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Watch (1977 BBC schools programme) - The Nativity, Part 1

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Watch (1977 BBC schools programme) - The Nativity, Part 2

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Explore our collection of teaching resources for primary and secondary schools, designed to bring festive joy to your classroom this Christmas.
Scroll down to the bottom of the page for resources for secondary schools.

Primary schools can enjoy two festive Live Lessons. Our Winter Live Lesson is available to watch now. It's a cross-curricular programme for 5-7 year-olds, all about our coldest season.

7-11 year-olds can also join in with our It's Christmas Live Lesson . In this half-hour programme for primary schools we explore what Christmas is and why we have a Christmas break from school, show how people of all faiths, as well as non-religious people in the UK, spend their time during the Christmas period, and we have a VIP backstage tour of a Christmas panto!

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Explore our collection of teaching resources for primary and secondary schools, designed to bring festive joy to your classroom this Christmas. Scroll down to the bottom of the page for resources for secondary schools. Primary schools can enjoy two festive Live Lessons. Our Winter Live Lesson is available to watch now.

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A collection of Christmas themed content to use with Primary and Secondary pupils.

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Nathan, an 11-year-old boys, tells us about the tradition of Christmas and all the things he does at this time of year.

We hear about the symbolism of the advent wreath, which represents Jesus as the light of the world, and the advent calendar, which is about marking this important time of year.

We also visit a nativity where primary school children enact the story of the first Christmas.

Christmas is a celebration of Jesus Christ's birthday and many Christians attend a special midnight church service called Midnight Mass.

This short film is from the BBC series, My Life, My Religion: Christianity.

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Nathan, an 11-year-old boys, tells us about the tradition of Christmas and all the things he does at this time of year. We hear about the symbolism of the advent wreath, which represents Jesus as the light of the world, and the advent calendar, which is about marking this important time of year.

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Christmas is a Christian holy day that marks the birth of Jesus, who Christians believe to be the Son of God.

When is Christmas?

Christmas is celebrated each year on 25 December (7 January for Orthodox Christians).

What is the story of Christmas?

Jesus was born to a woman called Mary who was engaged to Joseph, a carpenter in the town of Nazareth in Galilee.

Mary was visited by an angel who told her that she would give birth to a baby called Jesus. Jesus was born in Bethlehem because Joseph and Mary had travelled there to take part in a census which the Roman rulers had ordered.

When Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem the local inn was full with people returning for the census. The innkeeper let them stay in the rock cave below his house which was used as a stable for animals. It was here that Mary gave birth to Jesus.

Jesus was visited by three wise men from the East who had followed a star to Bethlehem. The wise men presented Jesus with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. An angel also guided some poor shepherds to see the birth. For Christians this shows that Jesus came for all people of all backgrounds.

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How is Christmas celebrated?

The story of Jesus's birth (also known as the nativity) is often retold by children taking part in nativity plays.

Christian church services at Christmas include carol singing. These are happy songs which tell the Christmas story. Some Christians start Christmas Day with a midnight communion service (also called a midnight mass).

Christmas dinners are also an important part of the celebrations. Families and friends will share food together, eating traditional foods, such as turkey, mince pies and Christmas puddings.

Christingle

Over the Christmas period, many Christian churches hold special services where children light candles stuck into oranges. These special candles are called Christingles.
Click on the picture below to see what the various parts of the Christingle mean to Christians.

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Advent

Advent is the period which leads up to Christmas. It starts on the Sunday nearest to Saint Andrew's Day (30 November).

Many Advent customs involve counting the days until Christmas begins. Children will often be given advent calendars to mark the days that have passed.

Some churches have an advent wreath with four candles, one for each of the four Sundays leading up to Christmas Day. Some wreaths will have another candle in the centre to mark Christmas Day itself.

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Learn all about the Christian festival of Christmas with fun interactive videos, activities, downloads, quizzes and revision guides for KS2 school children.

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1. Entry music
Play a Christmas carol that tells the story of the birth of Jesus, such as 'The First Noël', or choose one of the songs suggested below from BBC collections (eg 'Away in a manger' or 'Mary had a baby').

2. Introduction
Wrap up and number with a label some things that Christmas is 'about' (see list). Then place them under your school tree if you have one, or at the front of the hall. At the start of assembly, talk about the fact that it will soon be Christmas and that there are five presents that you need some help opening. Some pointers for what to say about each gift as it's opened are included below.
1: A Christmas decoration - at Christmas, we like to make everywhere look pretty (draw attention to what's already - or will be - in evidence at school).
2: Some Christmas role play food - at Christmas we often have a special meal together.
3: A Christmas party popper / cracker / blower - Christmas is often a time for parties and celebrating.
4: A family photo - Christmas is a time for families to get together.
5: A small baby Jesus nativity figure - for Christians Christmas is about the birth of Jesus, an event that they remember every year on Christmas Day. This baby may be small, but for Christians, the story of his birth is the biggest and most important part of Christmas.

