Getting Ready for Christmas

This book contains a wealth of ideas for cross-curricular teaching designed to give a host of fresh ideas for the last few weeks of the Christmas term.

The material includes a mix of practical, literary and academic tasks, all linked to the National Curriculum and comes complete with a nativity play and three structured literacy hours, based around a specially written story, The Last Customers.

There are also ideas for Advent assemblies, drama workshops and things to make, including a class Advent calendar, Advent candles and St Nicholas Day biscuits. The material includes class worksheets with full photocopy permission where appropriate.

Meg Harper is a well-known author of children's fiction, including the Saint Jenni and My Mum and Other Horror Stories series for Lion. Alongside her work as a writer she is a trained teacher. She currently teaches youth theatre and conducts a variety of workshops in schools. She also runs a children's book group and has her own website, www.megharper.co.uk.

From: Wordpool - Winter 2007
www.wordpool.co.uk
Unusually the nativity play in this book is aimed at KS2 and above. The script looks at the different character's reactions to Mary's pregnancy and there are follow up ideas for exploring the same theme in PSHE. This approach could capture the attention of older children and teenagers, but is less suitable for younger pupils who may not all understand the issues involved.

The book also contains a series of Christmas-related lesson ideas for the same age group, together with the necessary photocopiable worksheets. The lessons cover most of the national curriculum subjects, including making an advent calendar in art and design, an investigation of star shapes in maths and work with candles for technology.
Reviewed by Diana Kimpton

From: RE News - Autumn 2007
Getting Ready for Christmas is a practical, cross-curricular activity book for key stage 2 pupils, which is ideal for the lead up to Christmas. Included under the transparent section headings are ideas, activities, and worksheets for art and design, design and technology, geography and history, science, mathematics, drama, PSHE, and literacy. In addition, four topics are explored for assemblies. All the sections are characterised by clear, easy-to-follow instructions and active approaches to learning.

From: The Methodist Recorder - 29 November 2007

Getting Ready for Christmas contains 'Creative ideas for assemblies, drama and cross-curricular activities' and includes a nativity play script. Its material links art and design, geography, history, literacy, mathematics and science and includes photocopying permission. Written by English and drama teacher Meg Harper, the book is full of both practicality and inspiration.

Reviewed by Jan Randall, Class teacher and RE Manager
Recommended
Most Christmas activity books one sees are full of cutting, colouring and sticking - great in their way but always the activities feel like something you can do when all the formal teaching is done and certainly not when OFSTED are about...!

Meg Harper's book is very different; it uses the Christmas story and its traditions as a basis for lessons across the curriculum. She knows her stuff too - the Literacy is clearly linked to the Yr6 Literacy Strategy and the Science lesson, involving salty water (the Dead Sea being tolerably close to Bethlehem, after all!) is linked to many of the National Curriculum attainment targets. My Year6 maths group will love her maths activity linking the measuring of angles and 2D shape to variously pointed stars.

Meg links Christmas to Art and Design, DT, Geography, History, Science, Maths, Drama, PSHE and Literacy. She also throws in four assemblies and a nativity play for good measure. Finally there are photocopiable sheets to support the lessons.

So this is the year that I will be doing a cross-curricular week or two on Christmas with a clear conscience, sharing both the Christmas story and its traditions with my class.

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