The time for Advent preparation is here! If you have small children this is a very special time, but it can feel difficult to communicate anything with them about the meaning of the season in a way they could understand. In this post I’m going to share some simple advent ideas which have helped me over the years with my younger children.
To start, you don’t need lots of expensive resources. Sometimes we can struggle with resource anxiety, thinking that we need to buy all the right things to teach our children. But with small children it is always best to keep things simple. Here are my top advent ideas to help you and your children celebrate Advent.
A Book to Read
Firstly, a book for you to read. I referred back to this book so often when my children were all preschoolers. The Christmas section has lots of practical ideas too. I made my advent calendar for my children many years ago using an idea from this book.
You can download the book for free here.
Daily Advent Readings
Another great advent idea is to plan a daily advent reading. It really helps small children to grasp the Christmas story and anticipate Christmas if you gradually learn the story together. The amount of options out there can feel very overwhelming (and very expensive!). But I found a simple plan online which I have used over the years. You can find it for free here.
The family who wrote this plan use a Playmobil nativity scene with their readings. A visual nativity scene is important for small children. I have used a felt nativity scene, a knitted nativity scene and also a set china figurines over the years. Make something simple that you think your children will like.
Music
Music is so important for small children to engage with ideas, and a great advent idea is to play some music they can sing along to! This album is fantastic. The music is really catchy, and the songs are all made up of passages from the Bible which tell the story of Christmas. I highly recommend this for Advent.
There are many other Advent ideas which you can explore over the years, but I hope this gives you a simple place to start enjoying Advent with your small children this year.
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Thanks for stopping by, I hope you found this post helpful. If you would like to read more you can begin reading my series on homemaking here:
The Homemaking Life: An Introduction