Advent Scrapbooks

After reading a post by Addie Zierman about Advent Junk Journals, I decided to take her ideas and have my students put together Advent Scrapbooks the last three weeks in my classroom.

They took their prayer journals, which were file folders, split them in two, and bound them together with rings. I passed out excerpts from Luke, carols, poetry, and a few stories from Cynthia Rylant’s Children of Christmas, a lovely book I’ve had since 1985 when my Aunt Joyce and Uncle Ron gave it to me.

Throughout our days together, the students created a scrapbook as we observed Advent.

We were studying dialogue, how setting can be used to create a mood or tone, and internal/external conflict throughout the quarter, so I had the students mark up the stories, carols, and scripture with their annotations on these characteristics.

With each story, I had them do a little creative writing.

I tried to read a different picture book having to do with the Christmas story at the end of each class.  I passed out worksheets with sentence starters so students could reflect on that story.  We read The Nativity.

I love the response here for “something to tell God.”  The students were intrigued by the Gabriel in this book, that is for sure.

Here’s another response:

We read Good King Wenceslas.

The students took a look at the carol, “With Wondering Awe,” and we discussed what we thought that meant.

The students chose a carol to design.

We read a poem from the book Manger, and I asked the students to illustrate or write what it is about the way they were created that they could use to welcome baby Jesus to the world.

I tried to get them to write something beyond, “singing God’s praises.” Not that this isn’t wonderful, but I wanted them to think how they could praise God through things like sports or play, etc.Throughout the semester, I’ve been continually bringing up this idea that beauty lies in the darkness; that we can find it in sorrow and fear. We made a Christmas tree with lines from the stories and carols, poems and Bible verses we read.  It’s called a “Beauty in the Darkness Christmas Tree.”

I think it was a fine project, and I’m proud of the work the students did. I noticed that over the course of three months, they’ve gotten better at finding and holding onto what is beautiful while walking around in the dark. Reading through their writing especially, I am in love with the stories they came up with.  There is much more texture and nuance to their characters and plot.

I love this idea for observing Advent. For the original ideas, check out Addie’s post here.