Preschool Christmas Unit Study Day 1 and 2

As promised here is the start of my Christmas posts! It's hard to believe it is coming so quickly! 

When I took this job it meant taking on the 4 year old's education. I am not sure what makes me qualified. None the less, here I am! For Christmas I knew that I wanted to do something different from the normal day in and out. With him being in Pre-K I have a little wiggle room with "lesson plans" and his scope and sequence. 

So, for the month of December I am taking him through the nativity story. At 4 years old I am learning so many parts of the story I didn't know existed! hehe! We started the unit study with an empty stable and when we're done we'll have a full stable and a birthday party for Jesus! 

Day 1 - Stable

I am not a fan of people downplaying things in the Christmas and Easter accounts such as the cross and the stable. To me, they are key elements to completing the sum of the gifts He's given me. For this account the stable hold specific significance for me and for day 1 we talked about why.

 We talked about how Jesus is the King of Kings, the Prince of Peace, and the First Born of All Creation. I asked him where he thought a King should be born. After many answers such as magic castles with dragons and the like we talked about how Jesus was born in a stable. We talked about how smelly it might have been. How dirty it might have been. In all of his 4 year old capacity I wanted him to understand how big of a gift it was for Jesus to become a baby.

 For the academic and development side of things we covered the "s" sound for stable. Because we had already gone over the letters in the weeks leading up to December, I had him choose the letter "s" from a pile of alphabet flashcards. I had several large sheets of wrapping/packing paper and hand drew a stable outline. I wanted him to paint it himself and he loved every minute of it!

After painting the stable we glued some "hay" to the bottom and hung it on the wall! It's going to be center of our focus for the next several weeks!

Day 2 - Mary and Joseph

 The next day we talked about Mary and Joseph or Mawy and Jofus as he says. We talked about how God chose them to be Jesus' parents and how He knew what Jesus would need in His parents and gave Him just that. We then talked about how we too have two parents, a mommy and a daddy, who love us and each other. We talked about how God knew what he would need in a mommy and daddy and gave him that in his mommy and daddy.

 I had him come up with ways he is thankful for his mom and dad. We wrote those things inside a Christmas card he painted and he gave them to his mom and dad!

So there you have it! 2 days of our Christmas "unit study"! So far it's been fun! Join me tomorrow for round 3 and we'll have to see about 4! =)

Merry CHRISTmas!