During Advent we prepare our hearts for Jesus. We set out Advent wreaths, calendars. We put up nativity sets, also called
creche, manger scene or naciemiento. Here are free printable nativity scenes. These paper nativity scenes provide hours of educational fun for children and preschoolers as they color, cut out and assemble the manger scene. Children learn the Christmas story as they create the stable, shepherds, animals, wisemen, Mary, Joseph, angel and Baby Jesus.
In our house, we begin with a stable full of animals on the first Sunday of advent. Each day we move the figures a little closer toward the stable. When the children were young, they loved 'helping' Mary and Joseph and the Magi travel to Bethlehem. We would place an unbreakable nativity set on a shelf at child level and they were free to rearrange the characters as they chose. This was before the 'advent' (pardon the pun) of computers. Now you can print entire nativity sets for preschoolers, Sunday Schoolers, students and children to make themselves. Here are the links. Free Printable Advent and Christmas Nativity Scenes