Preparing for Advent :: Book Baskets

Our picture books are all wrapped, despite running out of the dark purple paper and having to finish up with light purple rather than making another trip to the store!  There is one wrapped for each day of Advent, with the remaining books placed in additional baskets.    I also filled a couple baskets with all of our remaining Christmas Books, and I don't think I will be needing to check any more out from the library this year... We have plenty to keep us busy all of Advent and Christmas!

Just like I have done in the past (here are our lists from 2008 and 2010, or you can scroll through all our Christmas Picture Books here), I thought I would share our list of books for this year.  I will be back soon with the new books I choose for the feast of St. Nicholas, and pictures from another new favorite we will be surprising the kids with in a couple weeks.

November 27 ~ Waiting for Noel: An Advent Story

November 28 ~ An Early American Christmas

November 29 ~ The Christmas Cobwebs

November 30 ~ Waiting for Christmas: A Story about the Advent Calendar

December 1 ~ Cobweb Christmas: The Tradition of Tinsel

December 2 ~ The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey with CD: Gift Edition

December 3 ~ The Little Fir Tree

December 4 ~ The Gift of the Christmas Cookie: Sharing the True Meaning of Jesus' Birth

December 5 ~ The Miracle of Saint Nicholas

December 6 (Feast of St. Nicholas) ~ A Gift from St. Nicholas

December 7 (Feast of St. Ambrose) ~ The Christmas Candle

December 8 (Feast of the Immaculate Conception) ~ Mary, Mother of Jesus

December 9 ~ Pablo's Christmas

December 10 (Feast of Our Lady of Loreto) ~ The Three Gifts of Christmas: Book with Audio CD

December 11 ~ An Orange for Frankie

December 12 (Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe) ~ Our Lady of Guadalupe

December 13 (Feast of St. Lucy) ~ Lucia, Saint of Light

December 14 ~ Hanna's Christmas

December 15 (Rose's Birthday) ~ The Legend of the Christmas Rose

December 16 ~ The Night of Las Posadas

December 17 ~ Night Tree

December 18 ~ The Clown of God

December 19 ~ Shoemaker Martin

December 20 ~ Mortimer's Christmas Manger

December 21 ~ Little Star

December 22 ~ The Donkey's Dream

December 23 ~ On Christmas Eve

December 24 (Christmas Eve) ~ The Night Before Christmas: Book & DVD


The following are wrapped in gold paper and will be placed in the empty basket on Christmas morning:

December 25 (Christmas Day) ~ Bethlehem

December 26 (Feast of St. Stephen) ~ Stephen's Feast

December 27 (Feast of St. John the Apostle) ~ Good King Wenceslas

December 28 (Feast of the Holy Innocents) ~ The Little Match Girl

December 29 ~ Saint Francis and the Christmas Donkey

December 30 ~ The Mitten 20th Anniversary Edition

December 31 ~ The Huron Carol

January 1 (Feast of the Circumcision) ~ All for the Newborn Baby

January 2 ~ Angela and the Baby Jesus

January 3 ~ The Stable Where Jesus Was Born

January 4 ~ The Last Straw

January 5 ~ The Story of the Three Wise Kings

January 6 (Feast of Epiphany) ~ We Three Kings

Our Additional Books for Advent and Christmas:

• A Small Miracle
• Advent Storybook: 24 Stories to Share Before Christmas
• Bells of Santa Lucia
• Bright Christmas: An Angel Remembers
• Christmas Around the World
• Christmas Cooking (Activities)
• Christmas in the Barn
• Destination: Bethlehem
• Father and Son: A Nativity Story
• Golfer's Night Before Christmas , A
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas
• Lucia, Child of Light: The History And Traditions of Sweden's Lucia Celebration
• Lucia Morning in Sweden
• Mary: The Mother of Jesus
• O Holy Night
• One Christmas Dawn
• One Winter's Night
• Our Lady of Guadalupe
• Our Lady of Guadalupe(Coloring Book)
• The Christmas Bell
• The Crippled Lamb
• Saint Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe
• Saint Nicholas
• St. Nicholas: A Closer Look at Christmas
• Santa's Favorite Story
• The Christmas Bird
• The Christmas Promise
• The Church Mouse of Saint Nicholas
• The First Christmas
• The Lady of Guadalupe
• The Legend of Saint Nicholas
• The Legend of the Candy Cane
• The Legend of the Poinsettia
• The Real Santa Claus: Legends of Saint Nicholas
• The Story of Our Lady of Guadalupe Empress of the Americas
• The Tale of Three Trees: A Traditional Folktale
• The Trees Kneel at Christmas
• The Twelve Days of Christmas
• The Very First Christmas
• There Was No Snow on Christmas Eve
• Tomie dePaola's Make Your Own Christmas Cards
• Twelve Days of Christmas Stained Glass Coloring Book

A Basket of Board Books for our Littlest Ones:

• B Is for Bethlehem: A Christmas Alphabet Board Book
• Who Is Coming to Our House?
  
