Advent Activities - Part 1

Advent is the time to prepare our homes and ourselves for the celebration of Christ's birth.  While I still do some "school" with the children during the time frame between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the mass majority of the school time is spent focused on Christmas.  We still complete some math, english, and spelling, but our reading is focused on Christmas books, as are our Bible classes.

In my previous post, there was a picture of a felt tree on the wall, and a house like box with many "windows."  This is for our "Jesse Tree."  For those that do not know, a Jesse tree allows the family to read through Scripture in the Bible, starting with Creation, through the birth of Christ, to help grasp the true meaning of Christmas.  Within each of the "windows" of the house, are the symbols made from felt, using this book Let's Make a Jesse Tree.  Each night we would read from The Jesse Tree and add the corresponding felt symbol to our felt tree.  This started on December 1st.

We also used Truth in the Tinsel to help us prepare.  We really enjoyed these activities, however, my older children were a little discouraged with the "lack of craftiness" as far as they were concerned.  I loved the message behind each one, so I think I may need to tweak what we are doing for Christmas 2013.  Here are some pictures of some of the crafts we did with this "program."

On the first Sunday of Advent, each of us receives a new ornament.... the children each get something that represents their interests that year, hubby receives a "religious" ornament, and I receive a Willow Tree ornament.  Here are this year's selections.