Christmas Comes to America ~ Homeschool Legacy (Review)

Are you looking for a delightful and simple way to celebrate Christmas in your homeschool? If so, then Christmas Comes to America would be a good choice. For the past month the kids and I have had the pleasure of reviewing this product from Homeschool Legacy.

Homeschool Legacy's unit studies are based on a Once-a-Week schedule. They recommend doing all of your other studies four days a week and then devoting your unit study to one day. We typically do this on Fridays. So, each Friday we took a week of the four-week study and devoted it to learning about Christmas in Denmark, England, Germany and America.

Although you can go to the Homeschool Legacy website for their Scheduling Tips, the unit study is easily adaptable to any schedule. We typically do our unit studies each afternoon of the week. But, in using this one as an additional seasonal study, I was able to dedicate it to Fridays.

What I liked:

• Each week's lessons start with the Library Reading/Video Choices. And the best part ... the Call Numbers are included!! No more going to the library to look up the books to get the call numbers for the great book search. If our library didn't have the exact book (we have a small library), I was, at least, in the right area to find a comparable one. Our library didn't have a lot of the suggested books, but there are so many to choose from that there were plenty there for the study.
• Each week the Supply List is provided at the beginning of the lesson.
• The lessons meet some merit badge requirements for Boy Scouts and American Heritage Girls. All you have to do is look for the fleur-de-lis. or AHG hexagon symbol.
• There are lots of daily activities!
• Independent Reading
• Family Read-Aloud
• Family Devotional
• History/Music/Fun Activities
• History/Art/Language
• Life Skills
• Music
• Recommended Family Movie Nights
• Field Trips

Each week we chose books from the list. For instance, for studying Denmark, we used Christmas in Denmark as our spine (this was a great series of books to use, and there was one for each country). We took a picture walk through the book since it was so hefty. We stopped and discussed photos, traditions, and read passages that interested us.

Then we moved on to read Sister Bear: A Norse Tale by Jane Yolen.

Of course we read all of the recommended Bible passages and devotionals. For Denmark we made some hot cocoa with marshmallows. Although we didn't make the homemade marshmallows, we are excited to make them on our first "snow day". 

We also read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and are finishing up The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson.

We really enjoyed reading about all of the Christmas traditions from Denmark, England, and Germany, and how they have been brought to America. It also got us in the spirit for Christmas, which is sometimes difficult for us because of all of the activity in which we always find ourselves.

This was a great study for us. I recommend it highly, especially at the price of $17.95 for the complete product. If you would like to preview a sample week of Christmas Comes to America, you can go HERE.