I have been going over all the possibilities for what we can do for this Advent Season. Ethan, my 6 year old, is getting much more attentive to things and I want to start some traditions that are fun and memorable.
I love the idea of using a
Jesse Tree as a way to count down to Christmas and I have been trying to figure out how to tweak it a little bit to make it work for us.
For the sheer fact that we have about 15 ornaments to decorate our 7 foot fake Christmas tree (which I just got at a yard sale for FREE) we are going to make ornaments to represent the events of the Old Testament that lead up to the birth of Jesus.
Ethan has been asking me how different people relate in time to Jesus and I got so excited. This will tie in so well to the Jesse Tree. Hopefully he will still be interested in 2 weeks. To help Ethan see that Noah came before David and that Solomon came after and so on... we are going to do a little timeline, and incorporate that into our Christmas decorations. I will have Ethan color in, or draw a picture of the story we are going over for the day (to hang on the timeline), we will read about the story from one of our many sources (we have kids bibles and arch books and of course the good old NIV too) and then we will hang up an ornament (most likely handmade) on our tree.
I have yet to decide if I want to start on the day Advent begins, November 28th or on December 1st, as I am still trying to figure out all the stories I want tell.
After Advent, we will continue our timeline during Epiphany with info about Jesus. We may go even further once we get into the season of Lent.
I would love to know if anyone has tried doing the Jesse Tree and if you have any suggestions for me. I am having some difficulty with choosing different ornaments...I have been checking some internet sites and I just feel like there could be better representations of some of the stories.
Also, how do my homeschool friends do school during the Christmas/Advent season? I am wanting to take a break, but Ethan is just getting the hang of reading and I don't want to lose the momentum we have right now.
I will post again about our Advent Season when I figure out the stories we are doing and have our timeline ready for display :)
Ann Voskamp has a wonderful Jesse Tree book, that is complete with the ornaments. Anything from her has to be amazing! It is at the top of my list this year. Last year we had a very small tree too, and got a late start, so we did the 12 days of Advent. I found a very kid friendly site at www.just4kidsmagazine.com/advent1.html it has day one...and ties it into the alphabet, a craft, the 12 days of Christmas song (as it was an underground catechism for Christian children to learn the Gospel...) Also, has a Christmas Carol that corresponds to each day. So at the end you have done crafts, read scripture, sang Christmas carols and the done the alphabet. We just found another website that had images of the 12 days of Christmas that we liked. We copied them, colored them, matted them onto cardstock, punched a hole and tied them on with raffia. So each day we would introduce a new card, sing the song again...and dive into our activities. It was fun...Hope that helps ;)
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