Unique Advent Calendar: 25 Days of Christmas Reading

I am officially declaring that since it’s November, it’s now acceptable to focus on Christmas and Holiday-related EVERYTHING! With that, my quest for the perfect, unique advent calendar has begun!

We’ve already been busy decorating! We started the month off right by decorating for the holidays. Tree, snowmen, glittery pine cones—the works.

We also lit a fire in the fireplace and roasted s’mores.

Unique Advent Calendar: 25 Days of Christmas Reading

I know there are a ton of ideas for unique advent calendars out there—from a candy each day, to a scripture, there really is no limit to how you wish to build up excitement for CHRISTMAS! Some of my favorites are:

25 Days of Christmas Movies

 (via Tips from Typical Mom Blog)~

25 Days of Service

 (via Lil Luna)~

and 25 Days of Christmas Activities

 (via Simply Stacy)

In an effort to be both festive and productive, we are going to be reading for as a unique advent calendar! 25 Days of Christmas Reading, in fact. Here’s why…

Struggles with Reading

My oldest daughter, Krista, is in first grade. And if you’re a mama with a little in first grade, then you know how heavily they focus on learning to read at this grade level.

When Krista was in Kindergarten, she would get so frustrated when trying to read that she’d give up. She learned her sight words easy enough, but anything more and she would whine every time I asked for her to read to me.

Flashback

Now, when I was a little girl, I adored reading. My mother worked with me every day before Kindergarten to make sure I knew all my ABC’s and could read at a first grade level before I even started school. And I loved it. Granted, I’ve always been a big bookworm and preferred reading to outside play, but that’s besides the point.

Reading well helped tremendously when it came to academics, and I knew I wanted my daughter to have that advantage, too.

Working on it

So to combat Krista’s frustration, we all (her parents and stepparents) made it a point to make reading fun and rewarding. Over the summer, we had her write a page of a story and draw a picture to go with it, every day. By the end of the summer, she had completed an entire book! (And earned a toy as a reward!) We called it her summer journal.

Since the beginning of the school year, she’s had to read a minimum of 15 minutes a day as part of her homework (yes, even on the weekends). And it only helps her love for learning grow!

We all know that reading is important, but it’s sometimes difficult to convince children that reading is FUN too!

25 Days of Christmas Reading

This year for Christmas, we started 25 Days of Reading. Her stepmom found us level 1 reading books for around $1 each, and we wrapped them up one by one to leave under the tree.

Each day, K gets to open just 1 book to read to us. We chose ones that are Christmas related, to get in the spirit of things.

We wrapped them all in the same two types of paper so that we could tell them apart from the rest of the presents. (Snowflakes for Daddy’s house, polar bears for Mommy’s.)

I simply love this idea, not only because I love reading, but because I know it helps foster my daughter’s love for literature, as well. Not to mention, Krista loved having something consistent to look forward to at both of her houses. How special!

 How are you celebrating the days leading up to the 25th?

PS: Need help staying organized this holiday season? Our Sanity Saving Christmas Organization Binder has got you covered!