Simply Classical Advent

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;

from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.

The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—

the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,

the Spirit of counsel and of might,

the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—

and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.

Isaiah 11:1-2

     Advent has come.  Last night my family and another family lit the first candle of HOPE and read the verses above.  My older children explained the advent candles to the visiting family.  My youngest smiled and listened carefully too.  The classical model was playing out in my humble kitchen.  My kitchen, with floors and windows in need of a mopping and shining was a classroom.  My kitchen table, that was too small for everyone to sit down was a classroom.  My kitchen, filled with warmth and love and hot chocolate, was a classroom.  Leigh Bortins says in training for CC, all you need is a stick and sand to teach.  It is so true with the classical model.  This is probably the 6th or so year that we have celebrated Christmas with the Advent candles and the Jesse Tree, so my oldest are familiar with the 4 candles lit for 4 Sundays before Christmas and my paper ornaments that I downloaded from Ann Voskamp's website years ago.  They know that the Jesse tree always starts with the creation of the world and reading of the root of Jesse.  Just like in our memorizing of the timeline in Foundations classes, we visit the Jesse tree each year and each year my kids become more dialectic and rhetorical about Christmas through the simple daily activities.  We hang up the ornaments, read the short devotional and they hear and learn the timeline of Jesus.  I love to see the 4-6 year old group take an ornament and tell a younger sibling about it.  I love seeing the one room school house even when some of the children are too little to sit still and listen, others want to boss everyone else, and others might think they are too old.  In reality, it is just those times that the one room school house works.  The too littles are gleaning more than you know, the bossys are practicing review work and grappling with being dialectic while teaching everyone else the "right" way to tell the Jesse tree story.  Even the bigs that think they might be too big?  They get in on the review in a dialectic and/or rhetorical level as they are sure to jump in and correct a bossy, or explain it once again to a too little in words or actions that they can understand. 

       It is the same way with our Foundations and Essentials work.  As a family, we all work through the weekly memory work.  There are too bigs, too littles, and bossys in every home.  Even an only child can exhibit all of those personalities and sometimes, all in one day.  When you think that this thing called home school isn't working, remind yourself that it is working exactly as it should. When I directed Challenge, I had a saying that it was a safe place for messy conversations.  Our home school is a safe place for the students to work through the memory work from the grammar stage to the rhetorical stage.  We see them daily go from grammar level to dialect and back to grammar as they take the information and make it their own.  Some days we are proud of our school day and how it went off without a hitch.  Other days we want to crawl back in bed wondering what were we thinking.  It is likely that on those days, the messy days, that our students are gaining the most with their learning as they wrestle and make the learning their own.  We are just providing the information and the place for learning.  We can trust that we are bearing fruit in our schools, because of the Branch that first bore fruit and guides us in our homes.  

Many blessings in your home school or after school because we all home school to some extent, even if it's only in the after hours when we help with with their home work.  Moms and Dads at home make all of the difference in the world in the lives of their children.

Mrs. P  

It's a Handmade Christmas at the Farm!

Miss J and I have been itching to do some crafting, so I've deemed it a handmade Christmas here at our farm.  Mr. C and Baby C will also be crafting and Miss A may or may not craft handmade gifts.  Her high school load has been pretty hefty and she doesn't have nearly as much time for the fun stuff as she used to have.  She is currently up to her eyeballs in silk dupioni finishing a Shakespeare era gown for her final project in her Shakespeare class.  I'll post pics when she finishes it.  Right now, the pics wouldn't be much as she is sewing miles of boning into the bodice.  So back to my original thought... I'll be adding handmade Christmas gifts, pictures, and links to instructions as we make them and maybe you will make a few handmade gifts for your Christmas as well.  The first thing we are making is using a tutorial called, Hot Dog! It's a pillowcase.  It is a super easy method for making a very neat pillow case.  Join us tomorrow as we post pics of Miss J making her pair of pillowcases.  And if you are family and happen to open up some pillowcases (or other crafty goodness), pretend you've never seen such craftiness before.  ;-)

Blessings,
Mrs. P

I won!

I entered the Joyous Home 12 Days of Christmas Give Away and I won a copy of the Joyous Home Journal. I have not yet seen it, but I can tell you that the print magazine is absolutely WONDERFUL! It is a beautiful, full color magazine with great step by step articles on all things lovely. I own about 4 or 5 of them. Go to the Joyous Notions blog to see some great Christmas ideas and join the fun. Today's freebie is lovely recipe cards to print off. Yesterday was delicious candied nuts. Each day is a different and fun way to celebrate the Season of Christmas.

