DIY Advent Calendar: Week 1

It’s been a week since we began working on the crafts in our DIY Advent Calendar, and although I sometimes wonder if I was too ambitious in coming up with these crafts, it has been quite fun and satisfying to see our tree beginning to look more colourful. 

Here’s a quick photo update of our first week!

Day 1: Noah’s Ark 

Initially, I wanted to start with the Creation Story, since you know, it’s THE beginning, but in the end, I figured it might be easier if I started with Noah’s Ark, a story that Noah is pretty familiar with, to ease him into the whole process of reading a story, and working on one or two crafts daily. I actually selected two crafts for this, but decided that the rainbow I got was way prettier than what I was going to do, so we didn’t do a craft on Monday.

Our collection of books on Noah’s Ark

PlayMobil Noah’s Ark (Last year’s Christmas gift from my friend)

Sending the animals two by two into the ark

Noah, the ark, and the rainbow!

Hanging the rainbow on the tree

Day 2: The Creation Story (Light and Darkness)

I gave Noah a small tap light, and got him to press it when we got to the part where God said, “Let there be light!”. He was pretty amused by it, and is able to remember those words quite well, probably because of that.

Checking the Advent Calendar

The passage we read

“Let there be light!”

“Darkness!” he exclaimed.

Gluing the light and darkness circles together

Hanging it up carefully

Done!

Day 3: The Creation Story (Sky)

This was a very simple craft, and just a tad bit more complicated than Day 2’s. I got Noah to paste some cotton wool onto the blue paper to form clouds, and that was it.

Checking the Advent Calendar

The passage

Working on the clouds

Hanging it up

Close-up

Noah with the sky and cloud

Day 4: The Creation Story (Earth, Flowers, and Trees)

This was also very simple, as all I did was get Noah to colour the three pictures. I also bought two rainbow looms, a flower and a tree, to hang on the tree. I think they definitely make the tree a lot more colourful and pretty!

Checking the Advent Calendar

The passage

Colouring under McQueen’s supervision

Showing McQueen his work

Hanging it up

Close-ups

Posing with his work

Day 5: The Creation Story (Sun and Moon)

This required some preparation on my part, as I had to cut some yellow and orange triangles for the sun’s rays, as well as a star for the moon. Noah also wasn’t very good at colouring the paper plates, and I had to help him with it in the end.

Checking the Advent Calendar

The passage

Colouring

Pasting the sun’s rays

His sun and moon

Hanging the sun

Close-ups

Posing with the sun and moon

Day 6: The Creation Story (Fish and Birds)

I was quite excited about doing the crafts for this day, as I had grand plans of us working on them as a family. We traced our hands on construction paper, and cut them out for the fish. All I had to do was add an eye to each fish, and Noah helped to draw the mouths. This was so simple, yet so cute! For the birds, I gave Noah two paper plates, and plenty of 3M® Washi tapes to decorate them. However, he got bored after a while, and I ended up doing this craft on my own. It was also more complicated than I expected, so by the time I was done, Noah had already wandered off to play. I thought the birds were really pretty though!

Checking the Advent Calendar

The passage

Pretending to trace his own hand

This is my hand!

Our family of three

Decorating the paper plates

Hanging the fish up

Posing with the fish

Close-ups

Day 7: The Creation Story (Penguin, Adam, and Eve)

There was a lot less preparation to be done, and double-sided tape has become my best friend for these crafts. I find it a lot easier to get Noah to work with it, rather than glue, especially when it comes to small objects like the googly eyes. I felt like doing a little colouring as well, so I coloured Adam, while Noah “coloured” Eve. On hindsight, I should have made smaller copies of the colouring sheets, as they take up quite a bit of space on the tree.

Checking the Advent Calendar

The passage

Working on the Penguin

Done!

No prizes for guessing which one he coloured

Hanging the penguin up

Posing with his penguin

Close-up of Adam and Eve at the bottom of the tree

So at the end of our first week, this is what our tree looks like. I’m quite pleased with how it has turned out so far, and I hope Noah will continue enjoying these daily craft sessions!

Our tree after a week of crafts

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