Alternatively, if you do not have time to source the items, use the images in the gallery called 'Christmas is..?'

Play the video. It includes a short introduction to the Christian religion before telling the story of the birth of Jesus (the 'nativity'). The video ends with the words: '...Christians celebrate Jesus's birthday as one of their main holy days - Christmas Day.'

4. After the video
Use the story questions to help children to talk about the story they have watched and to recall the main events.

5. Time to talk
Ask children to think about why it is so important to Christians that this story is remembered every year and what they think the most important part of the story is.

6. Time to sing
An opportunity to sing your chosen song. Suggestions from BBC collections are below.
7. Opportunity for reflection 8. Opportunity for prayer
Dear God.
Thank you for Christmas time and for all the wonderful things that we have thought of that are a part of our celebrations.
As we enjoy Christmas, please help us to remember that we celebrate because of the story of the birth of Jesus.
Amen.
We've been thinking today about a very special story - the nativity - the story of the very first Christmas...
We've heard how the special baby, Jesus, was born in a stable - and how angels announced the news of his birth...the birth of Jesus, God's Son...
This story is one of the most important of all stories for Christians and a really important part of the celebration of Christmas...
I wonder what's important about Christmas for you..?
Think quietly to yourself for a few moments now...

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KS1 Festivals - Christianity: The First Christmas

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A primary school assembly framework for KS1, KS2 and P1 - P7. The story of the birth of Jesus; celebrating Christmas. Includes video, suggestions for songs, optional words for reflection and prayer. May be used for Collective Worship. BBC School Radio. BBC Teach.

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Top 10 Top Christmas Maths & Well-being Activities For KS2 Classrooms

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It seems every primary school teacher in December is in need of Christmas activities, ideas and investigations, so we put our elves to work to find you the 10 best Christmas maths activities suitable for your KS2 pupils at this time of year.

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Children design and make a collage on the theme of Christmas, and then to incorporate a simple moving part. A good way of incorporating Christmas into D&T which allows children to practise, designing, choosing materials, cutting and sticking. The collage can be used to get children to think about light, dark and shadows as well as stimulate creative story telling.

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Christmas Day Football Truce | Frightful First World War | Horrible Histories

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Horrible Histories - Quiz: Horrible Christmas

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Horrible Histories - Series 9: 6. Cracking Christmas

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The Horrible History of Christmas, with Dickens, Henry VIII and a festive Finnish goat.

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There is a great virtual tour of Santa's House, including the elves cottages on Zillow (press the name to follow the link). I thought this would be a brilliant opportunity to do some persuasive writing in an estate agent style. I have included a planning sheet and a mock up of an Estate Agent site which are both fully editable.

Martin Beattie (@HP_Saucerer on Twitter) Was kind enough to share this editable Summer term reading challenge.

Harry Potter is our next topic so I created this summer homework grid, hopefully it will help stop that summer slide a little. Something that definitely will is the 'Doodle Maths' summer challenge. Doodle maths is a free app which we use in school ​https://www.doodlemaths.com/ the children log on and it adjusts the level of questioning on how well the children are doing. It really is worth downloading and ahving a look. Have a great summer.

Thanks to the amazing Jenna Lucas @JennaLucas81 for sharing this great idea for using 'speech punctuation' The sheet can be edited using word.

A fun, practical way to look at SPAG, look at these signs and spot the mistakes.

Thanks to Jenna Lucas (@jennalucas81) and her school council members for creating and sharing this lovely advent calendar. You can download and edit to sort your school and children. Thanks again Jen.

This is based on the old, what are you good at now, what would you like to get better at - but in a Pokemon style. How do you want to evolve over the year. It is editable so skills can be changed etc.

I was asked by somebody on Twitter about Literacy mats, being a Maths shed I didn't have any but I did find these from Lancashire County Council and thought I would share as they looked useful.

Thanks to whoever put in the hard work, much appreciated.

Just watched the 'Peanuts' movie and loved some of the quotes and messages behind the film so made these for my classroom.

This was created for a lesson I did on music and feelings, which you can read about here ​http://www.innovatemyschool.com/industry-expert-articles/item/1603-classroom-tunes-how-does-music-make-us-feel?.htm_ l just thought i'd share.

Matthew Gaukroger (@thatICTperson) was asking fellow teachers on Twitter, why they chose to use it. Matthew was then going to use those quotes for some staff training. I have taken those quotes and put them into a virtual staffroom, I thought they may be useful for a display in a real staffroom :-)

This is a nice little activity to do on a transition day. Interesting to see the answers from te children.

After giving my colleagues a 'Computing Skills Audit' it became obvious that they were unsure about a lot of the terminology involved with computing, so I have created this A3 Jargon Buster. A prezi presentation to go with it is here.

Inspired by an original graphic by @sylviaduckworth (who does some lovely work) I have taken this great quote and Minionised it

Thanks to Chris Tomkins (@thechrissyt) for sharing these brilliant 'Growth Mindset' posters that can be downloaded as a single PDF above.

