Advent Activities #3

Here are the final four of our advent activities, the first four are here, the next seven are here and the full list is here.

All four themes are about all the celebrations we have at Christmastime because it is such an important time.

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CELEBRATING

– Birthday party for Jesus with bunting, streamers, balloons, blowers, hats and we will bake a cake together

– Making bon bons/crackers (we chose to use a wind-up toy for each bon bon so we can race them on Christmas day. Jokes from here)

– Learning fractions with cardboard cakes

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DECORATIONS

– Colour matching

– Guess and count contents of baubles

– Bell and pipe cleaner wreath (idea from here)

– Decorations sensory tub

– Jar to fill with snow and trees

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TREES

– Threading Christmas tree (idea from here)

– Wooden Christmas trees to decorate

– Finding and counting decorations on a tree

– Filling Christmas tree ornaments

– Velcro ornaments for a Christmas tree (idea from here)

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BAKING

– Pretend Christmas lunch (idea from here)

– Matching gingerbread word families

– Felt cookie and icing set

– Building gingerbread houses

– Gingerbread playdough (not pictured)

– Baking cookies (not pictured)

xo

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Advent Activities #2

Here are the majority of our advent activities for this year. The first four themes are here, the last four are here and the full list is here.

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ANGELS

We will look at the messages the angels brought and focus on their rejoicing at that good news.

– Angel pancakes (not pictured)

– Decorating polystyrene angels

– Painting with angel cookie cutters as stamps

– Pom pom and wooden peg angels (idea from these fairies)

– Angel wing match (matching pairs of words with the same silent letter – k, h, w, b, g and t)

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CAROLS

Linked to our theme of angels, we will enjoy the music of Christmas carols as well as the message they tell.

– Wooden spoon carolers, which we will both make and use as puppets

– Matching lyrics of carols

– Salt tray with sheet music of carols underneath

– Singing together

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SHARING THE GOOD NEWS

Again this theme is linked to angels – just as they shared the good news we also want to share it. I have chosen to incorporate bells into this theme as they bring attention to those sharing the good news. I also want to reinforce and have the little man retell the Christmas story in different ways so that he is proficient at sharing it.

– Christmas bingo

– Bell Hershey kisses memory. We have two versions, one using pictures and another using lower and uppercase letters (idea from here)

– Bell scoop transfer (idea from this bauble transfer)

– Storybook prompts for the little man to write his own Christmas story

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SHEPHERDS

Once again the shepherds shared the good news, and glorified and praised God for what they saw, so we will focus on doing the same.

– Sheep and shepherd tic-tac-toe

– Multiplication by counting groups of stars, angels, sheep and shepherds

– Paper bag sheep with painted wool and details to glue on

– Marshmallow sheep (idea from here)

– Paper people sheep and shepherds to decorate

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WISE MEN

The wise men were joyful and worshipped Jesus, giving him gifts, so we will encourage each other in how we can worship Jesus also.

– Wise men chalkboard silhouettes to draw on

– Cut and paste wise men craft

– Felt crowns to decorate

– More and less than with gold coins

– Wise men bottles with stars (we have one bigger one to represent the star that the wise men followed), glitter, water and oil (idea from here, under science activities)

– Explanation of the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh (not pictured)

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STARS

This theme is linked to the wise men and the star that they followed.

– Crayon resist star painting

– Star search and find (there are chocolate stars hidden in with the Hershey kisses)

– Wool wrapped star ornaments

– Star cinnamon ornaments (not pictured)

– Star sandwich (not pictured)

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GIFTS AND KINDNESS

This theme is also linked to the wise men and we will use it to encourage each other to be selfless and kind toward others.

– Gift-wrapping station (idea from here)

– Wrapping candy using cut out paper to look like a wise man (we have used small boxes of skittles)

– Washi tape tree cards, both to make and to write in and give to others (inspired by these cards)

– Small presents for some of the little man’s friends

– Painting presents using a square stamp and ribbons

– Coming up with ways to be kind (not pictured)

xo

Advent Activities #1

Here are the details of our first four advent activities this year. The next seven are here, the final four are here and the full list is here.

