The First Week of Advent in our Homeschool

This week we have been busy preparing to get ready for Advent in anticipation of Christmas. I've been trying to get some cleaning and organizing done. The girls saw the Christmas decoration boxes and decided they needed to "decorate." So of course we had a mess of tinsel all over the floor, a few decorations scattered around, a smushed decoration that my pregnant hormones didn't take too well (it was my mother's Little Drummer Boy which I remember being on the tree when I was a child) and an attempt at hanging stocking on our banister.

I absolutely love my girls and the fact that they are so excited to help.  With every thing else I am trying to get done, I still have to fix the stockings and finish decorating. However...

We have been taking a section off of our Advent Countdown Trees every night at Bible Time. 

Below our Advent Countdown Tree you will find a pile of Christmas presents.

I saw this idea on a couple of blogs. I hunted through our bookshelves and took out some books from the library. The idea is to wrap enough books to be able to open one a day to read during Advent. The thing that is great with this idea is you can start with how many days are left until Christmas. For example, today there are only 17 days left until Christmas. You could still wrap 17 books and have your child(ren) open one book a day. 

Here are the girls all ready to wrap the books.

Amelia got to open the first book.

Tabitha opened the second book, but she didn't want me to take a picture. Hannah then opened the third.

She loves books and proceeded to look through it right away.

Then I decided I wanted to make a Advent Place Mat. I had the girls color a nativity scene.

Then I cut it out, glued it onto black paper and wrote the numbers 1-20 (as that was how many days were left until Christmas by the time I got to this).

Tabitha's:

Amelia's:

Hannah's:

I then covered them in contact paper as I want them to be placemats.

Every evening during Bible Time we are covering the highest number with a star sticker, showing how many days are left until Christmas.

So there are two more Advent Countdown ideas I wanted to share. I realize it is now Dec 8th, but as I mentioned, these ideas are very flexible and can still be used no matter what day you start, just adjust your days accordingly.

I am linking to