Advent Board

Our family loves celebrating Advent each year.  Here is how we counted down to Christmas last year.  This is our version for this year, and hopefully for many years to come!

The big question is how do we keep our children firmly rooted in their faith and in the religious aspects of the season while still allowing them to feel like they are able to enjoy the more secular aspects of this time of year?  Introducing the Advent Board!

I put this together in a few hours time and am really looking forward to using it!  Here are the seperate aspects of it.

 Our "Road to Bethlehem" is an image of the path Joseph and Mary must travel to reach Bethlehem, where Baby Jesus will be born.  Mary & Joseph have velcro attached to their back, and velcro is attached to the road.  Each day (and there are 28 days of Advent this year), the kids will move them a step closer to the manger in Bethlehem.

 Our Jesse Tree.  A Jesse Tree is another way to countdown to Christmas.  Each day we do activities centering around a different story from the Bible, starting with Creation and counting down until the birth of Jesus.  The activities include attaching an ornament w/ a symbol of that day's story to the tree with velcro, reading that story from the Bible, singing a related song, and saying a related prayer.  I created the ornaments and put together the daily reflections based on other Jesse Trees that I found online.

This is our "secular" section of our Advent Board.  I simply laminated a piece of white paper over a festive piece of scrapbook paper.  Each day I will add a special activity for the kids to do, usually holiday related (i.e. Drink Peppermint Hot Chocolate, Watch a Christmas Movie, etc.).

How does your family countdown to Christmas?

I am linking up to:

Turkey Tot School and Preschool Corner

M is 3 2/3 years old

R is 23 months old

We ended up taking it fairly easy this week so I don't have much to show, but here is what we DID do.

Printables

Do a Dot Pages from A Heart for Home

Turkey Color By Number by Heidisongs Resource
and Turkey Coloring Page (google image search)

Thankgiving Pre-writing Maze
(I can't seem to remember where I found this!  If you have a link for me, please let me know so that I can give credit where it is due!)

What's Different Pages from Lawteedah

Turkey Shadow Matching from A Heart for Home

Turkey Dinner Size Sorting
(I can't seem to remember where I found this! If you have a link for me, please let me know so that I can give credit where it is due!)

I printed out these Turkey Placemats for my MOMS Club monthly meeting and the kids enjoyed coloring them!

Field Trip
We took the kids to Story Time at Barnes and Noble and the kids got to do a turkey headband craft.

Coloring their pictures and turkeys

Enjoying fresh baked cookies while wearing her turkey hat!

We also went to visit my brother-in-law, who is a firefighter.  He was just moved to the station that is down the street from us, so the kids had a blast being shown all around the firehouse by their uncle.

Books


Pinterest
Are you on Pinterest?  I always have so many more ideas than what I actually use, so check out my Thanksgiving Theme Pinterest board if you are looking for more ideas.

Past Unit
Make sure to check out the Thanksgiving themed activities from last year, including our black and white Thanksgiving Preschool Skills Pack that I made before we had a color printer.

That's all for this week! To see what other toddlers and preschoolers are learning this week, check out the official Preschool Corner website and Tot School Website! 

Leaf Tot School and Preschool Corner

M is 3 2/3 years old

R is 23 months old

Printables
All of this week's printables are from 2 Teaching Mommies.

Leaf Do a Dot Sheets
I've never really done these with M, but R LOVES them, and has gotten M hooked too.

Leaf Parts Beginning Letter Sound Matching

Which is Different worksheet

Leaf Counting Clip Sheets

Pre-Writing Sheets
I am still impressed with how well M is doing with these, compared to only a couple of months ago!  I guess practice makes perfect!

Montessori Style Trays

Leaf Lacing
It's not a very good shot, but I punched holes in some not-too-dry leaves and R laced w/ a pipe cleaner while M laced with a shoe string.

Leaf Crunching
They crunched up the leaves into tiny pieces - what great fine motor practice!

Art

Leaf Glitter Art
They made pictures using glue and then added their crushed up leaves from the activity above as "glitter".

The finished pieces.

We went to a friend's house for a playdate earlier this week and she had an awesome little craft for the kids that fit right in with our theme this week!  They used sponges to add leaves to these great trees.

