The Nativity Song

This is one of the most beautiful Christmas songs I know! It is a song that is sung by the children at my church, and all the music (lyrics, sheet music and audio files) can be found here: http://www.lds.org/music/library/childrens-songbook/the-nativity-song?lang=eng

The song tells the story of the Nativity and starts out: "This is the season, beloved of the year. Sing a rhyme, Christmas time soon will be here. Tell the true story of Jesus' birth, when, as a baby, he came to the earth." The verses that follow tell about each part of the Nativity: the new star, the angel proclaiming the birth, the stable, the animals, the manger, the shepherds, the wise men, Mary, Joseph and finally the baby Jesus. I just now discovered that this is in book form. I'm not posting it in my Friday book review because I haven't looked through it yet, but Simon Dewey is an amazing artist. I imagine the pictures in this book are wonderful!

Here is what I suggest doing with this song: Before you sing the book to them, bring a nativity set for the kids to touch and play with. Give each child a part of the nativity and have them hold it up during their part of the song. With older kids, you can have them solo the part of the song that their nativity piece represents. When everyone is taking a turn singing it's a great opportunity to get kids comfortable with singing alone!

5 Little Christmas Trees

This is a poem that the kids act out. It is geared more towards smaller children. Poems work well for working on memorization with children without having to learn a melody on top of the words. They can also be helpful with learning rhythms and recognizing rhymes. Here are the words:

5 Little Christmas Trees standing all alone
Their hearts were sad 'cause they didn't have a home.
Then CHOP went the ax and DOWN went a tree
And off it went with a happy family.

I have a flannel board I use to teach this rhyme. I use five different-looking pine trees and I have an ax I made out of laminated cardstock. Not the sturdiest--someday soon I need to find a toy ax! I have 5 children come up and take turns "chopping down" the Christmas trees. If you're teaching children in the 4+ age range you can have them tap sticks to the rhythm of the poem. You can also point out the rhyming words and have them tap only on the words that rhyme. If you wanted to put this to a melody, this youtube video has a fairly good tune: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxPZxfGSqGQ.

Hear Those Jingle Bells

This simple Christmas song gives kids a chance to learn about musical dynamics. Music can be fast or slow, loud or soft, and they will explore these option in this song. For older kids, use the real words: andante, allegro, forte, piano. Give them each a jingle bell and let them move around while they sing. You'll need to call out the next dynamic before you start singing each verse, because the only words that change from verse to verse is the 2nd line. Here are the words:

Hear those jingle, jingle, jangle
Hear those jingle bells.
Ringing loudly, Ringing loudly, (change to ringing softly, quickly, slowly)
Hear those jingle bells!

Here's the piano audio file (let me know if you need a vocal audio file):