Christmas is the favorite holiday in our home. Not because of the presents that we get on Christmas morning but because of all the wonderful things that surround the season. The beauty of homeschooling is being able to learn around our daily lives. During the Christmas holiday, we want to focus our household on the birth of Jesus and the spirit of giving. Sure, reading and math are important but so is giving and learning about the birth of Jesus. This is why we take a different approach during the Christmas season in our homeschool learning. We don’t take an extended break (although our kids might think it’s a break because all the learning activities seem so fun and festive). Instead, we just change our activities to be more focused around the season and use a Christmas Unit Study to help cover multiple areas of learning.
This Christmas season we are using the Complete Unit Study Christmas from Homeschool Complete. Homeschool Complete offers a complete curriculum for grades K-5 and unit studies for PreK-Grade 9. The complete curriculum is available in two versions; faith-based or secular. The Christmas Unit Study we are using is faith-based, it includes Bible memorization, a nativity activity, and more.
About Homeschool Complete
Debra Arbuthnot is the author of Homeschool Complete, she is a certified teacher who also homeschooled her own children. It was homeschooling her own children that motivated her to create a curriculum that she is now making available to other homeschooling families. You can feel confident in the curriculum Debra has created, her children have all graduated from college, and she has teaching experience at all grade levels.
Life is busy for homeschool families and one thing many will agree with is that lesson planning is time-consuming. This is something you don’t have to worry about if you choose a unit study or a grade-level curriculum, the lesson planning is done for you! The complete curriculum is a physical product for the student portion, you can choose a physical or digital download for the teachers manual. The grade levels offered for the complete curriculum are K-5, faith-based or secular, and choose a full year or semester. The unit studies can be either a digital download or a physical product, from grades K-9. While they are separated into grade groups such as K-2, 3-6, and 7-9; you will find that many overlap, for example, the Christmas Unit Study is designed for grades K-6.
Complete Study Christmas Unit
We received the digital download for this Unit Study, this is a personal preference of mine for two reasons:
- I don’t have a lot of space to keep materials and books
- I am impatient and like to have my materials immediately (haha)
Just keep in mind the amount of printing you will need to do if you choose the digital download. If you choose to print the entire study it is 140 pages. The other option is to keep all the lesson plans and other teacher resources on your computer and just print the student workbook pages. The total number of student workbook pages is 43 (don’t print on both sides of the paper, there are several pages that your child will cut out shapes.)
I chose to print out the entire study because I need to see everything and I like to write notes on my lesson plans or check things off as I go.
From the above picture, you can see all that is included in this unit study. It contains a material list, teaching procedure, skills list (great if you need this for a portfolio or end-of-the-year review), a literature list, some teaching resources, 8 lessons, and the student workbook pages. While it states this unit is based on a five-day school week, I love that this unit can be used if you homeschool four days a week. Since there are only 8 lessons it can be easily completed in the beginning weeks of December.
Our Thoughts and How We Used the Unit Study
While the basis of this unit study is geared more toward my 7-year-old than my 13-year-old, she still loves all things Christmas and still was involved at times. While the initial plan was to be able to get through the entire study before today, I believe Murphy’s law came into effect. Eli wasn’t feeling well and we took our learning a little slower. Next, the day we wanted to make gingerbread cookies our oven broke, seriously I can’t make this stuff up! All this did not make it impossible to enjoy the study it just extended it for us. However, that is the beauty of homeschooling, the ability to adapt to life’s situations.
Prepping Materials
Once I downloaded the digital file to my computer, I filled the paper tray in my printer and hit the print button. After it was printed out, I separated the teacher resources, the lessons, and the student workbook pages based on the lesson together (there are multiple student work pages per lesson). I stapled each bundle together, a binder would work well too but I didn’t have one available and my stapler was nearby.
Next, it was important to look at the literature list. We live in a small town and while we have a great library, it doesn’t always have all the books we need. One thing I found we could do in a pinch was to search for the book on YouTube. I could put the book on the tv in the morning, this allowed me a few minutes to get any last-minute stuff ready.
Look through the other teacher resources provided and see how and if you will use them. For example, we have a hundred chart already so I didn’t need to pull that out but I did need to cut out the spelling squares. The materials list is very useful. Not only does it list all the materials needed for the unit study but which lesson it will be needed for.
Our Experience
As homeschool mom who had two kids to plan daily work for, I am very happy when I find unit studies that are very well organized and require little prep work. For my 7-year-old this unit study covers the core subjects and meets many learning skills that I used this as his sole schoolwork during the complete study. For my 13-year-old, she joined in Bible, cooking, book time, and games. Since my son was a little under the weather I can’t give an accurate amount of time each day it took us to finish the work, but I don’t think it is too much to complete in a day.
We did change the calendar directions, my son chose to write all the days on it and he wants to cross the days off as they go by. I had no problem with this and we still review the month, day, and date. He has just begun reading time on the clock, so when he saw the telling time worksheet one evening before starting the unit, he wanted to do it right then. It is a cute touch that the clocks have a Christmas tree on them.
Lesson 1 gives a recipe for gingerbread cookies, we decided to do them on a different day because it would work better for us. That morning when I was cooking breakfast I noticed the oven wasn’t heating up. The kids knew what this meant, no gingerbread cookies, they were sad but took it in stride. However, I decided maybe we could cook them in the air fryer, so I told the kids we were going to try. They were excited and both had so much fun rolling the dough and choosing their cookie cutters. Thankfully, the cookies turned out AMAZING! Then they had a blast decorating the cookies.
The art projects in the unit study can be enjoyed by both my kids (and even me). The Bible is important to us and we are glad that this unit study does focus on the Bible and the story of Jesus’ birth.
My son loves math and is a strong reader, these were two activities that he enjoyed the most. Writing and coloring activities are ones I have to have him do over a longer course of time. He is more apt to color if we do it as a family activity, he enjoys coloring alongside his older sister.
Final thoughts
We had a great time working through some of the lessons. Since we had a few setbacks and now that it is truly the Christmas season, we will finish this unit study. My kids both agree that the gingerbread recipe is delicious and it was their favorite thing to do and they want to make more cookies!
Since this unit study is created for grades K-6 remember there are workbook pages that might be above your child current skill level. You can choose to skip those pages or just use them as a brain booster activity. I do this when I need a few moments to either complete a task with my daughter or I’m just getting household stuff done. Since this is a joyful time of the year and the unit study does provide a lot of great information and resources don’t feel bad if you don’t finish it all. Keep the study for the next year!
Are you looking to add some fun to your homeschool this Christmas season? Head on over to Homeschool Complete and purchase your copy of the Christmas Unit Study. There is something special for my readers if you purchase this unit study – in the notes section of the purchase page just type in “The Life We Build”. You will get Christmas games and Activities for FREE!
Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this product from Homeschool Complete in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
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