The Jesse Tree

This is about our 4th year to celebrate the coming Christmas season with a Jesse Tree. A few years back I got a Christmas planning notebook and it included the Jesse Tree Devotions by Ann Voskamp. If you haven't read any of her writing, you are really missing out. She is a very gifted writer. I was going to write about it today and when I went to her website to add a link, I found that she has it available for FREE. So how about that. You can join the fun! Go here and grab the book. Print out the ornaments and paste them onto cardstock. Punch a hole and add a little raffia or ribbon. Now you are set to celebrate Christmas while learning all about Jesus. There is an ornament for each day of December leading up to Christmas. Each ornament has a picture depicting a part of the Bible that tells the story of Christ starting with creation. We read the devotions at dinner and then the kids put the ornament onto some garland that I have hung over the windows. We end up with more of a Jesse timeline than a tree. It's one of the traditions we look forward to each year.

Rolling out and cutting Gingerbread Houses

top photo: Miss A with the favored rolling pin. It's obviously so much better than the rest. :-)

I'm so glad I had a rolling pin per child. Of course, one was favored over the rest, but we only had minor complaints. And you thought she was too cute to complain!





Cutting out the gingerbread shapes. By the way, 7 year olds will have crooked shapes regardless of how many templates, rulers, pointers, and knives you give them.






See, I can cut straight. And, I used a toothpick to label my parts. After this I realized that was probably a waste of time considering that there are only 3 parts. Oh well.

Tomorrow we will make the royal icing and do some division and word problems while we sort out the candy and decorate our mini-gingerbread village.

More photos soon,
Mrs. P

Gingerbread Houses for Math

Today we are making gingerbread houses for math class. We will talk about shapes, divide and group candies, measure walls and ingredients in the dough and icing. We'll also get to work with temperature as we bake the pieces. The kids are looking forward to this yummy math lesson. We'll post pictures after we finish our creations.

Here is the pattern we are using so each child can make their own house.

Here is the recipe we are using. It is for a gingerbread house that you can eat. You could use salt dough, graham crackers, or even cardboard if you don't want to eat them.

Loreta’s Favorite Gingerbread Dough February 20 2008 at 9:43 PM		Loreta Wilson (Premier Login Gingerbread) Forum Owner
5 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons ginger 2 teaspoons cinnamon 1 teaspoon nutmeg 1 teaspoon cloves 1 cup shortening 1 cup sugar 1 ¼ cups molasses 2 eggs, beaten In large saucepan, melt shortening on stove over low heat. While shortening is melting, in a separate bowl stir together flour, salt and spices (if using for cookies, add 1 tsp. baking soda). When shortening is half melted, remove from heat and continue to stir until completely melted. Add sugar, molasses and beaten eggs. Mix well and quickly (to prevent eggs from cooking). Add molasses mixture to flour mixture. Mix well. Dough will be soft. Cover and refrigerate until firm enough to handle. When dough is firm enough to handle, remove from refrigerator and let sit until room temperature (about an hour). Preheat oven to 350 degrees. To prevent aluminum foil from slipping, wipe counter with wet sponge then smooth aluminum foil over damp counter. This will prevent the foil from slipping while dough is being rolled out. Working with a small handful of dough (about the size of a baseball), roll dough onto aluminum foil that has been sprinkled with flour. Sprinkle dough with flour to prevent dough from sticking to rolling-pin. IF DOUGH IS TOO STIFF, MICROWAVE FOR 10-15 SECONDS TO SOFTEN THE DOUGH. Roll dough to about 1/8” thickness. Place gingerbread house pattern pieces onto dough and cut-out dough pieces (don't forget to cut out windows). A pizza cutter works great for cutting out walls and roof sections. Remove excess dough pieces. Lift entire piece of foil and place on large cookie sheet. Place cookie sheet in oven. Check frequently to prevent burning. Bake until golden brown. Large pieces may bake as long as 14 minutes. Smaller pieces might take 6 – 7 minutes. Unused dough may be wrapped in plastic and refrigerated for up to 2 weeks (bring to room temperature and knead briefly to use again). To prevent from sagging, I bake my roof sections until dark brown, almost burnt. When dough pieces are done baking, remove baking sheet from oven. Quickly lift foil from baking sheet and place on a flat area for gingerbread pieces to cool. If pieces have distorted while baking, while still warm, run knife or pizza cutter along sides of walls/roof sections to create a straight edge. If pieces have curled up during baking, while still warm, gently push edges down to lay flat. With gingerbread pieces still on the foil, let cool overnight. Next day – gently peel foil off of gingerbread pieces. You are now ready to assemble, or add windows! www.ultimategingerbread.com

Christmas tree advent calendar

My older daughter is making a Christmas tree advent calendar. The pattern for the tree is here.
Instructions are here. I know it's a bit late, but she was sick all last week so we are trying to catch up on all the school she missed.

North Pole Freebies

The children are enjoying a little break from our usual curriculum and school work. We are still working on the skills needed but with a Christmas theme. This website has a number of worksheets with a Christmas theme. They are perfect for my preschooler and 1st grade son. I did google 5th grade Christmas lesson plans and found some Christmas word problems for her to practice. Somehow changing up the work just a little has made the school work more fun.

Mrs. P