Christmas Activities for Singing Time

My goal for this Christmas season is to try to teach two songs each Sunday. I want to teach both Traditional and Primary Christmas songs. Next week the goal is the 1^st verse of ‘Joy to the World’ and the Primary song ‘Christmas Bells’. We are planning to do ‘the Nativity Song’ as a sharing time when we get closer to Christmas.

‘Far Far Away’

It’s a great song to teach the children, they picked up the short verses really quickly. For Sr. Primary I was able to teach all 4 verses in just 10 minutes, I only did the first two verses in Jr. Primary. I made cards to help them remember which verse was which, and taught them the sign language for the chorus. All the children really enjoyed the sign language.

“Glory”- both hands up and in front of head, have palms face each other, with the middle finger pointed slightly inward facing the other middle finger (if you were to bring your hands together the middle fingers would touch. Then move hands in a circle away from the face.

“To God”- tap forehead they raise hand toward heaven.

“Peace”- Make a two with right hand, and place the thumb between the two lifted fingers. Then point it down. Left hand is flat in an upward palm, in front of your chest. Take the right hand making the letter ‘P’ and circle the open flat palm.

Skipping "on Earth"

“Good will to Men”- We are actually only going to ‘give good to you’, Take your right hand and with an open palm touch your mouth, then bring the arm out away from your body till your arm is completely extended out.

As I said, super easy to do and easy for the children.

‘When Joseph Went to Bethlehem’

I made a road that went across the chalkboard. On one side I put the Gospel Art picture of child Jesus learning to be a carpenter with Joseph #62124, on the way I put the picture of Mary on the back of the Donkey and Joseph leading the donkey #62119 or 62115. At the end of the road I placed a Nativity scene I made out of construction paper (I’m planning on using it for many songs), but any Nativity picture would work. We used the Joseph from my Nativity and the children would follow Joseph along the path. When the song ended Joseph would be in the stable. We didn’t do the second verse, I tried teaching it to the JR primary and it was a little hard for them, so we cut the second verse. We’d do the 1^st verse then end with the short 3^rd verse. That seemed to work really well and ended Joseph with the baby Jesus in the stable.

‘Once Within a Lowly Stable’

I used my construction paper Nativity. I had the Nativity scene laminated because I knew I was going to get a lot of use out of it. I didn’t have an oxen for my set, I tried but they didn’t look like oxen instead they looked more like pig-cows. As we’d sing the song I just pointed to the character being sung about.

If you’re interested in making your own construction paper Nativity, I cut out the outline of each piece, the faces are face shaped white paper. The other features are drawn on. They are really easy and very forgiving in how they look since they are just shapes.