Nursery Rhyme Nativities

Brian Ogden

From the Association of Christian Teachers website - October 2008

This book commends itself as a book of three Christmas plays, aimed at the youngest of our children, which can be performed with a minimum of fuss and manageable preparation.

The stories are told with the suggestion that adults (or very competent older children) should read the parts of the narrators, with the young children miming the action and singing the songs with the audience joining in the singing. The songs all use the tunes of nursery rhymes and have newly written words to fit the story e.g. Mary’s Song sung to the tune of 'London Bridge is Falling Down'. Illustrated photocopiable pages of song words are given with the suggestion that they could be put on acetate or made into booklets. The book includes simple music scores and craft templates including animal masks and crib figures.

This book is a wonderful resource for pre-school and KS1 teachers and also for church groups who rarely have a full complement of actors until the day of the play - the numbers of those acting is infinitely flexible.

This is a book that I will be passing on to my vicar, our pre-school leader and my KS1 manager. I rather suspect that they will be fighting over it!

Reviewed by Jan Randall, Class Teacher and RE Manager, Nursling Primary School, Southampton, Hampshire

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