Not a real post...

(I'm just putting these links here so I won't forget about them.)

Jan Brett "Mitten" activity:

animal and mitten pattern

animal masks

animal footprints

more animal footprints

The Homeschool Share site with the ideas

Advent fun

Right now Holy Heroes is having a fun freebie called Advent Adventures which sends out a daily email with a link to a page with suggested daily activities, useful print-outs, and (my favorite) audio links to their children praying each Joyful Mystery decade. These audio segments are well done (I think they're from the CDs they sell) and I think we'll enjoy praying along with these. There are also printable scripts which have the rosary and all of the scripture verses ready making it easy for you to follow along.

The link to Monday's Advent Adventure is here. You can go to the Holy Heroes home page to sign up for the links to be sent daily to your email.

A lot of angels this season

The children will be singing "Hark, The Herald Angels Sing" in the church children's choir on Christmas eve, so I was pleased, yesterday, when I came across this little study using the song.

It is touted as a poetry study, but in my opinion the study focuses more on the "non" poetic virtues of the song. Hopefully, however, doing at least some of portions of the study will enhance the kids' understanding of this familiar carol.

*I believe that the sponsoring website has a Protestant focus.

A Christmas poem study

I came across a great Christmas poem study a few months ago and have been anxiously awaiting December to start it with Chloe and Kievan. The study, which focuses on Robert Southwell's poem "The Burning Babe", was compiled by Maureen Wittmann, a Catholic writer. It's not a poem I would have ever attempted to teach by myself, but Wittmann's insights and direction make it doable (at least "tryable").

Here is the poem:
THE BURNING BABE.
By Robert Southwell

As I in hoary winter's night stood
shivering in the snow,
Surprised I was with sudden heat
which made my heart to glow ;

And lifting up a fearful eye
to view what fire was near,
A pretty babe all burning bright
did in the air appear ;

Who, scorchëd with excessive heat,
such floods of tears did shed
As though his floods should quench his flames
which with his tears were fed.

Alas, quoth he, but newly born
in fiery heats I fry,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts
or feel my fire but I !

My faultless breast the furnace is,
the fuel wounding thorns,
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke,
the ashes shame and scorns ;

The fuel justice layeth on,
and mercy blows the coals,
The metal in this furnace wrought
are men's defilëd souls,

For which, as now on fire
I am to work them to their good,
So will I melt into a bath
to wash them in my blood.

With this he vanished out of sight
and swiftly shrunk away,
And straight I callëd unto mind
that it was Christmas day.

Beautiful sky!

Yesterday the kids and I met with our 4-H group and went shopping. The group had raised $7000 to spend on purchasing Christmas presents for the children in St. Jude's Hospital and it was shopping day! We had quite a hard time spending the money (you know, one-income homeschooling families are not used to buying expensive toys) and after 4 hours of shopping still had quite a lot of $$ left to spend.

Anyway, that evening on our way to the parking lot, one of the children noticed the beautiful crescent moon flanked by two very bright stars. No other stars were visible in the sky. I told them that they probably weren't stars, but lights from airplanes or something. However, ten minutes later when we arrived home we noticed the "planes" hadn't moved at all! I then suggested that maybe they were planets, because I didn't think stars ever shone that brightly. Chloe suggested that maybe they were dying stars, giving off their final bursts of light.

Anyway, we asked Poppy about it when we got home and he said, "Oh, those are planets- Venus and Jupiter". Mystery solved!

Later, I opened my mail to see this:
"When the sun goes down tonight, step outside and look south. Beaming through the twilight is one of the prettiest things you'll ever see--a tight three-way conjunction of Venus, Jupiter and the crescent Moon. The event is visible from all parts of the world, even from light-polluted cities. People in New York and Hong Kong will see it just as clearly as astronomers watching from remote mountaintops. Only cloudy weather or a midnight sun (sorry Antarctica!) can spoil the show."


New subscribers: To sign up for free space weather alerts, click here: http://spaceweather.com/services/"

It was fun to see!