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ADVENT

We will be explaining advent itself, the anticipation, preparation for and countdown to the celebration of the coming of Jesus.

– Handprint wreaths (inspired by this but there are plenty of instructions elsewhere also)

– Finishing patterns on wreaths using holly leaves and berries

– Ways to make the number 24 (using 24 red balls and 24 pipe cleaners)

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MARY AND JOSEPH

We will look at Mary and Joseph, their journey to Bethlehem and their obedience to God’s plan for them.

– Journey to Bethlehem game, reading words with ‘s’ and ‘sh’ sounds

– Shadow puppets

– Roll and create a felt picture of Mary and Joseph’s journey

– Mary’s song and praising God

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JESUS AND THE NATIVITY

This theme will focus on the birth of Jesus.

– Matchbox manger (inspired by this)

– Matching words and pictures

– Learning to draw a nativity scene, each page of the book builds one more element into the scene (idea from here)

– Cut and paste nativity scene

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JESUS, LIGHT OF THE WORLD

– Light of the world find-a-word

– Silhouette nativity scene candle holders (I have used black contact on jars and battery operated tea lights)

– Star and manger light garland (we will place a light from the string of lights through each of the stars and manger)

– Torch projections of star, candle and manger

– Light of the world verses

xo

Advent

For advent this year I wanted to make sure our focus is on Jesus, his birth and his purpose in coming as a man so I have chosen to make the little men some themed activities. I came up with 15 themes, listed below, and the other days in the advent season I have Christmas books for them to open, most of which are retellings of the Christmas story.

Our themes will be:

– Advent

– Mary and Joseph

– Jesus and the nativity

– Jesus, light of the world

– Angels

– Carols

– Sharing the good news

– Shepherds

– Wise men

– Stars

– Gifts and kindness

– Celebrating

– Decorations

– Trees

– Baking

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The details of the first four are here, the next seven are here and the final four are here.

xo

Nativity Mini Viewer

I made the nativity story in the format of a mini viewer using these instructions (I only have one style of drawing so these scenes are largely the same as the ones I drew last year). This was really easy and fun to make and the little man loves it so we have had many opportunities to retell the story of the birth of Jesus. I count that as a win.

xo

Gingerbread

I love baking gingerbread and Christmas doesn’t feel like Christmas to me until I’ve made a gingerbread house. This year my inspiration was the little man who asked, “why can’t I have a gingerbread house that I can play with?” (we can work on the manners later, but I don’t see any reason why he can’t). Here’s what I came up with.

The two pieces slot together to make a 3-dimensional house, and of course we needed some people to play in it. I’m still hoping to add some gingerbread furniture (unless of course the house has been eaten before I have the chance).

The little man has also helped me make some more simple cookies (he is intrigued by wreaths at the moment so we decided to make an edible one). He has been playing with gingerbread playdough recently so he was quite excited that this dough was “real” and could bake in the “real oven” and, most importantly, that “we can eat this one”.

xo

Cookie Swap

I have eaten a lot of cookies lately, a lot. I hosted a cookie swap, a tradition that more Australians need to adopt, and had a wonderful time baking, eating, choosing packaging and enjoying the company of friends. Thanks to all of you for making it a great afternoon!

For packaging and decorating I had homemade mini pom poms, holly berries, washi tape, wooden decorations, bells, mini pegs, doilies, ribbons and twine. Packaging supplies from my craft supply, kikki.K and Shmick.

xo

Simple Christmas Story

We have been spending a lot of time telling and re-telling the Christmas story over the past few weeks. Here is a simple version that I wrote and illustrated for the little man to decorate and some simple crafts to go along with it.

– peg and doily angel

– cardboard tube donkey (inspired by these reindeer)

– baby Jesus in an egg carton manger

– wool and cardboard sheep (idea from here)

– cardboard wise man crown for the little man to wear, decorated with stickers and jewels

xo

Snow Globe

We’ve been doing plenty of fun Christmas things this week both at home and out, here was one of our favourites (isn’t glitter always a favourite?).

There are plenty of instructions for making snow globes and they are so simple. We used these instructions (we found our one with only water works just as well as our one with water and glycerin and our Christmas tree is a candle).

xo