The Christmas season is, despite the cold weather, my favorite time of the year. It's a time of tradition, family, history, celebration, giving, and receiving the best gift that one could imagine.
Operation Christmas Child, sponsored by Samaritans Purse, is one the favorite Christmas traditions for me and my oldest daughter, Mackenzie. It's a wonderful chance for us to share the blessings, that God has so graciously bestowed upon us, with someone else. And, more importantantly, we get to share our Greatest Gift, with someone who might not know the love of Christ.
Mackenzie LOVES shopping for OCC. Every year she looks forward to that trip. One wouldn't think it would take long to fill up a small shoebox but Mackenzie carefully considers every item. She wants to make sure that she picks things that another child will love.
This year I took a some pictures for some scrapbooking that I plan on doing but I thought I'd share them here and help spread the word about the project.
While Kayleigh liked the packing she didn't quite get the giving. Maybe when she's three. LOL
If you'd like to know more about OCC, click any of the links or watch the video. And, FYI, our local Chick-Fil-A is also promoting OCC. You can pick up a box at any location, fill, and bring it back for a free chicken sandwich. We were there for lunch last week and when Mackenzie saw the boxes she was so happy. She said it's definately her favorite fast food place.
It was an interesting week here at the Beach. I forgot to schedule science, so we didn’t do it. We watched Beauty and the Beast at a local theater. It was hand-down the best play they’ve ever put on. And our history this week had us crying like babies. LOL
We are currently studying the Civil War and reading Lincoln: A Photobiography . (Which is absolutely FABULOUS by the way. One of my favorite Sonlight picks ever.)
We were reading about Lincoln’s first visit to the war-torn South after Lee’s surrender. He was visiting the Confederacy’s capital with his son, Tad. When they stepped off the ship the people in the streets, liberated slaves and black Union troops, just flocked around him, filled with joy. They were cheering, laughing, trying to shake his hand. I was having a hard time getting though the paragraph because I was so choked up. I, who knew what his future was, was happy that he got to really see how he made a profound difference.
I stopped reading to see what Mackenzie thought and she said, “Wow! He really did something amazing for those people Mommy! Just one guy who wouldn’t give up.” And then she burst into tears.
And that, my friends, was all she wrote. Can you say hysterical sobbing?
We lost it again, 3 paragraphs later, when we learned the total death toll. Which was more than all other U.S. wars combined. That’s just sad.
Mackenzie finished her Life of a Soldier pocket in Civil War History Pockets. This one was jam-packed. She learned about the MANY different styles of uniforms, what they ate, different jobs, what they slept in, the importance of letters and what they used to write them. She was a busy girl.
She has been working on a special missions project started by Sonlight and Mission India, called My Passport to India. It’s a fabulously easy way to get your child more “mission-minded” and have them participate in The Great Commission.
The goal is to collect loose change that will be used to send Indian children to Bible Clubs, thus using them to touch their families lives for Christ.
Sonlight sends you a free Welcome Kit that includes a “passport” for each child and a collection bank. For every dollar raised, Sonlight will match it, up to $167,000.
Twice a week we watch a video of happenings in India and there is a ton of supplemental material available as well. And you don’t have to be a Sonlight-user to participate.
Mackenzie looks forward to the videos every week and I can see how they are impacting her spiritually through her prayer-life. They both enjoy digging through the couch cushions for loose change to put in the box. Mackenzie has even donated quite a bit of her own money for the cause and has been doing extra chores to earn more.
I haven’t talked about math in a while. It’s just math. She tends to do really well despite her negative “I can’t do it” attitude before each new lesson. This week she learned to find the area of a triangle and she was excited to learn her first math formula. She felt cool.
For fun, we did some “Candy Corn Math”. It was mainly for the toddler but I knew Mackenzie wouldn’t want to be left out so I developed a graphing activity for her. So go buy a bag of Autumn Mix candy and download the printables and have some fun with your crew.
We’re just about finished with our artist study on Mary Cassatt. Just one more week left. Then we’ll be moving on to a composer study on Tchaikovsky. Just in time for our yearly stint to see the Moscow Ballet perform The Great Russian Nutcracker. (Those tickets are burning a hole in my purse. I want to go NOW! lol)
This week for art she made Curved-Line Bookmarks. She had to cut strips of construction paper in a curve and layer the strips to create a bookmark. That was a good assignment because homeschoolers can never have too many bookmarks. =o)
