Christmas at School

by Amy

The last few years at Christmas time I've gone to my kids' preschool to teach the Christmas story.  But, this year, I don't have any preschoolers!  So, I asked the teachers at the elementary school if Brad and I could come to our kids' classes to share about why our family celebrates Christmas.  They seemed to think it was a bit of a strange request, but they were willing to oblige.  So, on Christmas Eve morning, we packed up 140 cookies and 140 coloring books, bundled up, and walked to school.  The kids seemed really excited to see us!

We went to Peter and Alex's class first, then up to Savannah's.  We spent about 30 minutes in each class.

This is Peter and Alex's class.  Can you imagine the classroom management challenges that come with having over 60 kids in one class?!?!

Since Brad had just done Christmas parties with his students at our English school the week before, (and because he's awesome) he was willing to take the lead in teaching!  First we went over new vocab with the kids.  Since this story is unfamiliar here, he was not only introducing the kids to new English words, but also new words in their local language.  So, that led to the kids repeating both the English and Asianese words after Brad.  It was pretty cute.  Then, we gave each child a coloring book and read a simple version of the Christmas story with them.  (Brad read English and their teacher read it in the local language.)

This is Savannah's class.  I think it's sweet to seem them focusing so intently on the story.  

Next we taught the kids how to sing Go Tell It On The Mountain, complete with hand motions and all!  Finally, we wrapped up the class with giving each kid a Christmas cookie. The following week Savannah came home saying that all of her friends kept on asking if her mom would bake more cookies, so I guess they liked them.

What a sweet privilege we had getting to share this story with over 180* kids and teachers, many of whom thought Christmas was only about Santa Claus!

Where's Waldo, I mean Savannah?  Can you find her in this pic?

* I said 180 people, because we also had the opportunity to step into another first grade class and teach them the same story and song while we were waiting for Savannah's class to finish their lessons.  Too bad we didn't have enough coloring books and cookies to give to them as well.