Advent Lesson Plan

This lesson plan was first published in Teach Primary magazine issue 18.7 You can see a copy of the article at the end of this post. You can download the article here.

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For many of our students, Christmas is a very exciting time of year that is full of family, fun and presents. The count-down is just as exciting, especially with the daily dose of chocolate (although not so good for the first lesson of the day). Advent is a great topic to explore the Human and Social aspects of Christianity as it is a season and traditions that are not based upon scripture in the Old nor New Testaments. In fact, there is no direct Biblical instruction to celebrate Advent at all. 

 What they'll learn

• What Advent is.

• Different ways Christians mark the season of Advent.

• Why people might count down to a special event.

• How seasons like Advent exist in other religions and worldviews.

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Start here

Ask students "What special events do you count down to?”. It might be their birthday or a special holiday. Is it on a calendar or app they use to mark the days off? Draw out as many ideas as you can. Maybe children will think of Lent, Hanukkah or Ramadan during these reflections, or pose them as examples for children to discuss. Then discuss why people like (or maybe don’t like) counting down to a special event. Mind-map these ideas for consideration and reflection at the end of the lesson.

Main lesson

Begin by recapping and discussing about what Advent is and why Christians celebrate the time of Advent. This is a good point to talk about chocolate and how these have not been a mainstay of Advent in Britain until the 1980s, and calendars filled with Lego, cosmetics or cheese are a very recent development.

Show a picture of an Advent Wreath (or a few different wreaths) and ask children if they have seen one before. Discuss how this is a relatively recent way of marking Advent, having only started in the late 18th century in Germany and is was first used in Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran churches. You could also discuss how, like many Christmas traditions, the design and meaning of the wreath and the candles has changed over time (the original wreaths had 28 candles of different sizes). You may wish to go further and explore how advent has varied in length throughout history and that different Christian denominations mark advent in different ways.

Ask children to think why there are four candles around the wreath. Why on some wreaths are there three purples candles and one pink candle?  Discuss what an Advent Wreath is and how a candle is lit on each of the four Sundays leading up to Christmas. Then think about the four themes that Christians explore in the four weeks of Advent: hope, peace, joy and love. How are these themes linked to Christmas?

Move of from the discussion of the wreaths and give children four Bible passages to read that are often read by Christians during Advent. You may wish to use ones that your school or local church uses. Or you could use these passages: Isaiah 40:31, Isaiah 9:6-7, Luke 2:8-14 and John 3:16-17. Discuss why these passages might be read during advent. Draw out how only one of these is from the Nativity story.

The next part of the lesson can be a great opportunity to do some writing and undertake some sacred text scholarship. Explain that each of the four passages the children just read are linked to one of the four themes of Advent. Their task is to match each passage to one of the themes and explain there thinking. If you used my suggested readings the pairings are: Isaiah 40:31 (hope), Isaiah 9:6-7 (peace), Luke 2:8-14 (joy) and John 3:16-17 (love)

Superficially, this should be straightforward activity as a word of a theme is in the passage, e.g John 3:16 is the only passage containing the word love. Give children time to think about the meanings of the passage and summarise their thinking in their justifications. You may wish to model one first and relate this part of the lesson to a Reading lesson in English as this activity mixes retrieval and inference skills. It can be helpful to highlight this to children, so they use their Reading Comprehension skills for this part of the lesson. After the writing, give time for children to feed back their ideas to the class or their tables and compare notes. You can also acknowledge any misconceptions at this point.

Ask children to recall their learning about other religions and worldviews. Can they think of comparable celebrations to Advent? Recap on Hanukkah and Ramadan. Are these like Advent?

While it might seem natural to compare Advent with Hanukkah and Ramadan, given that all three involve counting days, discuss how these comparisons can be misleading. Hanukkah celebrates a historical event. Ramadan is a month of fasting and prayer ending in the celebration of Eid al-Fitr. The point of this final exercise is for children to see that, while easy to do, we should not draw simplistic comparisons to festivals in other religions.

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Extending the lesson

• Have children research how Advent is celebrated in different countries or Christian denominations around the world.

• Ask children to find four of their own Bible passages, one for each of the themes. This is a chance to apply prior learning.

• Ask children to research other meanings of the 4 candles. Different churches and denominations apply different names so there are many different ones to find out about.

Useful questions

• Why is the wreath a circle?

• Why are there four candles?

• Why do Christians celebrate Advent?

• Do you count down to a special event each year?