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!

Incey Wincey Spider

Incey Wincey Spider, the nursery rhyme, is a favourite with TEFL teachers. It already comes with hand gestures and online videos and pictures galore. What you may not know though, is that there are also Incey Wincey Spider story books out there by Keith Chapman and Jack Tickle, with Incey Wincey spider as the main character.

In this book, our little spider gets sent flying by a gust of wind and meets all sort of different farm animals on his journey. The pages are big and the silk webs are glittery making them fun to follow with your finger.

Age: 4-6 It was a big hit with the four year olds.

Language points:

The nursery rhyme features the rain and the sun, so it can be a good idea to teach other weather nouns too. I chose wind, as it's in the book, but it could be a good idea to teach  snow and clouds too. The book features the farm animals cow, horse, cockerel (I used chicken instead) goat, duck and pig.

It's also good for reviewing the animal noises and colours.


Procedure:

Start the lesson by teaching the types of weather plus the words 'incey wincey spider' and 'water spout.' Play the say yes when you see the.... game (jump for yes, twist for no) and drill actions. You could also play simon says.

Slowly say the words and demonstrate the actions. Encourage children to do the actions for you. This video shows you how.

• Read the story, encouraging children to say the names of the animals and make the noises with you. (I didn't do the story in the first lesson as I focussed on the rhyme, but in my second and third).
• Table time: I drew a picture of a spider web next to a water spout and the children had to draw the spider and colour it in. This was a big hit.
• Drill the rhyme again and encourage the older children especially, to join in with the words. It could be a good time to introduce the melody too.
• Watch the video with the children.

Extensions:

Draw pictures with different skies, windy, snowy, sunny and rainy for example. I gave my students a worksheet with four different houses and the words to trace underneath. I drew a girl outside wearing appropriate clothes for each sky to help comprehension.

or:

Pipe cleaner spider craft, if you have enough pipe cleaners!

Googly eyes optional...

Complete with water spout for reenactments!

It's also possible to go back and use those songs and videos from the Old Mac Donald Had a Farm lesson as revision. Recycle, recycle, recycle!