Our Advent Lesson Plan

So, I started talking yesterday about our Advent lesson planning. I am finding Advent a wonderful time to explore our faith. Faith is a huge part of why we wanted to try homeschooling. I never felt there was enough hours in the day to intertwine faith with learning and meeting my child's learning style. I wanted to do something that also brought my family together in a way traditional school was not boosting (homework, arrival/dismissal time, rushing around). We wanted to create a place where the world and faith came together. It is like air to us. Lovely is at a sweet age where she loves to talk about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, church, Mass, etc and she can't do that at our wonderful neighborhood school. It is so freeing this year to be able to embrace Advent while we learn. We can just "be". It feels amazing.

It also is a great chance to find some balance to my teaching. Lovely and I both are very classically wired. So far, we have closely followed the classical model while trying to blend in other methods (Waldorf, Montessori), but I feel most days, we just do the classical. I still feel a huge pull toward Waldorf especially, and I feel torn trying to find that balance. I could list that as a honest woe-sy problem we're facing in our homeschool - living up to our own vision. I still feel I'm coming up short, not doing enough, doing too much yet not learning enough, but thrilled to be doing it at home and not wanting to do anything different, or back to traditional schooling.

I was venting about this at a co-op in November.  I was confessing we were not doing enough in the kitchen, with amazing literature books, with life skills. I felt we were plugging away at the classical model, but the more creative methods were not getting their due. My good friend Kate reminded me that Advent could be a glorious time to slow down some from the purely classical model and embrace other methods because Lovely is still so young and was not under any accreditation rules for upper grades yet, etc. I could put away some core subjects and turn to other forms of those subjects and get a taste at trying something new and find balance in my approach. It has also been a great way to take a break while learning as much as ever, if that makes sense. Lovely and I both needed a break from our focus and pace. So far, I'm so glad I made this decision!!! Advent is a time of waiting, quiet, and preparation for Christmas. It is the start of the liturgical year (Happy New Year!) and a time to settle ourselves for the excitement to come. It is a great time to change pace and take a break too!

So, for now - we are taking a break from Story of the World (social studies/history), Geography, our Reader, Spelling, and Science in our traditional materials. We're still doing these things, but with an Advent focus. Instead, I'm using living books, the internet, and the library to cover those subject areas with the focus on Advent. You should see the books I've gotten, or are on hold, at the library! We still are doing math, writing, and phonics. We'll pick up right where we left off in those other materials in January.

How we are doing this is the following:

Serendipity's (Waldorf)           
Tomie de Paola Advent Literature Unit

Elizabeth Foss' (a founder of Serendipity)  Advent and Christmas Lesson Plans (lots of activities, crafts, reading, and cooking!!)

Advent Adventures - Daily e-mailed CHILD led videos, worksheets, audio on Advent, bible based, with virtue and character education, and Jesse Tree ornament making.

Ideas and ever unfolding plans from Kate's listed resources.

You can almost find TOO much, and as a lover of tradition and wanting to pass down things I never had...I find myself having to stop from over planning. Since this is our 1st year of homeschool, I'm still stressed, so I need to give myself a break and plan carefully and add things slowly. Some ideas I'll save for next year, like Advent through the Alphabet. What a great idea, and it will be great for Valiant next year when she is 3 and can really build upon her knowledge of letters.

I'll keep you posted on how things work. What do you do in your home? What ideas can you give me? I loved this post over a year ago from Otherwise Educating on doing what I'm doing now. When Kate told me many of the same things Melanie blogs, I remembered Melanie's post. I could have written her post word for word, and that unit is another great thing for me to consider doing in the future along with our Advent traditions!

Off we go! Waiting and Preparing....