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!

20 Flashcard Games

Flashcards are generally the first thing I get out in a lesson. We use them to present language, drill and review and test it. 

The students might see those flashcards multiple times so it's important to keep it fresh. Here is a list of flashcard techniques which I go back to whenever I feel what I'm doing is getting a bit stale.

1. Say the flashcard
2. Guess the card (show one student a card, other students must guess which card they saw. The winner gets to see the next card)
3. Quick/slow reveal
4. Disappearing cards (turn them over one at a time and keep repeating the whole sequence until the class remember it by heart and all the flashcards are turned over)
5. Let a student be the teacher
6. Kim's game (take one out and then lay them out again)
7. Jump when you see the....
8. Yes or No? Jump for yes and twist with hands on hips for no.
9. Through the keyhole (make a keyhole in a piece of A4 card for children to look through.
10. Pass the flashcard round the circle (extra difficult - send two in different directions)
11. Make a circle with flashcards and use the dice to make a board game. Kids count round and say the flashcard they land on.
12. Stick the flashcards to a giant cube/dice and let the kids roll.
13. Run and touch (put the kids in lines and flashcards on the wall)
14. Leap frog from mes-english with rock paper scissors.
15. Postman (The post goes from scissors to pen) The children sit in a circle and the caller stand in the middle and calls and tries to steal a space.
16. Memory
17. Place flashcards around the room and shut your eyes. Kids must stand under a flashcard. The name of the flashcard you call is out/the winner.
18. Mime the flashcard 
19. Treasure hunt - hide the flashcards around the room (for smaller classes)
20. Tabboo - describe the flashcard