Nativity figures with plastic cups and paper!

Today, at our lunchtime club at school, we talked about various figures from the Natvity story and words we might use to describe them.

Words that came up with the children were...

Mary: special, lovely happy, scared, brave
Shepherds: poor, happy, excited
Wise men: clever, wise, giving

We then asked the children to pick a character and use a plastic cup as a base to stick paper to and make a figure of that person.  At this point, knowing the story, some of the children asked if they could do an angel instead, so we added that to the list!

Here are some pictures of what they came up with.  I especially like the Mary with Jesus glued on!

Nativity shepherds and angels with 3-5s

We started looking at Christmas with Sparks this Sunday, focusing particularly on the characters of the shepherds and angels...

We read this book (Amazon link here),

searched for pictures of sheep around the room,

made an angel (click here for instruction)

and then we had lots of time to choose and play around the theme and discuss with the children what they had heard...

Shepherd figures and sheep

 Nativity jigsaw

Dressing up and role play as angels and shepherds

Nativity board books and Nativity set

After a time of choosing and play, we talked about the angels telling the shepherds about Jesus and the shepherds running off to find him.  We talked about why is was good to tell other people that God loved them.  Then we used instruments to make a loud joyful noise to celebrate the good news about Jesus being born!

Messy Christmas Shepherd Craft

Kylé and I are starting to get ready for Messy Church in a week and a half and I thought we'd let you into one of our crafts- candy cane shepherds!

As there's a bit of a health and safety veto on using toilet roll tubes, we made our own coloured tubes with A5 sheets of coloured card.  

We then stuck on a face, threaded a pipe cleaner through the tube (it's easy to just push it through!) and put a piece of fabric and string on top for a head dress. 

The pipe cleaner's bendiness makes it easy for the shepherd to hold his candy cane crook.  With older children, the candy cane might even lead to discussion of the symbolism of the white (purity) and red (Jesus' blood) and his role as the good shepherd in our lives.

Easy DIY children's nativity costumes

Part of our Nativity themed activities with the 3-5s involves dressing up as characters from the story.  We have quite a selection of home made costumes and this would be something really easy to make at home- especially if you are preparing for the Nativity service!

Here are some easy and quick ideas...

Angels:  A white T shirt with gold net attached to the bottom (can be worn with leggings), a large pillowcase with holes cut for head and arms, tinsel halos, home made angel wings

Shepherds, Mary, Joseph, Innkeeper:

 Tea towels and headbands (5 for £1 from the Pound shop!)

 An oversize/ adult T shirt decorated with marker pen stripes

A length of off cut material with a head hole cut out of the middle (can be worn as a tunic with a belt over trousers and T shirt)

Wise Men:  Any of the above with cloaks made from pillowcases/ lengths of fabric fastened with safety pins or badges, cardboard hats and crowns

And if all else fails dressing gowns are very useful!!

Nativity story through play with 0-3s

This week we introduced the theme of Christmas in Creche and we all had a brilliant time- including the leaders!  

As well as the slide, the see-saw, the step and the sparkly play dough we also put out...

Wooden Nativity figures

 Soft silver stars hand sewn and knitted by Catherine,

 A selection of Nativity board books and a jigsaw

mug trees to decorate with tree ornaments and rings

Shaving foam snow!

At snack time we read this great book that even the babies joined in with!  Click here to go to the Amazon link for this book

The children especially loved the wooden animals from the nativity set and it just seemed appropriate, with the lovely silver stars to hand, to sing 'twinkle, twinkle little star'!

Christmas Card Jigsaws

Another way we used last year to help the children in our school lunchtime club to get familiar with the Nativity story was to turn old Christmas cards into jigsaws.  Not only did they have to pick up on the clues of the character they were assembling in order to build the jigsaw but it also led them to discussion about what the picture was showing.  There were two ways we made the jigsaws:

Cut a single card into jagged pieces...

Cut a selection of cards into straight pieces and mix them up. 

This works well for small groups of children because they have to work together to separate the pieces and build the picture.  You can do this as a timed activity and see which group puts them together in the quickest time!

Christmas Card Boxes (and Advent Calendar!)

I always keep my Nativity themed Christmas cards because the children, especially at our school lunchtime club, love to look at them and talk about the Nativity story.

I learned to make boxes out of cards a few years ago and I often make boxes out of my Christmas cards and put little gifts in them.  It struck me that if I made 25 boxes, I could turn them into an Advent Calendar that could contain sweets or little gifts for each day but would be very rooted in the Nativity story and would provoke thoughts each day about the characters portrayed on each box.  Here's how I made it if you fancy having a go yourself!

 Collect last year's Christmas cards (Nativity themed only!)

 Separate the front and back of the cards.  The front will be the top of your box and the back will be the bottom of the box.  Slightly trim the back piece along one length and one width so it is a tiny bit smaller than the front piece.

 With a ruler or length of card, rule off sides of equal depth. Cut four slits as shown. Fold the pieces inwards to make a box shape and secure with sellotape.  

 Do this for front and back pieces

 Hopefully the box top will fit over the bottom piece quite snugly...

Now make 25 boxes, number and arrange!  It takes a while to do, but hopefully you'll be able to keep it for more than one year!

Make your own angel wings with a cardboard box and paper!

On Sunday, Sparks will be learning about the shepherds and the angels in the Nativity story.  Part of their play activities will be the option to dress up as Nativity characters.  I was going to buy some angel wings, but I wasn't willing to pay shop prices so we made our own.  Again, this is something that can really easily be done at home!

Flatten out a cardboard box

With scissors or a craft knife, cut a basic wings shape with a joining piece in the centre.

 Cut an A4 sheet of paper into thirds width ways.  Cut slits up the paper and give them a curved edge.  You can do about 6- 8 sheets at once so it doesn't take long and it doesn't have to be accurate!

 Stick the paper feathers in layers up the wings (start at the bottom and work up!)  Do the front and the back of the wings.

 Make 2 holes in each side of the joining piece so that you can thread ribbon through... (I wish I'd made the holes and threaded the ribbon through before I'd stuck the feathers on!)

Mary Ann modelling our wonderful wings!

Christmas Angel Craft

We're starting Christmas preparations this week with our 3-5s.  Over the next 3 Sundays we will look at different characters form the story and this Sunday will focus on Shepherds and Angels.  Here is the craft we will be doing but it's also something really easy for parents to do with their children at home!

You will need:  

A paper plate cut like so...

Small 'face' and 'halo' circles and sparkly stickers or paper to decorate

Assemble the angel as shown in the pictures!