Silver Packages

Silver Packages: An Appalachian Christmas Story by Cynthia Rylant is an excellent book for the Christmas season! About a gift train that heads into poor Appalachian country each year, it makes for a wonderful example of giving at Christmas time.

I loosely used this unit from Homeschool Share to do a mini-unit this week. We covered geography, history, social studies, some language arts, a little science, and a lot of Bible. It brought us back to our cozy Five In A Row days. What good memories!

The best part of the unit was when my children decided to each buy a gift to give to a needy child. We were going to send the gifts to the real gift train, but in the end the kids decided they would rather help a child in our own community. So, with their wallets in hand, they each bought a gift that will be given to our local fire station’s Toys For Tots drive. It warms my heart to see them giving.