In an effort to demonstrate the difference between Christmas fact and Christmas tradition to kids, Charlene Notgrasswrote Celebrate the Savior, a 15-lesson unit study about the Nativity of Christ. The text focuses on the biblical elements of the story while supplementing with information about how other cultures celebrate Jesus' birth. Students complete five essays and put together two books ("A Baby Book for Jesus" and "Christmas Traditions Around the World") in the course of study.
Lessons will take about one hournot including crafts and essaysand can be completed over the course of 1-2 days. Each lesson begins with Bible reading, followed by text to read, word searches, word scrambles, fill-in-the-blank, etc. Patterns and pages for the "books" are included in the back and specific pages are referenced in the lessons so you'll know when to complete each one. These include coloring pictures, cut-and-paste, and other hands-on crafts. Essays are one page handwritten. An answer key to written exercises is included.
There is a variety of historical and biblical information here, though most of it is pretty basic. Notgrass encourages parents to take a break from the normal curriculum for December and the first part of January to work through this text. Because Celebrate the Savioris consumable you'll need a separate copy for each student. A pretty obvious disparity among the appropriate age-levels for each activity is probably intended to help parents use this with multiple students at the same time, but can lead to frustration. We would recommend using this in conjunction with, rather than in place of, your normal curriculum.
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