Joaquin y el Sentido de Navidad

We've been working on Christmas carols with Joaquin and doing Advent every night. (Which I highly recommend as a calming down activity for the evening. Gives him quality time with both parents and a relaxing fun activity.) It's very cute to see how well Joaquin picks up on stuff this year as compared to last year. Amazing what a difference a year can make. Since we have our Advent celebrations every night, he really remembers things. Right now he can tell you how the first candle is the prophecy candle, the second candle is the Bethlehem candle and the third candle is the Shepherd's candle. It's also nice because we sing the same carol for Advent all week long which makes it easy to learn. Now he knows "Away in a Manger" and "Go Tell it on the Mountain" and can sort of fake through "Oh Little Town of Bethlehem". (The movie is of Joaquin singing and doing actions to "Away in a Manger". He learned the actions at school and pulled them out the other night while we were singing. I was totally cuted out.) He also really understands the Christmas story as well. And, this is a total nerdy teacher thing, my little genius is totally able to answer some higher level Bloom's taxonomy questions! I stupidly asked him the other night, "what's important about a manger?" That's a hard question because it's not concrete like, "What is a manger" or "what did they use for baby Jesus to sleep in?" But he stepped right up, thought a second and said, "because baby Jesus used a manger for a crib". I was so proud!