January Plans and Projects

Bare branches of each tree
on this chilly January morn
look so cold so forlorn.
Gray skies dip ever so low
left from yesterday's dusting of snow.
Yet in the heart of each tree
waiting for each who wait to see
new life as warm sun and breeze will blow,
like magic, unlock springs sap to flow,
buds, new leaves, then blooms will grow.
- Nelda Hartmann, January Morn

I've always loved the monthly plans and themes over at By Sun and Candlelight, and one of my new year's goals is to find a way to make this work in my own life. Mostly, I'll be jotting down my ideas for homeschooling, but of course, it's impossible to segment out our homeschooling life from the rest of our lives-- it's one of the things I love best about homeschooling!

January is named after Janus, the two-faced god, the god of doorways and choices. It's the "month of the heart of winter," a sentiment that rings very true here in the heart of Pennsylvania,

Faith, Feast Days and Festivals
The entire month of January is devoted to the Holy Name of Jesus. For devotions, I'd like to look at the different names of Jesus with the children.

January 1 is both the Solemnity of Mary and the World Day of Peace. It's also New Year's Day, of course! The perfect day to update calendars and birthday lists.
January 3: Holy Name of Jesus
January 4: St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (one of my favorites)
January 6: Epiphany. We'll celebrate with a Kings' Cake!
January 10: Baptism of Our Lord, and a chance to remember our own baptisms.
January 11: Nicholas's Baptismal Anniversary
January 24: Our Lady of Peace

Hearth and Home
We've challenged ourselves to cook our way through John McCutcheon's song "Soup", from his Wintersongs album.

I'm also going to continue with our pantry challenge. My other goal this month, foodwise, is to start making our own pizza for pizza night instead of buying frozen pizzas. We should be able to find lots of fresh broccoli and cauliflower, lemons and oranges to munch on.

We'll celebrate Christmas through the 12 days, right up to Epiphany when the Three Kings leave one last gift for the children. Then we'll take down the tree, strip down the decorations, and pack up the ornaments. I'm really helping to cull through some of them this year before we put them away. Then we'll change the mantle from a Christmas theme to one featuring snowflakes and icicles. Since it's inevitable, we may as well celebrate it!

I'm hoping to do a minor update in the bathroom. Six people in one bathroom means we need to do some planning, and I have some ideas to help make it work. I'll also be doing a fair bit of decluttering in the children's rooms.

We'll order some seed catalogs and start dreaming of our summer garden. We're also aiming to get our tax return in early this year.

Homeschooling
Nicholas: We'll be working on recognizing letters L, M, and N as well as making sure he knows all his shapes. I'm also thinking of starting with some very basic reading readiness skills-- understanding beginning, middle, and end and listening for sounds at the beginning, middle, and end of words. We'll continue on with fingerknitting, wet-on-wet watercolor painting, beeswax modeling, and coloring. We've started some very beginner form drawing as well.

Katie Grace: My planned main lesson for Katie Grace this month is the life of Jesus. Additionally, we'll work on some geometry concepts and making sure she really has her basic math facts under her belt. We'll work some more on knitting and painting as well.

Michael: Michael starts his botany unit this month and will also be focusing on geometry. He's enjoying Life of Fred: Decimals and Percents, and will continue to work through that independently. We'll continue learning about verbs and tenses as well.

Field Trips and Outings: I don't imagine we'll be out and about too much this month-- it's cold and miserable and co-op doesn't start up again until February. But hopefully, we'll be able to get in at least one snow walk and a chance to go sledding. There's also a performance of Strega Nona at the Community Art Center this month.

Art and Music: Katie Grace will carry on with violin and Michael with cello. Both will (hopefully) start piano lessons this month as well. All three are in choir and will be singing Epiphany songs. We'll also be listening to Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.

For art, we'll be looking at works by Albrecht Durer ("The Young Hare"), Marc Chagall ("I and the Village") and Georgia O' Keefe ("Rancho Church"). There's really no rhyme or reason to it; we're working our way slowly through a book called Masterpiece of the Month.



Story of the World: This month, we're really going to take some time to focus on the American Revolution. My mother-in-law got us a great book for Christmas called The American Revolution for Kids.

Stories and Circles and Signs of the Season
We'll definitely be telling the story The Mitten. There are so many neat ways to extend the story, and some beautiful picture books out there as well. From there, we'll move on to The Elves and the Shoemaker.

For read aloud, we need to wrap up The Silver Chair and then we'll be moving on to The Boxcar Children, a classic I've read for each of my children. Now it's Nicholas's turn!

For circle, we'll go on a Winter Movement Journey from Winter Seasons of Joy. We'll probably weave that circle for two weeks and then move on to a winter trip to the woods to see what animals and other creatures live there.

Our January nature table will feature many of the animals from our stories and circle time, and I wouldn't be surprised if Jack Frost makes an appearance there as well.

Things to Make and Do

Well, paper snowflakes, of course! And sewing some itty bitty felt animals for the nature table. Maybe I'll finally get brave enough to needle felt some as well.

As a family, we'll try our hand at some puppetry. We have a lovely shadow puppet kit hiding downstairs somewhere, and I've been wanting to make a doorway puppet stage for a while now.

I'm also planning to get out my sewing machine, go through all the fabric I've been stashing, and actually making something. I'm not sure what-- pants for the little boys? a jumper for Katie Grace? We shall see.

I don't have a wall/schoolroom calendar yet, and I may just have to make one if I can't find one that suits.

We'll be updating our healing basket as well, seeing what we need to replenish or replace.

So what do you have planned in January?