Super Cute Printable Advent Calendar - Perfect for Celebrating with the Christmas Story & GREAT for beginning readers!
(Alert: Look for a coupon code below!) Welcome to your printable Advent calendar! It's not even Thanksgiving yet as I write this, but fall is in the air, and that means Christmas is right around the corner - yippeee!
Every year at our house, we celebrate the Christmas Story with an Advent Calendar. I'm always looking for ways to "spice up" our Advent journey to make it fun - but also, I like our focus to be on Scripture and the birth of Christ.
So I decided to make THIS ADVENT CALENDAR for My Three Readers. Not only can your child (or all in your family) memorize two Scriptures with this calendar, but also I've inserted a new PHONICS BLEND into each day to review with your beginning reader. (You can also choose NOT to print with the blends if you wish, and just have the Scripture printed.)
I've also included a few fun other Advent ideas for you below, so keep reading..
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This is a great way to be purposeful during the holidays in THREE ways:
A. Remembering the Christmas Story of Jesus' birth every day in the month of December,
B. Memorizing as a family two key Bible verses that celebrate Christmas, and
C. Incorporating phonics blends and digraphs easily into the season by considering a new blend a day, and seeing that blend in the Christmas Scripture of that day. WIN!
Christmas story advent calendar printable
Printables are a QUICK and easy way to celebrate the season of Jesus' birth and the magic of the Christmas story with your family.
There are two ways this calendar can be used to incorporate the Advent with Bible Scripture in your family:
One is by memorizing a simple Bible verse. There are two Bible verses throughout the month to learn:
a) John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."
b) Luke 2:14"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men"
And the second is by reading a verse from the Christmas story each day!
A bonus for your very beginning readers: you can print the phonics blend page onto the "windows" of the Advent (if you choose) to go over a blend a day. And the blend is highlighted in the day's Scripture. So you can see the blend in action.
Advent calendar printable activities
In our house, we have a little tradition. In addition to whatever reading, Scripture, or lesson we do each night around dinnertime, I hide a small piece of candy for each child.
Each day, the kids get a little "clue" and the clue leads the kids to the candy. I usually let them do this before the reading time and Scripture time. I'm still doing this and my oldest are 15 year old twins! They still love it.
This way they aren't waiting and waiting for the reading time to be over, and they can enjoy their treat while listening.
There have been lots of "printable" type activities that we've done throughout the years in addition to the treats. One year we did the names of God, and other years we've looked through different hymns.
Here are some other links to printable Advent activities you might like:
A "Random Act of Kindness" Advent Calendar - Find here by ComeBackMomma
Advent Pyramid Boxes - Find here by PickleBums
Advent calendar Bible verses
These Advent calendars are accompanied by a verse for each day of the first 24 days of December that lead up to Christmas, describing the Christmas story in such a way that kids can understand.
Also, as I mentioned - you can memorize two Scriptures for the season during Advent.
And, there are lots of places on the internet to find great verses to read aloud during the weeks of December.
Here is one that I found helpful!
Thoughtful advent calendar activities
Lots of my friends do the Advent in their family in different creative ways.
They incorporate the fun traditions of Christmas into their Advent. Here are a few ideas I've heard:
- Christmas movies to watch on certain nights,
- Particular meals for certain days of the month,
- Christmas outings (like ice skating or shopping for gifts),
- Caroling,
- Cookie-making (or any kind of desserts!),
- Decorating the house, slowly putting up ornaments day by day
- Wrapping the gifts
And the list goes on and on, depending on the things you like to with your family! Just consider these "Advent" activities and incorporate the Christmas story day by day.
Of course you can do the traditional candle-lighting ceremony of Advent. The actual liturgy of Advent includes the four Sundays before Christmas.
The Advent wreath is a circle of greenery with three purple candles and one pink candle on the perimeter, and one white Christ candle in the center.
We light one new candle (in addition to the candles from the previous week) each Sunday during Advent, with the pink candle being lit on the last Sunday before Christmas. In this case, pink symbolizes “almost here” in the movement from purple to white.
In our family, we have sometime lit the candles as we incorporate Scripture, and celebrate in different ways every year. Of course, we always also have the fun "clue hunt" for a small piece of candy that is fun, too.
Bonus idea for Advent season
I love the idea of reaching out to others and serving and loving one another as we remember the birth of Christ and the miracle of Jesus's birth.
Consider having your family do the "random acts of kindness" throughout the Advent season, or you can serve and help in organizations throughout your community. Consider helping:
A local homeless shelter,
A food bank,
An animal rescue,
Visiting retirement homes,
Participating in canned food drives
I'm sure your family can come up with some really great ways to reach out during the season and making it a part of your Advent traditions!
There are so many ways to celebrate the birth of Christ this year. I hope you are able to make the time to plan something. I know sometimes for us Moms, that "making time" for it is the hardest part.
That's why I made these simple calendars! Easy to just print out at home, and you can do it the day of without thinking a thing about it.
Thanks for checking them out, and let me know what you think!