Make your own class advent calendar!

It’s nearly the holiday season. In a few days it will be December 1st and the countdown to Christmas will begin.

Joanna Malefaki has already written a fantastic blog post introducing her ideas for a Holiday Season ELT Calendar.

If Christmas is coming to your classroom this holiday season, why not countdown to Christmas with an Advent Calendar?

Screenshot of the Advent Calendar made in PowerPoint 2013

Click on Advent Calendar to download the PowerPoint or visit the downloads page.

Hide the pictures of Santa to edit the advent calendar.

On the HOME section of the ribbon, which is visible in the screenshot, there is a small arrow on the far right of the screen beneath a pair of binoculars. Click on the arrow and you will see three options. Select the third option to display selection pane. When the selection pane is open, click on the eye to the right of DAY ONE and the Santa cover will disappear showing a black square beneath it.

The other way is to move the Santa cover by clicking and dragging it. This will reveal a text box beneath.

Screenshot of the Advent Calendar showing the Selection Pane. – PowerPoint 2013

Editing the Advent Calendar

When all the Santa covers have been hidden you can edit the advent calendar. Just triple click to select all the text, or single click and press CTRL + A. Once you have selected the text, type in the new ‘prize.’ It might be a Christmas song, a day of no homework, a popular classroom activity, or maybe even a snack party.

If you are not sure you can come up with 24 ideas, check out Joanna Malefaki’s blog post here.

Screenshot of the Advent Calendar with all the covers hidden, so the prizes can be edited. – PowerPoint 2013

Using the Advent Calendar

Start the slideshow and the Advent Calendar becomes a full screen presentation. Click on or touch the correct day and it will spin and disappear revealing the prize beneath.

If you have an iPad or iPhone, I recommend downloading the PowerPoint app. PowerPoint is more successful than Keynote at assigning animations to a specific trigger. Once you have the app, you will be able to display and use the advent calendar on a portable device.

Customize the Advent Calendar

This is a very basic Advent Calendar, but it can be customized. You can insert Christmas themed pictures, music and videos. The easiest way is to create new slides and link to them.

The Bingo tutorial shows you how to link to other slides. Add a slide and then click on one of the days. Click on insert, then insert action and select the slide you want to navigate to. These extra slides can contain your additional media.

The Big Reveal tutorial shows you how to use the selection pane and how to hide and unhide objects.

Please feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions about how you can customize the advent calendar.

Enjoy the countdown to Christmas.

Take care!