Friday was a fantastic day – we took a group of our best singers around UCP to Christmas carol!

This was a first time event, so yay! I emailed all the employees who have offices in UCP (i.e. Human Resources, Nursing, etc.) and asked them to leave their doors open so the children could serenade them with the sweet sounds of Christmas carols!

Caroling tied in nicely with our theme of teaching the children about holiday traditions from around the world. (More on that when I tell you about our Holiday Spectacular Show in an upcoming post!) I found books at the library about different holiday traditions and taught the children how some people go around from home to home and sing carols.

After teaching the children about the tradition of caroling, we started practicing songs. Traditional carols proved to be difficult for the children to learn because of the advanced language (“Troll the ancient yuletide carol!” “Bells on bop tail ring!” “Bring us some figgy pudding?!”) So we simplified the lyrics to make them easier to learn. This made the experience much more successful. Here was the lineup…

“Feliz Navidad” (lyrics are pretty simple and repetitive as they are. Definitely a crowd favorite!)

“We Wish You a Merry Christmas” (lyrics are pretty simple and repetitive as they are! Left out the “Good tidings to you…” part.)

“Jingle Bells” (the children just sang the chorus of this one)

“Deck the Halls” (the children just sang the “Fa, la, la, la, las”)

Here is a video of the children singing one of their favorites, “Feliz Navidad”…

 

This was a GREAT way for the children to not only learn popular carols, but also to work on socialization and communication as they made their way around UCP to spread Christmas cheer! (And they looked really cute, too!)