The theme for the Friday Carnival over at Notes from Home this week is Advent, so I thought it would the perfect opportunity to bring up the lovely advent calendar I made last year. To see all the steps to make one yourself you can visit the original post. Its best feature in my opinion is the flexibility in how you use it and the fact that it stores away very easily. Last year we filled the pockets with little treats and messages, some of which lead to special surprises hidden around the house. This year I thought it would be nice to get my son involved in the advent process instead of just filling the pockets with treats for him. We will take it in turns to write a little message for each day of December until Christmas; the boys (son and dad) will write something on the days with odd numbers and I will write a message, which occasionally will lead to a treat, on even dates.

Since he can now write and he is familiar with the concept of odd and even numbers, we can easily do this exercise and apply a few math concepts as well as writing skills to the magic of Christmas.

Here are the other entries in this Advent carnival:

Jax at Making It Up has posted about her Home ed Christmas camp Advent traditions.

Cass at Frugal Family has posted about making a video from Santa to each of her children.

Sally has posted her plans for her Advent calender where she has planned something seasonal to do with her children each day.

Chris at Thinly Spread has posted about the many Advent Activities in her household including her activity Advent calendar.

Jen at The Mad House has posted about her pause in Advent to think about the non-commercial aspect of Christmas.

Ella at Notes From Home has posted about her Advent readings by candlelight.