This year, I’ve decided to make an Advent Calendar for Noah, as I figured he’s old enough to appreciate it. He’s more than happy to listen to me read stories to him, so I thought it’s a good time to teach him more about Christmas as well.
I came across this post by Life is in the Small Things, and fell in love with her version of the Advent Calendar immediately. I checked out the simple Martha Stewart tutorial that she got her inspiration from, and figured that it looked simple enough for me to make.
Most of Noah’s old mittens, booties, and socks have been packed away, but I managed to find twelve pairs that were suitable, as well as one special red sock, that I wanted to use for Christmas Day itself.
Our Advent Calendar from a distance
A closer look
Helping to label the pegs
Next, I came up with a list of items to fill the calendar with. I found some interesting ideas from these websites, which you might be interested in:
You can also take a look at my Advent Calendar Pinterest Board for more ideas.
I decided that I would pick some simple Bible stories to read to Noah, and find various objects associated with these stories, to be used as Christmas tree ornaments.
Here’s a list of the Most Popular Kids’ Bible Stories which I referred to, when I was making my selection for the Advent Calendar, and I also found simplified versions of selected bible stories here.
Some of the stories have multiple teaching points, so I decided to stretch out the story, and use it over a few days to work on related crafts. I picked more than 25 crafts, just in case some don’t work out the way I envisioned. I’m sharing my resources here, which come with the related verses, as well as links to the stories and crafts. You can download and use them in whichever sequence you prefer. For me, I’m starting with the story of Noah’s Ark, mainly because I have many storybooks on it, and Noah is very familiar with the story too. I also chose to place the Nativity Story at the end, with the Baby Jesus craft on Christmas Day itself, since it’s supposed to be His birthday then.
Initially, I thought I would simply buy all the ornaments for the advent calendar, so that the tree would look nice and pretty, but I quickly realised that it was an impossible task. Some of the mummy bloggers that I know were raising funds for Club Rainbow by selling some rainbow loom creations, so I ordered some from them as Christmas tree ornaments, and did my part for charity too. I placed my order on the last possible day, but thankfully, they were all very accommodating, and sent me the rainbow looms very quickly. Check out the pretty ornaments they made!
Flower from The Bottomsup Blog
Rainbows with glow-in-the-dark Clouds from Lil Blue Bottle. I ordered extras for the mums in our playgroup!
An assortment from Mummy Wee.
Our Christmas tree this year will probably look a little odd and uncoordinated, because it’ll be decorated with the crafts that we make each day, instead of the usual ornaments that we put up, though the rainbow looms will help make the tree look prettier. Ultimately, I think our tree will be beautiful in its own way, and I really hope that Noah will learn something from the stories I’ve selected for our Advent Calendar. I’ll share photos on Instagram (@GrowingwiththeTans) of how our tree looks as we go along, so do keep a lookout for them!
*******
If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, do like my Facebook page to get updates. You can also follow me on Twitter (@GrowingwtheTans), Instagram (@GrowingwiththeTans), and Dayre (@GrowingwiththeTans), for short updates on what’s going on in our lives. Thank you! 🙂
Comments