Saturday, December 23, 2006

Next year's Advent files

Tweaking the Jesse Tree

A couple of years ago, I thought I'd accomplished the last tweak on our Jesse Tree and that it had reached "final version" status. I had put together a list of Scripture readings, we'd made salt dough ornaments to match each passage, and I'd finally settled on using an old, 4' artificial tree (which had been sitting in the storage shed for a few years) as the Jesse Tree.

Then I found this book. I had picked it up from the library last year, too late in the season to begin using it, but had promised myself to give it another chance this year. My ten year old loved it. She loves the "story within the story" and the relationship between the old carpenter and the little boy. The only trouble was that the ornaments we already have don't match all the symbols in the book.

No problem! Salt dough is easy to come by ... it is loved by all.

For more Jesse Tree options for your "tweak files", see this thread at 4Real, or this one.

Or, for super-simple, check out this page (forwarded to me from a local homeschool support group) for some downloadable, user-friendly ornaments that are already colored and ready-to-go.

O Antiphon House

Katherine's O Antiphon House became a parade of homes and I can't wait to do this with my kids next year. What a gorgeous way to display and discuss each day's antiphon as Christmas approaches.

2 comments:

Marjorie said...

We just discoverd the same book and my girls (8&10)have really enjoyed it too. I had heard about it on-line and stumbled across it at our local library. I think we will get our own copy so we can reread it every year. I love the idea of salt dough ornaments to match! Next year.

Karen Edmisten said...

We're ordering our own copy, too, Marjorie. :-)

"Next year" is such a good phrase to have in our repetoires, isn't it? It keeps us sane. ;-)