A Christmas Carol – printable quotes to grace your home throughout the Christmas season

A Christmas Carol – printable quotes to grace your home throughout the Christmas season

We love printable garlands, and we’ve been meaning to make one for the Christmas season. Today we are sharing with you some printable wall art and garlands with quotes from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

 

What inspired us to create these printables? Reading A Christmas Carol as a family this Advent season and spending the first 3 weeks in December doing the Read Aloud Revival Christmas School. Though we had heard of it before, we never took the leap of faith to switch gears from our regular curriculum and do Christmas School (which really takes place during Advent, to prepare for Christmas). We are so glad we did this year!

We so much enjoyed doing the Read Aloud Revival Christmas School that we were actually sad when it ended, even though Christmas vacation was about to begin. We hope hanging up these quotes in our home will help us to remember the joy of Christmas School… and if you did Christmas School, or you are just a fan of Dickens, perhaps you’ll love them too. You can find the printable quotes to frame and the garland in our Etsy shop

 

Thanks to Christmas School, as we headed into Christmas vacation this year, our hearts and our home felt so much more ready for Christmas than they normally do when Christmas vacation begins.

I felt inspired to spread the word about Christmas School because it was such a blessing for our family, and we imagine some of our readers might like to learn more about it. Christmas School is designed for homeschoolers, but it could be used (at least partially) by all families (perhaps on the weekends or evenings during Advent).

Christmas School is different every year, but this year Christmas School was based around Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Christmas School provided us with a complete curriculum (except for math) for 3 weeks in December, including writing, grammar, art, music, science, and history. I’m not usually one to completely follow a curriculum (because I like to go along with my own inspiration), but I was so happy to follow the Christmas School curriculum… truly a feast of beautiful learning!

We found ourselves looking forward to getting up every morning and reading from Little Christmas Carol (lightly edited and sweetly illustrated for children by Joe Sutphin), and then filling the day with things like learning about the history of nativity scenes, and then putting up our own… learning about conifers and evergreens, and going on a nature walk to find some in our neighborhood, and then heading out to pick out a Christmas tree… making punch to celebrate Dickens-style… learning about Christmas songs… reading and writing poetry… baking… doing art projects… and so much more!

 

Our 5 year-old says, “Christmas school is the funnest!” And though we might say it differently, we all feel the same! Christmas school allowed us to learn and grow in the typical school subjects, while also preparing our hearts and our home for Christmas. 

Because our hearts are so full of sweet memories of Christmas School this year, we decided to create printable wall art and a printable garland with some of the most beautiful quotes from A Christmas Carol.

“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”

“For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.”

Whether you did Christmas School this year too, or you just love Charles Dickens, you might like to print these printables as a reminder to keep celebrating throughout the Christmas season. You can find them on Etsy. (Your purchase from our little Etsy shop helps us to cover blogging expenses. Thank you so much for your support!)

Once the printables are downloaded, you can re-print them whenever you like, year after year. You’ll want to print them on cardstock or printer-friendly watercolor paper. For the garland it is helpful to have a 1/8″ hole punch, a 2.25″ circle punch (or scissors), and narrow ribbon or twine. Complete instructions are included in the download.

After the stockings come down on Christmas morning, the garland could perhaps take their place along the mantel… as a reminder to always keep the spirit of Christmas in our hearts. Little framed prints can be placed around the house as a happy reminder that Christmas continues as well.

To find out more about Christmas School, you can visit Sarah Mackenzie’s Read Aloud Revival. Read Aloud Revival is our go-to place to find peace and reassurance in our homeschool all throughout the year too.

Wishing you a joyous Christmas season!

You might also like…

Gluten-free cut-out cookies

Does Santa need some gluten-free cookies at your house? These are also low-carb, making them a bit heathier than your typical cookie (but still yummy!).

diy santons de provence

Make your own nativity

Learn about Santons de Provence (French nativities), and the many figures that surround the nativity. Then have fun making your own!

french valentine garland

Valentine Scripture Garland (in French or English)

Print and decorate this sweet garland for Valentine’s Day.

