Counting Down to Christmas with Advent Calendar
Children love all the excitement of Christmas. Making
their own Advent calendar can help them enjoy the time until
Christmas morning.
Any child can make a paper chain calendar or if you have
the right supplies, the box advent calendar can be used for every
Christmas.
You can find lots of Christmas
craft ideas for decorations, tree ornaments and even some
gifts you can make. Or would you like to read about where some
of our Christmas customs
came from? Looking for some new ideas for celebrating
Christmas?
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Materials - paper, glue,
scissors, pen
- Cut 24 pieces of red and green
colored paper app. 1x6 inches.
- Glue the first piece together
to make a ring.
- Put the second piece through the first and
then glue into ring shape.
- Continue until the chain has 24
links.
The fun comes each morning when the
kids get to take a link off the chain. They can watch as
Christmas morning gets closer and closer!
Ideas to put on the papers
- You can add this
poem to a piece of paper or board that you hang your chain from.
December 1st until Christmas
Is the longest time of the year.
It seems as though old Santa
Never will appear.
How many days until Christmas?
It's mighty hard to count.
So this little chain of links
Will tell you the exact amount.
Please let me know if you have the
authors name. I would like to give credit for the poem.
- For more fun, plan out 24 Christmas
activities that will each take about an hour. Write each
idea on a piece of the chain. As a link is taken off the
chain, read the activity you will do that day. Some ideas
are:
- singing Christmas carols,
- putting up decorations in one
room,
- writing Christmas cards to 10
people,
- making cookies,
- writing a letter to Santa, or
- going for a drive to look at
Christmas lights.
- If you would like your children to have a better understanding
of the true meaning of Christmas, you could put of bible verse on
each piece of paper telling the story of the Birth of Jesus.
- Families celebrating other holidays at this time of the year
could use the idea of a paper chain, but pick their own verses or
stories to put on each paper.
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Experience the beautiful aroma of frankincense and myrrh, the legendary gifts of the Magi.
The Gift of Kings
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Materials Christmas
fabric, card board, 24 match boxes, foil, string
- Decide how large your calendar
will be. You will need an area about 3 foot square
for the boxes. To get an exact size, lay out five boxes in
a row. Allow enough space in between for each box to be
opened. Measure for the width of your calendar and add
about 2 inches on each side. For the height, put five
boxes in a column with about an inch separating each box.
Measure the height and add 2 inches for the top and
bottom.
- Cut out the cardboard in the
finished size of the calendar. Then cut out the fabric 1
inch larger.
- Glue the fabric to the cardboard
and wrap the edges over so that none of the cardboard shows.
- Cut out 25 foil rectangles the
width of each match box and long enough to go all the way around
the match box. Glue the foil to the match box. Make
sure that you can still open each match box.
- Glue the boxes on the calendar in
5 rows of 5.
- Fill the boxes with candy, coins,
or notes.
This activity will take an afternoon
to make, but you will be able to use it for years to come. If
you make this calendar, please send me a picture of the finished
project. I don't know a source for 25 empty match boxes to
make it myself!
Find more ideas to make Christmas
ornaments and Christmas decorations.
Free Christmas Craft Sites
Paper Chrismons
- Christmas projects
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