Well I'm behind again so I will try to catch up!  Friday we learned about Jesus' birth and the history of Nativity sets.  We read these books:

For the '25 Days of Christmas' our activity was to go to an annual Christmas event downtown.  Gavin's school sang a few Christmas carols while we were there.

On Saturday our '25 Days of Christmas' activity was to go see the Nutcracker Ballet (Gavin and I).  We had a wonderful time!  We were supposed to do a Nutcracker craft when we got home but football was on tv so nothing else got done.  Maybe we can do it another day. 

Sunday morning Gavin was sick.  Luckily he felt better by noontime because I thought he had caught what Austin had last weekend that lasted several days.  So we were able to do our '25 Days of Christmas' activity in the afternoon - making Christmas tree shirts.  Gavin painted a Christmas tree using a stencil I made...

Then he decorated the tree.

I made a shirt for Austin.  Here are the boys wearing their shirts this morning.  They are both very proud of them!

This morning we did more reading and cursive writing.  Then Gavin reviewed beginning blends and place value to the 100s place.

For our Christmas tradition today we learned about the history of the Christmas tree i.e. how bringing trees inside the house became an acceptable practice.

Our '25 Days of Christmas' activity for today was to have a picnic in front of the tree.  So, we made toasted ham and cheese sandwiches on ciabatta bread and french fries for lunch.  I made the boys keep their milk on the kitchen table though...there are limits, even at Christmas time!

Austin and I read these books this morning.

Then Gavin and I read these books.

This is a really good book about how a Christmas tree farm works throughout the year with photos of a real tree farm.

I had never heard of this book before but saw it recommended on a book list.  Our library actually had it (usually they don't have specific books when I look for them) but it was a wonderful book. I think we're going to have to buy it for our own Christmas book collection because it was just that good.  Also based on a true story of a little girl during World War I.

We started reading a biography about John Paul Jones before bedtime a few days ago.