Advent 2016

Advent Happenings for 2016

So I have to admit that I was overwhelmed this year in thinking about Advent and trying to figure out what precisely to do with the kids.  I put way to much pressure on myself!  This is mainly for my own personal record but here are some things we settled on doing this December.  I did end up deciding to ditch most other school stuff in the curriculum and get lots of Christmas books out of the library and enjoy reading those and having different themes for the week.

Christmas Books-  We read a different Christmas book each day- I love the idea of wrapping a book and opening it each day but I didn't make it that far- we just read the books.  It did remind me that I want to accumulate in my library more good Christmas books.  We had different things such as Candy Canes, St. Nicholas, Poinsettias and the Nativity. 

Singing- We would get our instruments out each day and sing carols together.  One of my favorite activities we did was taking the kids caroling to a nursing home.  Jeremiah and Lydia loved going around and singing to the residents- esp. Silent Night- the song they knew the best.

Devotional-  We read one story a day from The Jesus Storybook Bible, leading up to Christ's birth and going through the Old Testament.  We also tried doing Truth in the Tinsel  and making ornaments for each lesson and above is our ornament tree we made.  10 days before Christmas we did our book Donkey in the Living Room, where we hide random characters from the Christmas story.  We also would light our Advent Wreath candles on the table.

Baking & Crafts-  We did some baking of cookies and made buckeyes and chocolate covered pretzels with various friends.  We enjoyed doing Gingerbread Houses with graham crackers with kids from co-op.  We made baggies up for the school kids that walk down the street with the Legend of the Candy Cane on it and handed them out to our school street kids with a little food treat and pack of toy animals.  We tried our hand at a few crafts- making a few linen towels as gifts, some wood paintings and sun catchers and decorating some picture frames.