Advent Wreath Craft Ideas
Three Easy CCD Class Projects to Prepare for the Christmas Season
Advent wreaths are easy to make and a fun way to teach the spirit of Christmas.
Your CCD students can make their own Advent wreaths as an Advent classroom activity and take them home to use with their families.
Plan your Advent wreath craft for the week before the first Sunday of Advent.
If you can’t find pink and purple candles, an advent wreath can sometimes have blue candles instead of purple, and a white candle substituted for pink. Some advent wreaths have four white candles, too. If you’re using white candles, use purple and pink ribbons and decorations to represent the Advent symbolic colors.
Bring a large classroom Advent wreath to class during Advent to place on your prayer table. An Advent wreath can be as simple as four votive candles set down into a Christmas wreath of greenery. Be careful about securing the candles so they don’t fall over when lit. If you’re using taper candles, be sure to use an advent wreath ring with candleholders that are the correct size. Decorate with greenery, ribbons, berries and other decorations.
Here are three Advent wreath craft ideas that you can make with your CCD students this Advent season.
Advent Wreath Craft
Give each child a canning jar ring (just the ring part, not the flat lid insert). Press green modeling clay in the curve and flatten the top. Carefully press into the clay three purple birthday candles and one pink birthday candle. (Be careful – the birthday candles will snap if you press too hard. You may want to encourage the kids to make a hole in the clay first, place the candle in, and then mold the clay around it to secure the candle.) Decorate by pressing small greenery into the clay and bending to form a wreath. You can even add some tiny red berries and other decorations.
Egg Carton Advent Wreath
Take an egg carton and cut it into thirds so that you have a square of four compartments. Put modeling clay in each. Add a large birthday candle or emergency candle to each compartment. Wrap greenery and pink and purple ribbons around the edges to decorate.
Good Deed Advent Wreath
Cut out the middle of a paper plate to make a wreath. Make “candles” from pink and purple construction paper and flames from red paper. Attach the candles to the wreath by bending about an inch of the bottom of the candle paper and gluing it down. (If your construction paper is thin, you may have to reinforce the candles with heavier card stock in between two layers of pink or purple paper.)
Give the children a stack of green paper shapes (hearts, hands or leaves). As they move through Advent, for each good deed they do, they can write it on one of the green shapes and glue it onto the wreath. The more good deeds they do, the fuller and prettier their Advent wreath becomes.
For each Sunday in Advent they can "light" the appropriate candle by gluing a flame onto a paper candle.
