Pip: It’s the season when families everywhere dust off their Advent calendars — and one family decided to build the whole curriculum from scratch instead.
Mara: That’s exactly what’s happening over at Pollywog’s Place Blog, where Susie has put together a full homeschool Advent study called Light of the World — Scripture, hymns, nature, art, and integrated academics, week by week through Christmas. Let’s start with how the whole study is structured.
Advent Study Overview
Pip: The Light of the World study is a big undertaking — the question worth asking is what it actually covers and who it’s designed for.
Mara: The overview post frames it clearly: “It has been a labor of LOVE, and I am so thankful to be able to share this with you.” The study spans the weeks from Thanksgiving through Christmas, broken into weekly downloadable units with a study guide and activity sheets.
Pip: So this isn’t a single worksheet — it’s a full framework, flexible enough to scale up or down depending on the family.
Mara: Right. It weaves together language arts, math, history, science and nature, hymns, art, and preschool activities alongside Scripture and family reflection. Each week is its own downloadable unit, which makes it practical to actually use. And the weekly reflections are where the real texture lives.
Weekly Advent Reflections
Mara: Each week of the study carries a single word — Hope, Peace, Joy, Love — and each post unpacks what that word means devotionally, scripturally, and practically across a full week of learning.
Pip: Week One opens on Hope, and it goes deep fast. The anchor verse sets the tone before anything else begins.
Mara: The memory verse is Isaiah 9:2 KJV: “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.”
Pip: That verse is doing a lot of work — it’s not just a theme-setter, it’s the thread that runs through the whole study’s title.
Mara: The Week One devotional thought puts it plainly: “HOPE is not wishful thinking, it’s the quiet confidence that GOD’s promises will grow, even when unseen.” Daily readings move from Genesis 3:15 through Isaiah, Micah, Luke, and the Psalms — tracing the promise forward.
Pip: And the integrated learning follows the same arc — science looks at how evergreens hold color through winter as a symbol of hope, math tracks changing daylight hours, art study centers on Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Annunciation.
Mara: Week Two shifts to Peace, with John the Baptist as the focal figure. The candle lighting prayer asks to “rest in YOUR PROMISES, to forgive as YOU forgive, and to walk in quiet confidence.” The nature study observes dormancy outdoors and draws a parallel between winter stillness and the heart preparing for God’s presence.
Pip: Week Three is the pink candle — Gaudete, the week of Joy. Mary’s Magnificat is the scripture spine, and the hymn study lands on Joy to the World as a reflection on Psalm 98.
Mara: The devotional puts it simply: “JOY is more than happiness; it’s a deep gladness rooted in knowing that GOD is with us.” The family activity that week is a Joy Jar — each person writes one thing daily that brought them joy, and they read them aloud together at the week’s end.
Pip: That’s a genuinely good idea, and it costs nothing.
Mara: Week Four closes Advent proper with Love, anchored in John 1:14 — “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” The devotional frames love not as feeling but as action, and the family activity is a service project. Then Christmas Week lights the white Christ candle and reads Luke 2 in full, gathering everything the study has built toward.
Pip: Five candles, five weeks, one through-line — the light keeps growing until Christmas morning.
Mara: And the closing prayer of the whole study says it well: “root our learning in YOUR TRUTH, and guide our days by YOUR LIGHT.”
Pip: Hope, Peace, Joy, Love, Christ — each week adds a candle and the room gets a little brighter.
Mara: That’s the design. And there’s more ahead on the blog as the family works through the study in real time — worth following along.
