The Christmas Story for Very Young Learners

Isn't this one of the best times of year? Working with children makes you feel extra Christmassy and there is so, so much material out there. This year I'm focussing on the Christmas story and the song 'We wish you a merry Christmas' with my 4-6 year olds.

Topic: the Christmas Story

Age: 4-6

Vocabulary: Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, Angels, Shepherds, 3 kings, star, knock knock, no sorry, let's go!

Procedure:

• Drill  flashcards of the angels, sheperds, star, kings and mary joseph and the donkey. 
• Pre teach gestures that go with these flashcards.
• Play musical statues, with a christmas song, like rocking around the christmas tree and call out the actions, eg. "Angel!", everybody must stop and stand like an angel.
• Draw Bethlehem on the board and stick mary, joseph and the donkey far away. Start to tell the story of Christmas. Children can knock with you and say 'sorry no' each time they find nowhere to stay. 
• Then on the fourth time, draw a stable, with a star and place the characters there. 
• Now back to the hills near bethlehem! The shepherds are sleeping so get the children to snore. The angels wake them up 'A king is born! go to Bethlehem!" and the shepherds reply "lets go!" and the sheep can baa 'let's go!' too. Get the children to repeat these phrases after you. Add the characters to the nativity scene. 
• Next it's the 3 kings' turn. Stand even far away from the board and point to the star over the stable and say " a star! a king is born! let's go!"  and make them proceed around the classroom to the board and add them. 
• When you retell the story the following lesson give everychild a mini flashcard and get them to come and stick them on the board at the right moment.

lucypaintbox.org.uk has this lovely nativity scene to colour in.

Here is a link to some memory cards, which you could use in many many ways. (I plan to play memory with just the shepherd, king, mary, jospeh, angel and donkey). 

And here is one very silly Mr Bean video!