A Musical Christmas Surprise!

I just love this.

(Please be sure to turn off my Finetune player on the bottom left of this page before playing the video.)



Hallelujah, Christ is Born!

Christmas in Mexico: Making Ojo de Dios

Mexico was the first stop on our Christmas Around the World tour.

Our story for this country was The Legend of the Poinsettia by Tomie de Paola.
I wanted a craft to go along with it, and although the obvious choice was to make paper poinsettias, I was looking for something that was more of an authentic Mexican handicraft.

After a bit of Googling, I found the perfect project for us - Ojo de Dios or "God's Eyes". This art form was originally done by the Huichol Indians of Mexico and involves the weaving of brightly colored yarn in between two sticks. The finished design represents the all-seeing eye of God. I think it's a wonderful reminder of how God is constantly watching over us with love.

The Ojo de Dios is a great tie-in with The Legend of the Poinsettia because in the story a little girl and her Mother are weaving yarn to make a blanket as a gift for the baby Jesus.

This is the best set of instructions for making them that I have found. I also watched a couple of YouTube videos that gave me an idea of how to do the weaving.

Our finished projects...

This is Sweet Pea's. Poor thing is too sick right now to hold it and have her picture taken.

After learning how to make them, Giggly Girl set off to make several all by herself.

After watching me demonstrate, Superman had the hang of it and was an extremely fast weaver.

In fact, I was amazed at how quickly all the kids caught on to the weaving process, and at how willing they were to stick with it - even the 5 yr. old! It really was a fun project, and I enjoyed making some as well. 

These will go on our Christmas tree, but in Mexico they are used as decorations during Cinco de Mayo.

Feliz Navidad!

Artist/Composer Group: Georges Seurat

In an effort to fit in artist and composer study on a regular basis this year, we're getting together with three other families once a month to learn about an artist or composer. This fills a huge need for our us, since artist study is something I never manage to fit into our week.

We rotate to a different family's home each month, and the hostess Mom is in charge of choosing an artist or composer and planning a lesson and activity.

This month we learned about Georges Seurat and pointillism, and then we each painted our own masterpieces in the style of Seurat.

We began by reading a book about Georges Seurat from the Getting to Know the World's Great Artists series by Mike Venezia. (I heart his books, and my kids do too. Even my youngest was able to listen to the entire book. Venezia has also written wonderful books about the Great Composers and the U.S. Presidents.)

A few things we learned:

• Seurat was born on December 2, 1859 in Paris, France.
  
  
• He studied art at the Ecole des Beaux Arts when he was eighteen years old.
• He studied Impressionism, but thought he could improve on that method.
• He developed a technique which people now call "Pointillism".
• Pointillism is a method of painting which uses dots of paint instead of using longer brush strokes to create the picture. If you look at Seurat's paintings up closely, all you see are dots, but when you move away from the painting, your eyes form the dots into a picture.
• One of his most famous works is Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. He spent two years painting it, and it's dimensions are approx. 6 x 10 ft. It is comprised of millions of miniature dots. He contrasted dots of color in such a way so that they formed a single hue in the viewer's eye. The painting is housed at the Art Institute of Chicago.

After the reading, we used tempera paint, q-tips, and pencil erasers to make our own paintings. 

(Tip: The q-tips worked much better than the erasers.)

The finished masterpieces...

This was a fun and easy art project. Even Sweet Pea enjoyed it and really got into her painting. We're looking forward to next month!

Christmas Around the World

Today we kicked off a new unit: Christmas Around the World.

This is a study I've wanted us to do for a few years now, so I'm excited about it, and the kids are too!

Today we began our Christmas travels in Mexico. I'll post about that tomorrow, but first, here's a peek at the first half of our travel plans. We'll spend about two days in each country.


Mexico:

• Story: The Legend of the Poinsettia by Tomie de Paola
• Craft: Ojo de Dios (Eye of God)
• Color flag of Mexico.
• Label map of Mexico.
• View photos/video here and here. 
• Food: Prepare Bunuelos de Navidad and Chocolate Caliente.
• Celebrate Las Posadas with the traditional procession, the breaking of a pinata and enjoying our food!

Germany

• Story: Waiting for Christmas: A Story About the Advent Calendar by Kathleen Long Bostrom
• Craft: Make our own advent calendar.
• Color flag of Germany.
• Label map of Germany.
• View photos/video here and here.
• Food: Lebkuchen (a traditional Christmas cookie mentioned in our story)

England

• Story: The Christmas Day Kitten
• Craft: Make a Christingle
• Color flag of the United Kingdom.
• Label map of England.
• View photos/video here and here.
• Food: Mince Pie

France

• Story: Madeline's Christmas
• Craft: Make a Buche de Noel replica (We'll do this if we don't make a real one.)
• Food: Buche de Noel (Easy alternative: Enjoy a Little Debbie's Swill Roll, which looks like a miniature Yule Log)
• Color flag of France.
• Label map of France.
• View photos/video here and here.

Italy

• Story: Merry Christmas, Strega Nona
• Activity: Set up our Nativity
• Food: Ravioli, Tortellini, or some other type of pasta
• Color flag of Italy.
• Label map of Italy.
• View photos/video here and here.

I don't have time to finish all of my link-ups tonight, but I want to give credit to the following sources for much of the information I used to put together our little unit:

Homeschool Creations - Jolanthe has put together an incredible collection of Geography resources, including the map and flag notebooking pages that we are using for each country.

Homeschool Share has a wonderful free Christmas Around the World unit study and lapbook from which I've drawn much of my information and ideas.

Galloping the Globe by Loree' Pettit and Dari Mullins

Plus, I've checked out some helpful books from the library that I'll try to put up in my sidebar tomorrow.

This weekend I'll finish up our itinerary, and hopefully get it posted for you. :)