It's early in the season but the holidays are all around us already and Oklahoma City family fun events are already scheduled on MetroFamily's calendar. We've been participating in an ornament exchange with other homeschoolers all over the world since my son was 4 years old, and since we try to mail them out by Thanksgiving, it's time to get to work!
The ornament exchange we participate in is with other families who use the Five in a Row curriculum. Each family (or sometimes each kid in a family) signs up and decides if they want to be on an international list or a U.S. only list. Then, they come up with an ornament based on one of the FIAR books and send it to each family on the list. We have had so much fun doing this over the years and have ended up with so many ornaments that we've started putting up a little Christmas tree in the school room just for them! When we open the envelopes we can almost always guess which book the ornament is from and it's exciting to see all the different places from where the ornaments come.
If you are the crafty type, an ornament exchange might be a good way to work some Christmas fun into your school time. Get together with some friends, online or real life, and decide on your preferences. Do you want everyone to have a similar theme? You could base them on books, famous people, historical events or anything! Do they need to be sent by a certain time? If you want to enjoy your ornaments, they should probably be mailed out around Thanksgiving, especially this year when Thanksgiving is so late in the month.
Even if you decide not to try an exchange with friends, small paper ornaments might be an interesting project for your own kids. Maybe they could make ones based on their favorite Christmas stories or your own family traditions. You don't have to do anything big or fancy; have a good time making memories with your kids. After all, time together is one of my favorite things about homeschooling!
Let the Thanksgiving and Christmas countdowns begin!
