Advent Adventure: Day 1

It's here! December first is tomorrow! I know many of you are feeling the stress of the holidays because the to do lists seem to grow no matter how much you accomplish and there seems to be a never ending collection of events to attend during this month. Sometimes we let ourselves get to the point of being so overwhelmed that we heave a sigh of relief when the holidays have come to an end.

I am somewhere in the middle. I absolutely love this time of year, but I feel the stress that this month can bring. That is why I am making a point this year to take a little time each day to do a few small activities with my daughter to center our hearts and mind on the reason for the season. The activities come a from a packet that I created which can be found here. I will be walking through several days as a time here on the blog starting tomorrow so you can see what it consists of. With that being said, here is day 1 on our Advent Adventure.

Our focus verse for tomorrow is Isaiah 9:6 and the focus or theme is everlasting. We will use the verse card to read the verse, but since I have a preschooler I will have her color the alphabet letters we are working on to get her to focus on it as we talk about it.

Once we have finished our verse, we will move on to the activity for the day which is making an Advent paper chain. Each link of the chain has the day and a verse for the Christmas story that we will read each time we remove a link. I printed our pages off in red and green to make it a festive decoration for our daughter's room.

After we are finished with our paper chain we will move on to the story and the song. Surprisingly, What is Christmas? is not one of the many Christmas stories that we own, so we had to look on Amazon to find a copy. If you click on the book title, it will take you to the book on Amazon to purchase it. If you are not able to order the book, there is also a YouTube link in the packet to a read aloud of the story.

To finish up our study, we will listen to the wonderful Christmas song, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.

This is how we will begin our study of Advent. Tomorrow I will post the information for days 2-6.

Ashley

Embracing Advent

I love all things Christmas! It is my favorite time of year. The books, songs, decor, coffee flavors, and so much more are just so magical. One of those magical parts for me as a Christian is Advent. I have always enjoyed Advent with my students and family, but this year I decided I wanted to make it a more prominent part of our home life. I want to make sure that my daughter focuses on the real meaning for this beautiful season each day, even while being bombarded by everything else. I looked around for awhile to see if I could find something that would work for our family and be engaging to our little one, but all I could find that I liked were in pieces. I don't know about you, but for me, having things in pieces is not a good idea. I lose track of things. This is where my brain took off.

I decided that I would create my own Advent Adventure. I knew what I wanted and I worked to create all the components needed to make it meaningful, engaging, and have as much in one place as possible. I created a day by day packet so that we can focus on Advent daily. Each day has a theme, a scripture passage card, an activity, a story, and a song. I will be including links to song videos and story read alouds on you tube for as many books as I can. This will hopefully help you on those days when you may not have the story in your collection. This is something that can be done at home as a family or in the classroom with your students. Below you will see an image with a few of the things that you can find in this packet.

If you would like more information about this packet you can check out my stories on instagram or the video on my Facebook page.

Instagram: 1st_grade_jungle

Facebook: First Grade Jungle

I am so very excited to start this journey through Advent with my little one. It keep our hearts and our minds focused on the real meaning of the season and it gives us something special to do together each day. 

An Advent Adventure

Ashley

Princess Themed Preschool Activities

Hi Everyone,

Ok over the last couple of months I have found myself looking at my sweet girl through the eyes of a mom but also through the eyes of a teacher. The mom in me says she is perfect in every way and a beautiful blessing. The teacher in me sees all the other things and this is where my two worlds are colliding. I want to help her with the things she is struggling with, but I know that I she won't work with me unless I make it a little fun for her. So that brings me to what I wanted to share with you: princess themed preschool activities.

The last few months I have slowly been putting together little puzzles and activity pages with a princess theme to help my sweet girl practice those skills that she needs to have before she heads into kindergarten next August. She loves that everything has a princess, characters from a princess movie, or items from princess movies. It is making working with her fun for both of us. The first packet I put together has alphabet puzzles with upper and lower case letters, number puzzles with several different ways of showing the number, color puzzles, a fine motor practice sheet, and color coloring books. I also included the princess bingo game I made for her to play at home just because it is fun. Below you can see pictures of each of these items.

The second file I just created recently. This file has princess themed alphabet and number posters. The alphabet posters show the upper and lower case letters on the lines to show placement. They also have an image that has the sound that each letter makes. The number posters and 1-30 and show the number in a variety of ways. Below you can see a sample of what these look like.

With the alphabet posters, I printed them two ways. I printed them two to a page so that I can hang them on her bedroom door. We will point to letters and say what they are any time we enter or leave her room. The second way was six to a page. I did it this way so that I could hole punch them and put them on a ring. With them on a ring they can travel with me, which is perfect since we travel a lot over the next two months. The number posters are currently only printed six to a sheet so that they can be on a ring. I am not as focused on number recognition at the moment as I am letter recognition. Eventually I may print those larger so that they can be hung up somewhere in our house too.

These are just a few simple things that I have decided to use as a mom to help my daughter be ready for kindergarten. Links to both of the products can be found below if you would like to try them out. I am also working on a super hero themed set for little ones as well but that may not be available until after Christmas. We will see how the next few weeks go.

Princess Preschool Activities

Alphabet and Number Posters (Princess Themed)

Have a great day!

Ashley