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I am new to HOD and will be starting Little hands to Heaven with my 4 year old daughter. I am very crafty and love to incorporate Holiday crafts into our learning. Do any of you have any suggestions of how you make holidays such as Valentines Day or Christmas flow with the curriculum or do you just take a few days off to do special holiday activities?

Christina

Just lurking on this one.

Hi Christina! I'm sure that you will get a lot of different answers and ideas on this. Here is how we do it in our house: We are doing Little Hearts this year with my daughter. We already had quite a few holiday books and videos before we started homeschooling. I also ordered a book from Evan-Moor called Seasonal Activities (grades Pre-K thru K) http://www.evan-moor.com/Title.aspx?Cur ... &EmcID=437 that I photocopy and let my daughter and my son both do. I love this book so much that I went ahead and purchased the grades 1-2 and the grades 3-4 to use for later . We don't really take any days off to do crafts. I just add them to what we are doing each day. I do however, make sure to do them on days that are "lighter" in the guide. For example, we don't do a big craft on the days that we have a big art or science activity to do. And, we usually do it at the end, so it's like a treat to get to do something fun when all of our schoolwork is done.

One example of something that we did for Valentine's Day is for a couple of weeks leading up to it, we did a few pages out of the Evan Moor book and maybe another craft, and then on Valentine's Day, we had a candlelight spaghetti dinner and played one of my daughter's Disney Valentine CD's while we ate. They loved it!

Here is another example of something that we are doing: Next week is Saint Patrick's Day. We have never really celebrated this holiday before, but this year in Little Hearts we studied Patrick in our history book, so I decided that we would talk about it again. So, I found a printout off the internet of a 3 leaf clover that you can do on green construction paper and then glue pieces to it to show how Patrick used it to demonstrate the Trinity. And, we might do some kind of snack that day, like the Pillsbury ready to bake cookies that have the shamrock prints on them. Just an idea.

Anyway, we try to do lots of special things throughout the year. Yes, it is more work for me (especially since I don't have a crafty bone in my body ), but it is so worth it to the kiddos.

Hope this helps!
Christy

Hi Christina,

We love holidays here too. Although I have to admit I am not so crafty. We have a set of favorite holiday books for each holiday. I pull them out right before or the month of the holiday and keep them in a basket. We read them before nap or for bedtime (around our HOD books). Or the older boys pull them out and read whenever. We read old favorites every year and some new ones I pick up along the way. My older dss still love holiday picture books from when they were younger. It's like tradition to read them every year. Books like Little Old Lady who Was Not Afraid of Anything for Fall; Night Before Christmas, Grinch Who Stole Christmas, Bible Christmas story for Christmas; Jamie O'Rourke and the Pooka for St Pats., Miss Fannie's New Hat and Easter Story for Easter. You get the idea.

I usually rent lots of holiday videos to watch in the evenings. Or holiday music. We be sure to look up Paxautawnie (sp?) Phil on U-Tube and watch him look for his shadow.

We also enjoy decorating our home together. I love holiday decorations. I also usually put a few books out for decorations.

I try to buy fun holiday pre-packaged snackies or things to make ourselves.

I have invited friends over or have gone to friends who have had very low maintenance Fall Festival, Valentine, or Thanksgiving parties. We invite a few friends over to read a holiday story, make a craft, pass out Valentines, dress up, play a game, share food. Just have some fun.

We have special field trips we do every year for certain holidays. Pumpkin Patch, Tree Farm, Movies and Fireworks etc.

For crafts, I just pick one or two from a holiday craft book, craft store, internet, a friend's idea then we try to do it the week of or before the holiday. We have also made things for others, neighbors and family members, for holidays.

We have enjoyed creating many traditions.

I guess all that to say that we treat holidays apart from our curriculum, but still include it as a very important part of our lives. We have lots of fun!!!

Ohhhh crafts......I spend hours researching new crafts (don't like the same old stuff) so it can be a sore subject if I can't find the "right" thing. My boys are always looking for things to do, so we usually will spend an afternoon or weekends working on crafts. Just had to comment on St. Patricks crafts. My husband really get into that holiday since my oldest was in Kindergarten. Both my husband and sons will spend a couple of hours making a leprechaun (sp?) trap and then we'll set it out on St. Patricks day. After that, my husband will buy sons a special gift (pot of gold) and will leave with a fake leprechaun in the trap, along with a note that says, "you can't catch me!" My husband has a ball with that holiday and I think that's the only one he really participates in (I think he likes building the trap )

Pam

These are all great ideas. As we do a craft I may share some ideas for those not as crafty I love love the idea of a leprechaun trap. But in reading the responses it seems holiday crafts and homeschool are kept seperate. Thank you all for your help.

Christina