pinterest-dd591.htm Oak Creek Academy: Beginning of Christmas around our house

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Beginning of Christmas around our house

Yesterday, the boys and I began our Christmas Unit Study (when we got around the to actual unit, Thing Two said something along the lines of "Finally, we're going to study someone from Heaven!")

They were totally excited that we began with a movie ~ "The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey".  After this, we began "Mad Libs Very Merry Songs and Stories".  It's my desire to do one of these every school day, to start the day with a bit of fun.

When looking through the local libraries database, I cam across "Stories Behind The Best Loved Songs of Christmas" by Ace Collins.  This is working well so far because after the silly mad lib, we're finding out a bit of the song, as it was originally written.  Yesterday's song was "Jingle Bells" and here's yesterdays lesson:

Dashing through the cats,
In a one-zebra open horse
V’er the Thing Ones we go,
running all the way.
Dogs on bobtails ring,
Making pigs bright.
What fun it is to build and sing
A sleighing song tonight!
Jingle stores, Jingle stores
Jingle all the way!
Oh, what fun it is to hang
In a one-zebra open sleigh

The song "Jingle Bells" was written by James S. Pierpont in approximately 1840.  His father had asked him to write a song for Thanksgiving, YES, Thanksgiving!  The song came about after watching young men riding their sleighs and James joining in the merriment.  After the song was written and preformed for annual Thanksgiving service, it was a huge success and the choir was asked to perform it again at Christmas.  It gained popularity, through word of mouth, and became more widely known when, in 1857, the Salem Evening news ran a story on it.

Our first day of Christmas lessons was a success!

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