Letter J

We kicked off the Advent season with 'J' is for Jesus. We talked a lot about Jesus' birth and used a sticker board to help narrate the story, although somehow baby Jesus ended up with a pet lizard. It's important to us that our kids know the truth and have the focus of Christ...which brings me to my beef with Santa. Alison had a Christmas party this week at her art class. The teachers had her make a popsicle tree and told her to put it in her house so Santa knew to come give her presents. This is one of my ultimate pet peeves. Why do people think they have the right to convince my daughter to believe in lies! She came home asking when Santa was coming to our house to give her everything she's ever wanted. So, sorry to all you parents out there-but I told my daughter the truth, that Santa is just pretend and we give gifts to each other to celebrate Jesus' birth and the ultimate gift that God gave us through his son-forgiveness of our sins and eternal life. A few days later, Alison had another art class in which they were writing letters to Santa. She felt very convicted that her teachers needed to know the truth about Santa. I wasn't there for the class, but she told me later that her teachers talked about Santa again and she very bluntly told them that Santa doesn't come to our house.
Besides killing Christmas for all the other kids at the Y, we...

jumped in some leaves,

played jump rope and learned how to do jumping jacks. We sang jingle bells and made some jewelry. We also learned about jungle animals and jaguars. We worked on telling time, lacing, tracing and letter recognition.

I had "WOW!" moment this week. I started a prep for Kindergarten workbook with Alison this week. I've hesitated for awhile because I felt like the concepts were a little too advanced for her, but I finally decided just to jump in and give it a try. First page, with no prompting, she got it 100%. She was able to look at a picture and circle the correct letter the word started with. For example, she could look at a picture of a rainbow and find an "Rr" and circle it. WOW. I didn't have say anything or point to anything...no instruction, she just got it. Is she Ben's daughter or what?!

Shows: Veggie Tales: Josh and the big wall, Veggie Tales: Jonah, Gigi: Dreaming of a pink Christmas, JoJo's circus

Books: Cusious George takes a job, Jaguars, Let's Go, Jill and Joe!, Johnny Appleseed, The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the wash, My "j" book, Jungle Animals, The story of Christmas

Biblestories: Jesus' birth: Luke 1-2, Jonah: Jonah 1-4, Joshua: Joshua 6

And for a little fun, we spiked Eli's hair