M filled her tree with leaves!

R's was a bit more sparse - all his leaves had already fallen off! :)

Activities

Leaf Imprints in Playdough

Just for Fun
The kids LOVE all the leaves falling in our front yard and have been going out daily to jump in leaf piles!

Books


Pinterest
Are you on Pinterest?  I always have so many more ideas that I actually use, so check out my Leaf Theme Pinterest board if you are looking for more ideas!

Past Unit
Make sure to check out the Leaf themed activities we did last year, including our Leaf Family Night.

Life
M had her end-of-semester ballet recital today.  It was so cute!  Her class is 3-5 year olds and most of them (including M) were completely clueless about what they were doing.  :)

She's the little one in the middle. :)

R had his "friend" bday party this weekend.  I can't believe he's almost 2!

That's all for this week! To see what other toddlers and preschoolers are learning this week, check out the official Preschool Corner website and Tot School Website! 

We are also participating in:

 

Halloween Tot School & Preschool Corner

M is 3 2/3 years old

R is 23 months old

We've been doing a lot of schooling right after we wake up lately, so forgive all the pajama shots!  (Better than our post-nap no-pants shots that we usually do!). :)

Printables

Bat Roll & Color from 2 Teaching Mommies for M (roll die, stamp that number of circles)
Color the Pumpkins from Oopsey Daisy for R (color the pumpkins the same color as the words)
R can match his colors, but had absolutely no desire to do it with this page!

So of course, my OCD girl had to correct him.  At least she was nice about it:
"It's ok, you just need a little more learning.  You'll get it when you're bigger!"

What's Missing from Lawteedah
Each sheet had 3 things different in each panel. 
Instead of just circling them, she actually drew in what was missing.
R isn't in the picture, but he was trying to help point things out.

Pre-writing Sheet from Itsy Bitsy Learners
(Sign up for newsletter to get occasional freebies - this one was free for a couple days earlier this month!
Look how good she's getting!

Count & Clip, Phonic Clip cards from 2 Teaching Mommies

Shape Match from 2 Teaching Mommies
He wasn't too interested in matching, but he did ask me to name all the shapes several times through.

Shadow Match from Over the Big Moon

Montessori Style Trays

Spooky Spooning
(We used white beans that I added ghost eyes and mouths to)
M used a baby spoon to add them to a tiny cube ice tray
R used a coffee scoop to add them to a cup

Spooky Sifting
They both sifted Halloween erasers out of bowls of rice.

Halloween Lacing
M laced some string through the tiny holes at the top of some plastic skeletons.
R laced his string through spider, bat, and skull rings.

Showing off their necklaces!

Activities

Spooky PE
I found some awesome movement cards from Oopsey Daisy that the kids loved!
Here they are rolling like pumpkins; some of the other favorite cards were flying like bats and marching like mummies!

Field Trips

M went to a Halloween themed birthday party last week!

Here they both are in their costumes, about to head off to another party!
It took a while for me to get the Jesse & Woody costumes together, but I love them!

Making pumpkin faces at a friend's Halloween Party

R needed a little help from daddy!

They also came to the Fall Carnival & Mini Trunk or Treat that my MOMS Club hosted, but I didn't manage to get any shots of them before daddy took them home!

Trick or Treating on Halloween night!

Books
For some reason the little Book Widget is not working, but here are the books we enjoyed this week.
Over in the Hollow by Rebecca Dickinson
Goodnight Goon by Michael Rex
Disney Princess: Sweet and Spooky Halloween by RH Disney
AlphaOops: H is for Halloween by Alethea Kontis

Pintrest
Are you on Pintrest? I (again) had SO many more ideas than what we actually got to this week, so check out my Halloween Theme board if you are storing ideas away for next year!

Just For Fun

The kids were really into helping in the kitchen this week.
Here they are helping me make biscuits.

M's legs are FINALLY long enough to ride the tricycle we bought her last year for Christmas.
Now to work on those pedaling skills!

That's all for this week! To see what other toddlers and preschoolers are learning this week, check out the official Preschool Corner website and Tot School Website!