Advent

Its coming to that time of year again, where people are preparing for Christmas, worrying about what presents they have to buy and rushing to the shops to buy the presents out of fear there wont be any left in a few weeks time. Christmas preparations appears to get earlier every year, it is crazy. Personally I think the celebration of Christmas changes every year. And with the changes every year, and the focus on presents, people forget the true meaning of Christmas.

For this reason I think it is important to teach students about Advent and the true meaning of Christmas so that they can see where Christmas came from and how it isn’t just about the presents or food on Christmas day. I started preparing my class for Advent last week by making the Advent wreath, so that we could finish it on Monday and have it ready for the next three weeks in school. To make the Advent wreath I got the students to draw around their hands and paint them green. We then waited for them to dry and cut them out. We glued the hands in a circle and decorated with green glitter, gold glitter around the edges and red berries to help add different textures to the art work. Next week we are going to finish off the wreath by creating candles out of toilet paper rolls and pink and purple card. I will then leave the wreath at the table that everyone sees when they enter the room so that the Advent wreath is a central figure in the classroom.

Next week I am going to introduce Advent properly and brainstorm what they know about Christmas and Advent and get them to differentiate between the two. Then I will play the PowToon I create on Advent, that I shared in the previous post to help discuss the importance behind the wreath. I will get the students to draw a wreath and label each of the candles so that they can stick them in their Religious Education scrapbooks. The students will then create their own ADVENT acrostic poems to help describe the time of Advent.

From my lessons I hope that the students will realise that Advent is a time of preparation, that Christians are awaiting the birth of Christ and remembering him throughout the Christmas period.

I found some useful resources online for Advent:

1. The Religion Teacher

2. Christmas Seomra Ranga

3. Loyola Press

4. Teaching Ideas

5. 

6.Dublin Diocese

There are many more useful resources online to help teachers prepare for Advent, this is just a short list to help you start your search.

Christmas Adverts

Christmas adverts are becoming increasingly more popular and each video appears to have a significant and effective message behind them. I think to help make our lessons more relevant to the students we should look at how we as teachers could incorporate these modern videos about Christmas and Christmas spirit into our lessons, so that we can make it relevant to the students and engage them on a deeper level.

1. Sainsbury’s Official Christmas Ad 2014.

This video is one video that I think could work particularly well in the classroom, both with younger and older students. It looks at war and recreates one of the most famous moments of the first world war. it retells the story of Christmas Day in 1914, when opposing British and German soldiers emerged from their trenches toe exchange gifts and play football. Sainsbury’s has agreed to donate all profits made from the sale of a chocolate bar that features in the advert to the RBL. The video hears German troops singing “Silent night” and they venture into ‘no-man’s land’. After a game of football, the British soldier secretly slips a gift into the pocket of a German soldier, who unwraps it to find a chocolate bar when he returns to his side of the battlefield.

I think this is a truly wonderful video to help show a significant moment in WWI, the spirit of Christmas, acts of kindness, the act of giving and so much more.

2. John Lewis Christmas Ad 2014

This advert takes quite a different stance to the idea of Christmas. This video looks at the idea of a little boy waiting for Christmas. He spends his time playing with his friend, who happens to be a real-life penguin. The penguin looks very realistic. Sam and Monty, the penguin, go to the park, play Lego, bounce on the trampoline together. But Sam realises that Monty is lonely. He looks at couples holding hands on the bus. So for Christmas, Sam gets Monty what he truly wants in life, a mate. Under the tree on Christmas day, we see Mabel, a lady penguin. The story is ultimately trying to sell John Lewis as a shop that sells love within its items. However, it does help show the feeling of Christmas, the need for love, how someone feels when they see their love for the first time and the true meaning of friendship.

3. John Lewis Christmas AD 2013: The Bear and the Hare

This was one of the biggest Christmas adverts at the time. It is an animated tale of a hare battling to ensure a bear doesn’t miss out on the festivities accompanied by Lily Allen singing Keane’s Somewhere Only We Know. While the bear is asleep, the hare sneaks back to his cave and deposits a small package wrapped in red paper and tied up with a green bow. This is a moving advert that really helps show the spirit of Christmas and how we should care for others, as well as ourselves. We need to strive to make others happy, because their happiness is just as important as ours.

There are many more adverts that could be used in the classroom. These three help show how one could teach about Christmas spirit and other topics in the classroom. The use of the adverts could help them to relate to the spirit and describe it themselves on a deeper level.