• Christmas in the Manger
  
• The Legend Of The Three Trees - Board Book
  
• Saint Nicholas: The Real Story of the Christmas Legend
• Touch and Feel Baby Jesus Is Born
• Tomie's Little Christmas Pageant
• The Best Christmas Story (Hide-Away Books)
• The Christmas Story Board Book
• The Twelve Days of Christmas
• The Saving Name of God the Son

Note:  Quite a few of the books on our reading lists have study guides in either Christmas Mosaic, An Illustrated Book Study for Advent and Christmas or Catholic Mosaic: Living the Liturgical Year with Literature an Illustrated Book Study for Cathoilc Children, which we will be using as well!

Wishing you all a very Blessed Advent!

Wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving!

We just finished making this fun Turkey Veggie Platter, which was much easier than baking our turkey!   Now we are heading out to my parents home for our Thanksgiving Dinner, just as soon as I finish up the sweet potato casseroles.   

I have so very much to be thankful for today, including all of you - my online friends and visitors here at Shower of Roses.   Your prayers, support, and friendships have been such an amazing blessing!

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your families! 

Edible Indian Corn

Yesterday afternoon, as a little activity for our Colonial Life Unit Study, and with Thanksgiving coming up this Thursday, the girls spent a little time in the kitchen making Edible Indian Corn.   It was a great recipe for them to make (mostly on their own) and they had so much fun! 

Edible Indian Corn

Ingredients:

• 4 tablespoons of butter
• 4 cups of mini marshmallows
• 5 cups of puffed corn cereal (we used Honey Kix)
• 1 1/3 cups diced dried fruit (we used raisins and cranberries)
• Popsicle sticks
• Fruit leather

Instructions:

In a large pot, melt butter and mini marshmallows over low heat.  This takes about 5 minutes.

Remove the mixture from the stove and use a wooden spoon to stir in puffed corn cereal and diced dried fruit. Allow the mixture to cool for about 10 minutes.

Using buttered hands, shape each treat by pressing 1/3 cup of the mixture around a Popsicle stick. 

Add fruit leather husks to the bottom of the ear, slightly moistening them to help them stick if needed. 

Makes approximately 15 treats.

What Thanksgiving Treats have you been making?  

We'd love to see them over at Catholic Cuisine!

New World Explorers Unit Study and Lap Book

This year we are making Lap Books to go along with each of our six Unit Studies for American History. Our first Unit was based on New World Explorers. While the girls were busy working on their Kaya Lap Books, the boys were busy making their own Lap Books with printable mini books from the Time Travelers New World Explorers CD.

Resources and Books for Unit One: 
(you can print our Unit One Plans/Booklist here)

Core Text 

• From Sea to Shining Sea (Chapters 1-3)

Additional Books read by the Boys:

• The Usborne Book of Explorers
• Saint Brendan and the Voyage Before Columbus
• Brendan the Navigator
• Leif the Lucky
• Columbus
• First Voyage to America: From the Log of the "Santa Maria"
• Where Do You Think You're Going, Christopher Columbus?
• The Voyage of Christopher Columbus in His Own Words (A Pop Up Book)
• Ponce de Leon: Exploring Florida and Puerto Rico
• Who Was Ferdinand Magellan?
• Ferdinand Magellan: Circumnavigating the World
• Ship's Boy with Magellan
• Hernando Cortes: Spanish Invader of Mexico
• The Lady of Guadalupe
• Story of Our Lady of Guadalupe Empress of the Americas

Coloring Books:

• The Story of Christopher Columbus
• Exploration of North America Coloring Book
• Our Lady of Guadalupe

Timeline Entries:

• c. 484-c. 578 Brendan the Navigator
• c. 1000 Leif Erikson discovers North America
• 1492 Columbus Discovers America
• May 4, 1493 - Line of Demarcation (set by Pope Alexander, the boundary divided the New World between the Portuguese and the Spanish)
• Jan. 6, 1494 – First Mass in the New World
• 1454-1512 Amerigo Vespucci
• 1460-1521 Juan Ponce de Leon
• 1480-1521 Ferdinand Magellan
• 1485-1547 Hernando Cortes
• 1531 Our Lady of Guadalupe
• 1510-1554 Francisco Vasquez de Coronado

