AnonyMouse_14268 Posted October 9, 2016 Share Posted October 9, 2016 Yes, yes I know it's only October but the weeks are absolutely flying by at the moment. My committee had already booked our village hall for our nativity before we even broke up for the summer holidays!. I did say at the time we will have to see what the children are like nearer the time, as we have lost a large group of confident children to school. In my opinion the children that we have are not old enough or confident enough to put them in the position of being on a stage in front of loads of people just to please the parents. We have a committee meeting next week and I would like to explain my reasoning for not doing a nativity. There is always so much pressure and guilt piled on by parents for us to do this. What would you say to explain it. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonyMouse_3735 Posted October 9, 2016 Share Posted October 9, 2016 I used to say most of the same as you have in your post.. not confident , very young, unfair on the child as they will gain nothing from it but we would have to justify it in our planning and show how they were benefitting.. stressful for staff and children . I would then give an alternative. We called ours a C storytime. We would invite parents and children to join us. Any children who wanted to would sit with us on carpet or mats , others would stay with parent, We encouraged children to come in fancy dress, but have a box of suitable items they could borrow if they wanted-often the nativity items we had stashed away plus some of the dressing up box. We would sing some C songs, , I would read a story or two and we would have songs linked to it. Not much organising and children were happier, ( not all parents were though but you can never win them all) Committee would organise some refreshments at the end and a raffle to raise some funds.. usually a hamper of items donated by parents for that purpose.. Parents soon got used to it and we tended to do it every year. Some years when the children were more confident they would sing solos or small group songs, or act out the story as we read it..I was so fed up with either spending far too long 'learning' a nativity or play and then children getting upset and not enjoying it at all on the day or being so bored with it all. Good luck with trying to persuade them, I decided that if they insisted then I was going to ask them to come in and sort it all out as we didnt have any time to do it and look after the children adequately. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonyMouse_7120 Posted October 9, 2016 Share Posted October 9, 2016 that's the same with us zigzag..every year I say i'm not doing that again, the committee put pressure on with 'but the parents love it' guilt trip, maybe I should ask them to come and rehearse it with them :-( 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonyMouse_3735 Posted October 9, 2016 Share Posted October 9, 2016 If they insist, I did say then come in and organise it all for us.. we dont have time.. if parents want it then shey should be doing more .. I did stick to what I said.. I used to say I'm there for the children not to do things because parents love it..many children don't and they are the ones in my care.. I know many like doing them, but I never found any joy in it. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 9, 2016 Share Posted October 9, 2016 We are a school Nursery and we just sing C songs/winter songs for 10 minutes or so, with children dressing up as one of the things from a song e.g. a star (twinkle twinkle) or a snowman (5 little snowmen). We make sure it is as fun as possible. We have to do it in the school hall though, which is hard for them. If it was in nursery they would be fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonyMouse_8282 Posted October 9, 2016 Share Posted October 9, 2016 We do the same as sooty. However we are preschool from 2+ BUT we only do it with the 'older leaving next July for school' children. We have a party straight after and all the children are invited to this bit. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonyMouse_5970 Posted October 9, 2016 Share Posted October 9, 2016 I've never done a nativity play for those very reasons. The children are too young and it's unfair to put pressure on three-year-olds to perform. Especially perform something they don't understand just because it's 'traditional' and pleases parents. Bah humbug! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonyMouse_55778 Posted October 10, 2016 Share Posted October 10, 2016 We haven't done nativities for many years - for all the reasons highlighted above. We have a Christmas tree, invite all the parents in - sit round the tree and sing songs - children can dress up and stand at the front/bang a tambourine/dance if they want to but if they want to sit on parents knees they can do that too. Then everyone has refreshments, takes photo's and children get a dip in the lucky dip before they go for being so brilliant. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonyMouse_30128 Posted October 10, 2016 Share Posted October 10, 2016 now i'm going to whisper...but we still do a nativity!!!! have done for as long as the pre-school has been in existence. We love it and so do the children ! when we have a less confident group we just do a sort of tableaux and songs.....or do the nativity to their favourite tune (going on a baby hunt was cool!) 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonyMouse_19802 Posted October 10, 2016 Share Posted October 10, 2016 now i'm going to whisper...but we still do a nativity!!!! have done for as long as the pre-school has been in existence. We love it and so do the children ! when we have a less confident group we just do a sort of tableaux and songs.....or do the nativity to their favourite tune (going on a baby hunt was cool!) Yes me too finsleysmaid. think I'm on my 26th Production this year!! After reading the above posts I went in today and said 'should we.....shouldn't we?' Staff were aghast! We are such dab hands at it now.....like you, we adjust to fit the cohort. Majority of children LOVE it! and perform.....? You'd better believe it! . For those who don't then no probs......they watch from Mums lap! Each to their own I guess. Must say life would be easier if we didn't............but I would be lynched! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonyMouse_14268 Posted October 10, 2016 Author Share Posted October 10, 2016 No need to whisper Finleysmaid, that's brilliant that you get so much pleasure out of it. If we don't do a nativity this year, it will be the first time in 14 years that I have been in charge that it has not been done. It used to seem so much easier and simpler in the years gone by! Maybe I am just getting too old! The last three years has seen us on the stage in the village hall which is truly terrifying. I think I am going to suggest we do some fun Christmas songs informally sometime during the morning. Although I would love to hear more about doing the nativity to the bear hunt tune. Originally I was thinking about seeing if we could make up a Christmas story to our favourite tune of "we all go travelling by" trouble is I am not that clever with rhyme and words! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonyMouse_19354 Posted October 10, 2016 Share Posted October 10, 2016 I'm sure we could all come up with something if we put our collective minds to it zigzag! We have a variety of little plays we do depending on our current children or we just sing songs and give everyone song sheets so they all join in. Last year we did the littliest christmas tree ( stolen from you tube!) as we had a good mix of confident preschoolers and a bevy of littlies that we herded around the stage being birds and rabbits. (One adult to each group) I had all the music so we had practised singing along with the cd which filled out the hall if you know what I mean, not so echoey. We love going in our big hall and using the stage so it becomes quite familiar with the children. This year we are doing a sort of nativity, more about the journey so small groups again moving around the hall before we all end up on stage.....well thats the plan so far! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonyMouse_63467 Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 I would love to know about the bear hunt tune Nativity. We have many children from different nationalities with EAL and trying to incorporate their tradition into our nativity- well its not really a Nativity- more of a Christmas play. Last year we did 'twas the night before Christmas and they thoroughly enjoyed it. I have found by having music in the background makes it much more calmer for pre-schoolers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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