (Chipotle was his idea.)
We have been taking weekly pictures of Gabriel’s mystery Amaryllis. We have no idea what color it will be has he chose the one without a tag. He says it’s a she and she is coming along beautifully.
The children were in the kitchen several times creating wonderful dishes. One morning they all got together to make everyone breakfast which included eggs and toast. The next day our daughter, Jade, made the eggs with only a little help from me. Another day the children made Snow Capped, Cherry Filled Oreo Cookie Balls. I got the recipe from The Rebel Chick and you can see her recipe here. These Oreo balls were to die for!
There was gingerbread building for the children in our community. The children really had fun. Gabriel worked on his house quite meticulously.
Jade was by far more concerned with eating her gingerbread house and all of the candy that she poured on it. The gingerbread kits that were used made a little village that was adorable. You can buy it HERE.
The children collaborated to make Christmas cards for our neighbors. Afterwards they went and put them in the neighbors doors. It was so sweet to see them work together to create something beautiful.
We made Crystal Christmas Trees! I followed the tutorial from Playdough To Plato. You can see her Crystal Christmas Trees HERE. This was an awesome experiment. The children learned all about creating a suspension, capillary action, evaporation, and crystallization. Withing an hour we began to see the first crystals.
We made three Crystal Christmas trees and you can see the progress they have made after two days. I think tomorrow we will make more solution and add it to the containers. The children want the crystals to reach the very tops of their trees.
Gabriel played the maths games Prodigy and Math Slicer daily as well as Minecraft. We had some awesome LEGO building going on too.
Jade played lots of dress-up, tea party, and blocks. I must tell you her tea parties are superb!
Of course we spent loads of time, each day, outside. We find outside time to be a necessity. The children NEED to have several hours to run free, play pretend, climb trees or play tag. There are also opportunities to learn. For instance we talked about static electricity because of how the children’s hair stood up when they slid down the slide.
I am so thankful for these amazing little people. Their smiling faces fill my heart with joy. Their eyes let you know they have their own thoughts, feeling, and interests, and it is a wonder to behold.
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