Here are a few pictures of some of the boys' entries to their History Through the Ages Record of Time timeline book during this Unit:

Additional Activities:

• Build A Pueblo Diorama
• Chocolate Caliente on Columbus Day
• Play Settlers of Catan - Catan: Seafarers Game Expansion
• Play Knot So Fast (A super fun game for learning and practicing knot tying!)
• Create a File Folder Game  (Each Boy Made their Own)
• Assemble a New World Explorers Lap Book

 ~ NEW WORLD EXPLORERS LAP BOOK  ~ 

~ THE FRONT COVER ~

~ INSIDE VIEW #1 ~

The dark blue center page/flap addition contains a little invocation to Our Lady of Guadalupe, with a miniture version of Charlotte's Coloring Page, at the top, and the Navigational Equipment Wheel on the bottom.

On the Left Flap: 

5 Reasons for Exploration

Line of Demarcation

On the Right Flap:

“Real Estate” Brochure

Sea Monster pop-up

~ INSIDE VIEW #2 ~

Center Flap #2 : Treasure Chest; Anatomy of a Ship

~ INSIDE VIEW #3 ~

The Center of Actual Lap Book Folder contains a pocket for all the Acetate Maps the boys created, with overlays for the explorers routes.   

 

The boys had so much fun making these!  

On the back of each of the inserted pages were all the Explorer Profiles.


Inside the boys wrote the place of birth, which country they explored for, the years of each expedition and the discoveries that each explorer is best known for and/or interesting facts.

All of the profiles are on color coded paper representing the country for which they were exploring.



 

The boys finished this unit up last month and have since moved on to Unit Two.  They have been studying Jamestown, the Pilgrims, Ben Franklin, and Colonial Life.   We are hoping to finish up by the end of this month, before moving on to the very much anticipated Unit Three, based on the American Revolution!

{pretty, happy, funny, real}

Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life.

This past spring I attended a fundraiser for a sweet girl in our town.  I ended up having the highest bid on one of the silent auction items, a gift certificate to a newer local beauty salon & day spa!  I have been meaning to schedule an appointment for months, but with the expiration date coming up next month I finally got around to doing so... just in time for Thanksgiving! 

{pretty}

My three pretty girls all had the appointments for their haircuts this morning.

{happy}

Very happy that the new (to us) hairdresser not only washed their hair in a big fancy sink, but braided their hair (and showed me how) too!

{funny}

Rose, however, didn't know what to think about her very first haircut....

{real}

Home again!  Now if we can just figure out a way to open the front door without one of the cats trying to sneak in every. single. time.

Tomorrow it is my turn for a little pampering, 

including a cut, style and even a spa pedicure!!

Visit Like Mother, Like Daughter for more pictures of contentment.

1764 - Kaya :: An American Girl Lap Book

Resources:

Kaya Boxed Set (and Audible Audio Version)

Welcome to Kaya's World, 1764: Growing Up in a Native American Homeland

Kaya Mini Doll

Kaya's Paper Dolls
Free Kaya Mini Books from Homeschool Share

~ Front Cover ~ 

For the cover the girls each choose an image from the American Girl Website's Wallpaper selections, cropping and pasting it to the front of their covers.  They then cut out the year "1764" with the help of my Cricut to add to the front cover as well.

~ Inside First Folder ~ 

 Free Kaya Mini Books from Homeschool Share:

• Nez Perce Vocab
• Who is Kaya?
• United States Map
• In Kaya's Day
• Kaya's Favorites

~ Inside Second Folder ~ 

 Free Kaya Mini Books from Homeschool Share:

• Living in 1764
• Conflict
• Kaya's Horses
• Kaya's Change
• Kaya's World

 I also created a Recipe Pocket with recipe cards from this study:  

• Recipe Pocket
• Recipe Cards

~ Pemmican ~

~ Kaya's Dried Fruit and Nut Mix ~

The girls had so much fun making the recipes! 

I also ordered a used Kaya Paper Doll book from Amazon that was supposedly in "like new" condition, but when it arrived, it was missing the Kaya and Tatlo Dolls that were suppose to be on the first page.   Thankfully I was able to find a picture of them online and printed them out so we could use all the outfits, etc.   (I actually ended up printing out two, so that the girls could each have their own.)  The girls then created a pocket on the Back of their Lap Books to store their dolls.

The American Girl Website has additional fun games and activities as well! 

The girls have moved on and are now studying Colonial Life, with the help of Felicity!  For some reason, the girls are absolutely loving History this year! ;)