5 Ways to Observe Advent in Your Homeschool

Advent Calendar Activities

This Advent Bible reading plan and devotional offers 24 days of selected passages for Bible reading, a short devotional, and discussion questions for families with younger children. It can be tailored to any age group, as well as used individually, or as a family.

In these busy days, it becomes even more important to set aside time for family–and personal–devotional time. A lesson about the three Magi and their long journey fits beautifully into Advent lessons about patience and faith. This free seven-day devotional, “Three Kings: Seeking Christ After Christmas,” fits perfectly into one of the weeks of Advent leading up to Christmas, or the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. You can use the suggested activities to reinforce the lessons or occupy the hands of little ones during a discussion, or omit them, and tailor the discussion questions to your children’s ages.

This printable Christmas story from DLTK’s Growing Together includes 24 coloring pages, each with a corresponding Scripture passage. Children of all ages will enjoy coloring the intricate illustrations, which could then be bound together creating an Advent story book.

This free printable from Real Life at Home offers ideas for meaningful activities for you and your family to participate in throughout Advent. Items on the list can be “checked off” in no particular order by coloring in the star next to the entry–a fun way for younger children to keep track of the family’s activities.

For the youngest children, creating or even following a calendar may be difficult. This sensory Nativity box from The Fairy and The Frog gives them a chance to experience the Christmas story, and could even be used as an Advent “calendar” of sorts, by dividing up the items in the box and presenting the story in parts each week. Items could be added to the sensory box–or bag–to represent new events, and the older items used to recap the earlier events.