We are an Anglican kindergarten and are able to celebrate Christmas in a fairly traditional religious sense.

A very special part of the Christmas experience for the children is a family Carols’ night in the church, at which the kinder and pre-kinder children star.

To prepare the children for this, Father Tim takes us down to the church, where we paractice the carols we will be singing.

The children love visiting the church, and Father Tim tells them about the story of Christmas using his very old and beautiful nativity statues.

Not only do we visit the church but we also venture down stairs to see the chapel …

… where the children find another nativity scene.

As a result of these visits we like to have heaps of dramatic and imaginative play with the church visit as the basis.

We set up a stable in our bush box with all the dress ups for Mary and Joseph, sheep, donkeys, wise men, angels and of course there’s a baby Jesus.

We have a variety of nativity figures in different sizes, so we pop them around the room in various settings.

And of course we can’t forget the beautiful nativity stories available for the children to experience like;

The Story of Christmas by Vivian French and Jane Chapman …

Mary’s Baby by Jane Chapman, The Christmas book by Dick Bruna …

… and our all time favourite, Wombat Divine delightfully written by Mem Fox and beautifully illustrated by Kerry Argent.