Guest Posted October 28, 2006 Posted October 28, 2006 Being it my first year as manager i am stumped for ideas.... I for the life of me can't remember what we did at old nurseries for christmas productions,. i have never worked in a nursery that has done a nativity. We are planning to split our plays into two.... we will have babies and toddlers together approx 20 children and pre-school and tweenies together approx 25 children (productions on seperate days). so ideas for baby and toddlers would be greatly apprecitaed and ideas for tweenies and pre-school also greatly appreciated..... we don't want to do a nativity for either productions.... we were thinking for babies to dress them all up fancy ie, snowmen and sing 5 little snowmen round and fat.... 5 robots and sing when the robots came to dinner..... but im stumped for the other production.... it could be a bit of a play type as some of our pre-school children would possibly speak but does anyone know of a wintery / christmas play we could do..... also what do you all do about background music as you sing, none of the staff play instrunents nor do we sing too well either lOL ideas really appreciated Dawn
Guest Posted October 28, 2006 Posted October 28, 2006 Hi Dawn. I don't think you can beat 'carol' singing for the children at Christmas. Plays tend to go beautifully well, or diasterous, depending on the mood of the children on the day! Singing is much nicer, and possibly more likely to be succesful as you always get a few children who love standing and singing, being the centre of attention and those who do not, can stand alongside them, just looking beautiful! That way, there are no arguments that x has more of a part than y, my child wasn't involved as much as yours etc. I have worked in settings where our 'normal' nursery rhyms have been adapted especially because it is Christmas. My favourite was always 'Twinkle Twinkle, Christmas Tree' obviously to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'. Unfortunately I can't remember it all now but it started something like Twinkle Twinkle Christmas Tree Santa came to visit me.... That's it I'm afraid, but I'm sure you could think up your own words to go with it! Not sure that I personally would hold a separate event for the babies though, I like the idea of singning with them, but then it becomes an adult production. Not too sure I like the idea of dressing them up either, but that is just my humble opinion! Hopefully someone will be along soon with some better ideas!
AnonyMouse_1027 Posted October 28, 2006 Posted October 28, 2006 we always do a type of nativity, but xmas carols or a song like 'when santa gor stuck up the chimney acted out are just as good....
Guest Posted October 28, 2006 Posted October 28, 2006 We always do singing with our 2-3 yr olds and a basic nativity with songs afterwards with our 3-4's, this has worked well, we have done the same now for 3 yrs, i'm thinking of varying it slightly this year as many of the parents saw it last year.
AnonyMouse_4544 Posted October 28, 2006 Posted October 28, 2006 We do both............a nativity which is just the FS and a carol concert which includes all the children in the school
Guest Posted October 28, 2006 Posted October 28, 2006 We always do a simple nativity but a few years ago we had younger children taking part and went with a christmas toys theme so we had jack in a box and ballerina's amongst others this worked well with mixed ages as older children were able to help younger children and we were able to say that just like we give gifts at christmas so did the kings to the baby jesus
AnonyMouse_3735 Posted October 29, 2006 Posted October 29, 2006 (edited) We look for a christmas story book, there are a few suitable ones but find new one each year and put in songs at suitable points of the story , children lern the songs and an adult reads the story on the day with the children singing the songs at the appropriate spot, we can usually fit in up to 10 songs depending on the story, childrens ages etc children find it interesting as they hear story for the first time with parents like a huge storytime, we also get parents to sing one of the songs, children love to see them doing this, last year it was a Christmas tree song with actions to the Fast Food Song music (pizza hut) I gleaned from the forum, children facinated and excited , parents were ok and joined in once over the shock! Dsorry dont have story titles here but do remember one being Shhhh Santa or something similar. Inge forgot to say they can dress up as characters in the story, or toys , or almost anything appropriate, we usually have santa, snowmen, tree, reindeer angels etc (must admit boys happier with this than nativity characters.) Edited October 29, 2006 by Inge
AnonyMouse_64 Posted October 29, 2006 Posted October 29, 2006 Hi Dawn, Hope you don't mind me moving this into the Christmas forum.
Guest Posted October 29, 2006 Posted October 29, 2006 I make up my own stories-just a simple narrative with the older children dressed up as a different character, e.g. a reindeer, a star, a shepherd, a lamb, Mary and Joseph etc. I then link the narrative with songs, I'm a Christmas reindeer, Twinkle, Twinkle, Lullabye lamb. The younger children sit at the front wearing their Christmas hats they have made. It's very simple but the parents enjoy it and it doesn't need too much rehearsing. Linda
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