I teach Julia's 6th grade Religion class on Tuesday afternoons. I have a class of 16 kids, many of whom I had last year as well. December 20th is our last class before Christmas. I want to do something festive, but also keep the focus on the birth of Jesus. Last year I brought in a CD player, and we listend to Christmas carols as the kids wrote Christmas cards to parents and the director and ate the munchies I brought in. This year there's a new rule: no food. Any ideas?
Ahh... the no food rule. My old school had that, too. How about letting the kids play a game like musical chairs? That's a really fun but relatively quiet game.
I would really like to keep the focus on Religion. I'm thinking, off the top of my head, of a logic puzzle, maybe a word search, involving Christmas words? (I can get a logic puzzle online and just change the names and the situation) hmmmm....
Are there too many to do a small skit? It could be hilarious, bet they'd laugh, especially the one who would play baby Jesus! Then have the 3 kings bringing gifts, make it fun things like games and puzzles and afterwards you could all play the games! Because they can read, I believe there are play available online you could print off. We did one in preschool with the 5 year olds and it was real short, but the cutest thing ever. Some of the kids would be the cattle, bring in some material for Mary to wear over her head and a blanket for Joseph to wear.Take lots of photos?! Have fun!
Talk about traditions that the kids do with their families. I like this explaination of the meanings behind 12 Christmas traditions. I use this with my own kids during the holidays so that Christ remains the focus of the season. You could also have the kids look up additional scripture that would support the tradition. Like for candles, verses that talk about letting our light shine for Christ. http://cdn.www.ministry-to-children.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/12-Symbols-of-Christmas-Book.pdf
What about a scavenger hunt? You can make up various clues, Christmas themed, of course, and when they figure out the answer they can find little dollar store trinkets.
It's not in my school; I don't have access to the room before the kids get there. As to showing a film or something, I have no idea whether we have access to a projector or anything of the sort either.
How about a charades kind of thing where all of the phrases are Christmas activities, parts of the Christmas story, or even various Bible stories (Christmas or not).
A trivia game instead of a scavenger hunt? You could ask questions about different parts of the Mass as it pertains to Christmas? Or questions about the nativity story itself?
How about a modified Christmas karaoke. Even if you don't have a machine, you can play the carols and have everyone sing and dance and just be silly. Maybe have the kids pick a song and make up some dances to go with them?
Adding to Christmas Karaoke is the fun of stopping the song and having the kids sing the next line a la Don't Forget the Lyrics. I play it every year with our Christian Club kids and we have a blast. If you take some of the older hymns and carols you can easily turn it to a more "religious" discussion as they tend to have very deep (and very hard to understand) religious references.
Could they make a pop up book? If you sold it as a family keepsake, maybe they wouldn't think it too juvenile.
