Advent Printables – Roll a Wreath and Jesus Candy Cane!

Just finished a fun Advent lesson with my Third Grade Faith Formation Class and wanted to share some of the printables I made.

We discussed the Advent Wreath to go along with Advent. The free packet contains a word search and a KWL chart we filled out. They worked on the word search while everyone arrived. Then they flipped over their sheets and wrote what they already knew about the Advent Wreath and then what they wanted to learn.

After prayer and blessing our classroom Advent wreath we read the Gospel for this Sunday and discussed it. We also learned about the Saint Nicholas (Patron Saint of Children and Fishermen). We discussed his life. Here is a great article that will tell you more about St. Nicholas. I am a HUGE Veggie Tales fan – I don’t think you could ever outgrow the Veggie tales. We watched this clip about St. Nicholas on my Kindle…

After discussing the advent wreath we played the Roll an Advent Wreath Game. You need a dice, yellow, green, pink, and purple crayon for each set of players. Each player needs my printable game sheet. Students take turns rolling the dice till someone is the first person to color all the parts to the Advent wreath!

After we played the Roll an Advent Wreath Game, we went back to our seats and filled in the last part of our KWL chart – What we learned about the Advent Wreath. I was happy to see the kiddos sharing all sorts of things they learned.

Some of those shared statements included:
The wreath is in the shape of a circle because God’s love for us in never ending just like a circle goes around and around.
There are four candles. Three are purple and one is pink. The purple candles represent Royalty because Jesus is our Prince of Peace. The pink candle means love….

To end the lesson, I read one of my favorite books to read this time of year… The Legend of a Candy Cane!

The book does a fabulous time of teaching about the religious meaning behind the candy cane.

Look at the candy cane, what do you see?
Stripes that are red, like the blood He shed for me
White is for my Savior, who’s sinless and pure!
J is for Jesus, My Lord, that’s for sure!
Turn it around, and a staff you will see
Jesus my shepherd was born for me!

Before the kiddos came into class they left a shoe outside the door in hopes that St. Nicholas would fill it and of course he did! A candy cane was found by all!