Godly Play: Advent in Felt

Between godly play advent cards, the Jesse tree, an advent wreath and a traditional lift the flap advent calendar (bought in Switzerland because it was just too cute - with gnomes!) we are certainly fully immersed in advent.  Perhaps it is good that The Light in the Lantern, which I ordered to do the Waldorf advent journey of Mary and Joseph still hasn't come, though I was looking forward to that most of all.

My most recent 'advent work' has been gluing the felt cards that I made last year for godly play.  I had originally thought that it would be fun for the kids to put the candles on, etc.  But, after remaking a number of candles and the hands that were lost for both the church and home set of cards this year, I decided there is a reason that the curriculum has it tacked together.  These cards are typically wood and I put the candles on clockwise, while the godly play puts them more in a line (here is a photo). .

 I love the advent cards, but they don't create the playfulness with the story that I find so important in the home setting.  Sometimes I want to infuse the beauty and liturgical aspects of Godly Play with a bit of Waldorf wonder and unstructuredness.  I will share what that is looking like in our advent tomorrow.   And for now, we are pinning the cards on a purple ribbon beside our godly play table and it is a wonderful way to talk with Jonah about the weekly journey of the advent wreath.  

I want to share our cards here for those of you who want to see a do-it-yourself option for the godly play advent cards (that is, for those of you who don't own advanced woodworking tools that would be needed for the wooden sets.)  I used wool felt as it is so much nicer than the acrylics you can buy and while you pay more it will last much, much longer.   I like the felt.  The kids can roll them into the purple underlay (see photo from church below) and they are sturdy enough to withstand lots of use.  Stitching the pieces on would be a lovely touch, but I used glue, except for sewing the yellow flame to the candle with some coral colored floss.

Living Montessori Now has a great post on using Godly Play at home through advent here if you are looking for more ideas.