![Fisher-Price Little People (R) Nativity Set]()
All my children are so excited about Christmas. The sad thing – most of them have no idea what Christmas is about. Even my students who attend church don’t associate Christmas with the birth of Jesus without prompting. Santa takes preeminence even in their minds. So what to do?
I recently posted on my personal blog about Giving the Twelve Days of Nativity. I gave ideas to encourage unchurched friends to think about the real meaning of Christmas. Now as I lesson planned for the first week of December I wondered how to plant the seed of Christmas in my little ones who haven’t heard and encourage those who have. Don’t be intimidated by media hype. You are allowed to teach Bible stories as history and that’s exactly what the birth of Jesus is – history.
We all learn best in small chunks that are hands on. The problem is we often tell the Christmas story in its entirety without much visual and certainly without hands on. I decided to model my lesson plans after my blog post. Here are my plans.
Day 1: Bring out the stable, Mary and Joseph, and a few stable animals. Introduce Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem. Trouble at the Inn (Define Inn). Bedding down in the stable. Demonstrate using dramatic play. Place the pieces in the dramatic play area. Allow the children to retell this bit of the story.
Day 2: Bring out the shepherds, sheep, hillside, and angels. Retell the beginning of the story, then add the birth and shepherds’ visit (Define manger). Add these pieces to the dramatic play area.
Day 3 or in a few days: Bring out the wise men and camels and a small box to make a house (Matthew 2:11). Retell the story while playing with the pieces. Include their visit to Herod (I didn’t have castle blocks but that would have been a great addition) and the reason they did not return. Add the pieces to the dramatic play area.
In the telling of the story, I included that we give presents because the wise men gave presents to the baby Jesus. Sometimes adults who doubt the story of the wise men, ask me what happened to the presents. Many of my children have unemployed parents. I include that when Mary and Joseph and Jesus got to Egypt, Joseph had no job. Selling the expensive gifts that a child could not play with would have provided them with the money they needed to survive until they could return to their home.
Every day children chose to play with the nativity set in the dramatic play area. They scattered out the pieces, built oasis and shepherd fields, and brought visitors to the baby. There was lots of excitement and learning about the true story of Christmas without Santa. I hope they never forget and never lose their excitement for the truth.
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All my children are so excited about Christmas. The sad thing – most of them have no idea what Christmas is about. Even my students who attend church don’t associate Christmas with the birth of Jesus without prompting. Santa takes preeminence even in their minds. So what to do?