I've been on the lookout for an affordable Advent calendar since Emma was born. Kelly and I stumbled across these wooden ones during a late night Target roaming trip, and I feel in love with this one. Well, actually, I fell in love with them all, especially the super cute present one. But I'm trying to incorporate more of the religious side of Christmas into our December so I bought the nativity Advent calendar.
I just finished stuffing the cubbies for our Advent calendar and I have had so much fun with this little project! I spent waaaaay too much time on this yesterday during naptime. And after bedtime. And I'm still printing things out today because I forgot to make two copies of the coloring pages for Grant to scribble on. Anyway.
I decided to make our Advent calendar part Santa Christmas and part baby Jesus Christmas. So I found a child friendly birth of Jesus story and cut it up into 6 sections and stuffed it into 6 cubbies.
I also found a nativity scene made for a felt board, so I printed out a bunch of the templates and stuck a note in various cubbies saying things like "Color baby Jesus, Joseph, and Mary". After the kids color them, we'll cut them out and tape them on their bedroom door. We'll keep adding the characters until the nativity scene is complete. Then we'll also talk about who those people are since Emma is starting to ask questions about them. Each person they color is mentioned in the child friendly birth of Jesus story.
We're also doing an Advent wreath to talk about the things the candles stand for - hope, peace, love, joy (not from a church point of view, just as good human qualities). So the kids will color their wreath today since I didn't have it all together on Sunday and then a new candle every Sunday. We'll tape the candles to the wreath each Sunday, and finish the wreath off with a big white bow on the 25th to symbolize Jesus birth.
Then finally, the Santa side. More coloring pages! And also little notes in the cubbies that say things like "Write a letter to Santa and mail it to the North Pole", or on the 24th "Don't forget to leave cookies and carrots for Santa and the reindeer". I got some ideas from this blog I stumbled upon. Scroll down a bit to find the list of activities.
For the coloring pages I just did various google searches for Santa coloring pages, Christmas tree coloring pages, and reindeer coloring pages.
So the cubbies are stuffed, and I'm pretty excited! Now I just need to problem solve how to make the calendar accessible to Emma, but prevent Grant from unstuffing all the days all at once. I'll report back on that one.
I just finished stuffing the cubbies for our Advent calendar and I have had so much fun with this little project! I spent waaaaay too much time on this yesterday during naptime. And after bedtime. And I'm still printing things out today because I forgot to make two copies of the coloring pages for Grant to scribble on. Anyway.
I decided to make our Advent calendar part Santa Christmas and part baby Jesus Christmas. So I found a child friendly birth of Jesus story and cut it up into 6 sections and stuffed it into 6 cubbies.
I also found a nativity scene made for a felt board, so I printed out a bunch of the templates and stuck a note in various cubbies saying things like "Color baby Jesus, Joseph, and Mary". After the kids color them, we'll cut them out and tape them on their bedroom door. We'll keep adding the characters until the nativity scene is complete. Then we'll also talk about who those people are since Emma is starting to ask questions about them. Each person they color is mentioned in the child friendly birth of Jesus story.
We're also doing an Advent wreath to talk about the things the candles stand for - hope, peace, love, joy (not from a church point of view, just as good human qualities). So the kids will color their wreath today since I didn't have it all together on Sunday and then a new candle every Sunday. We'll tape the candles to the wreath each Sunday, and finish the wreath off with a big white bow on the 25th to symbolize Jesus birth.
Then finally, the Santa side. More coloring pages! And also little notes in the cubbies that say things like "Write a letter to Santa and mail it to the North Pole", or on the 24th "Don't forget to leave cookies and carrots for Santa and the reindeer". I got some ideas from this blog I stumbled upon. Scroll down a bit to find the list of activities.
For the coloring pages I just did various google searches for Santa coloring pages, Christmas tree coloring pages, and reindeer coloring pages.
So the cubbies are stuffed, and I'm pretty excited! Now I just need to problem solve how to make the calendar accessible to Emma, but prevent Grant from unstuffing all the days all at once. I'll report back on that one.
0 comments:
Post a Comment