Note:  Some links on this page are Amazon Affiliate links.  Sparkles and Sprinkles is a participant in the Amazon Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Other links may or may not be affiliate links.  We provide links because we have found these products or services beneficial, and we think you might too.

Summer Flower Walk and Other Fun Flower Activities

Summer Flower Walk and Other Fun Flower Activities

Here at Sparkles and Sprinkles, we have stepped away from the computer for quite a while… the sunshine and the garden were calling, and we just had to answer.  But we are hopping back into our blog for a bit to bring you some ideas that you can take right back outside:  a flower scavenger hunt, flower arranging for kids, painting a floral still life, and more.  Enjoy!

Summer Flower Walk

Where we live, it gets too hot in the afternoon to spend much time outside, but our daughters love early morning walks.  This weekend our 7-year-old asked if we could do the spring flower scavenger hunt that we had created for Mother’s Day.  This gave us a great opportunity to talk about how different flowers bloom at different times of year, and inspired us to make another flower scavenger hunt for the summer.  

flower walk french english scavenger hunt
summer flower walk french english anglais francais
zinnia flower scavenger hunt

Click on the images below to download your free summer flower scavenger hunt card!  One is in English and the other is bilingual in French and English.  When you print it, print in landscape.  Choose “print on both sides of paper” and click “flip on short edge” in order to make it into a card to invite someone on a flower walk.  Or simply print the first page if you only want a one-sided scavenger hunt page.  It can be printed on regular printer paper, but we recommend cardstock.

summer flower scavenger hunt

Summer Flower Walk in English

french summer flower scavenger hunt francias anglais

Summer Flower Walk (French and English)

Books to enjoy about flowers

When the afternoon heat makes staying inside in air conditioning the best idea, we have some suggestions for you on books we love with a flower theme.  Miss Rumphius and Katie and the Impressionists.  We are also enjoying a delightful new book by Sarah Mackenzie that is inspired by Miss Rumphius. It’s called A Little More Beautiful.  The images below are links to Amazon if you are interested in purchasing the books, or you can find them at your local library.

Making bouquets

Children seem to naturally love making bouquets, so we love to plant flowers that thrive when cut… roses, zinnias, cosmos, and verbena to name a few.  We also love adding sweet smelling accents to our bouquets – lavender, mint and rosemary – these plants tend to thrive and spread year after year without much care (that’s a big plus when growing a garden of children is really our primary job!).  To help your children make a bouquet, give them options for what can be cut in the garden, then cut the flowers they choose.  (Alternatively, if you don’t have a garden, picking up a bouquet from the store and allowing your children to cut the flowers and make smaller arrangements can also be fun!)  Then allow your child to pick a sturdy, small vase or jar.  Give your children time to arrange the flowers to their liking… a great opportunity for everyone to really take the time to stop and smell the flowers.   

wild flowers to arrange
flower arrangement for kids
wild flower arrangement

Art inspired by flowers

To give your children a chance to really look closely at flowers, painting a still life can be so much fun!  Bringing paper and painting supplies outside to paint in the garden can also be delightful!  Some of our favorite art supplies for painting flowers, and especially painting outside, are the Canson Mixed Media sketch book (great heavy weight paper and easily transportable small size) and Faber-Castell watercolor pencils (sketch and then brush with water) or washable watercolors for younger children.   

flower sketch
flower water color

Enjoy the beauty of summer!

Would you like to find out when we post new craft ideas and recipes?  Consider subscribing to www.sparklesandsprinkles.blog.  Simply enter your email in the form below.  Welcome!

Note:  Some links on this page are Amazon Affiliate links.  Sparkles and Sprinkles is a participant in the Amazon Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Other links may or may not be affiliate links.  We provide links because we have found these products or services beneficial, and we think you might too.