Makerspaces are a great way to promote and foster children's creativity, if you are thinking of starting one this PDF is a great place to get ideas.

Dont know who the original author of this is and couldn't find a downloadable copy of it after Theresa Young brought it to my attention on Twitter, so created a pdf version.

During a chat ( #dojochatEU - every Wednesday 8.30 - 9.30 GMT) about Creativity in the class, the topic turned to students being frightened to fail and teacher Lyndsey McFarlane shared a great poster with the tag line 'First Attempt In Learning' I thought this was great so added some shed/minion sparkle to it and here we are.

Somebody on Twitter asked me if I knew of a visual timetable based on superheroes, I didn't so I created one and here it is...fully editable in publisher format.

This page will have bits and pieces that I have found and want to share, may not be maths but could be useful :-)

These 'Reading Journals' produced by the Lancashire County Council have some very useful ideas and resources especially when used in guided reading groups. You can download them for years 1 to 6 here:

If you are looking at the topic on 'Being Healthy' then this 'Sesame Street' booklet has lots of great ideas and resources.

We use the excellent Class Dojos as rewards in our school. Here is a shopping list created with my children. They can choose to spend points on rewards. The document is editable so you can add your own.

I was alerted to this video by Mr Drew on Twitter. It shows in stop motion hot air balloons being inflated ready for flight. The video has no sound which makes it even better. Some of the things you could do are:

Predictions: Which balloon do you think will inflate first / second/ third
Will the first balloon inflated also be the first to take off?
Ordering: Which balloon inflated first/second/third/fourth and so on.
Shape, pattern and symmetry: What shapes can you see? are any of the balloons symmetrical? Can you see any patterns to the balloon designs?
Sorting: Using the picture below can you sort the balloons into different categories.
Counting: Count the balloons as they take off.
Cross Curricular Links: In Literacy you could write a story of being on a balloon and the journey that you take. Poetry to describe your journey, how it feels and what you see.
Geography: Draw a birds eye view from your balloon.
D and T: Design a hot air balloon.
Science: How do the hot air balloons float? Design and make your own balloon, can you make it fly?
Music: Create music to go with this film clip.

Thanks to @gazneedle for pointing me in the direction of this great poster.

This second one has a small edit of the words.

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There is a great virtual tour of Santa's House, including the elves cottages on Zillow (press the name to follow the link). I thought this would be a brilliant opportunity to do some persuasive writing in an estate agent style. I have included a planning sheet and a mock up of an Estate Agent site which are both fully editable.

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Christmas spot the difference activity sheet

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KS2 Christmas treasure hunt picture cards

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KS1 Christmas treasure hunt recording sheet

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KS1 Christmas treasure hunt picture cards

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Primary Resources: Seasonal Resources: Christmas

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Primary Resources - free worksheets, lesson plans and teaching ideas for primary and elementary teachers.

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Want to find out about your children's Christmas? Why not get them to create a Xmas infographic, who came to visit? How many brussel sprouts did they eat? How many pigs-in-blankets? Which presents did they receive and how many of each?

Play the Youtube videos (links included with the PDF) and children must ask their classmates which is their favourite Xmas song, create the bar chart and then think of word problems about their findings.

This shed is for all those seasonal themed maths activities.

Updated for 2016 - this book covers many strands of maths, has over 20 pages of content and can be edited to suit your children - just what you need in the run up to Christmas.

These gorgeous Ukrainian Easter eggs are super, you could look at what shapes can be seen? find lines of symmetry, and look for patterns.
Children could use shape to create their own Ukrainian egg.
Thanks to the lovely Beth Bennet for the idea below, use angles to create symmetrical patterns similar to the Ukrainian eggs.

Lots of questions here: Which store offers the best value? Which egg is the best value per grams. Prices can be downloaded as a PDF to use in class.

I love an infographic and the two below have lots of facts and figures about Easter and could be used in Numeracy or Literacy.

Amazing how much you can save by buying an Easter egg compared to usual chocolates when compared in grams. How much do you save on each product? What is the percentage difference? Rank chocolates in order of amount saved. If you bought every egg as opposed to buying the alternative, how much in total would you save?

Thanks again to Theresa Young @treezyoung for this groovy Easter Quiz, covers Numeracy and Literacy and is great fun.

Thanks to @dannyeduk who took one of the pictures below and created this great co-ordinate sheet from it. Thanks mate.

Who is the best equipped Santa, Iron Man or Batman?

This is an American video but has some great stats about Christmas.

Christmas facts and figures.

A gorgeous time lapse movie, Snowtime is a 2-minute "microscopic time-lapse" by Vyacheslav Ivanov that captures the mesmerizing bloom of budding ice crystals in all their hexagonal glory. The ice crystal(s) in snowflakes owe their six-fold rotational symmetry to the hydrogen bonds in water molecules. As water freezes, water molecules bound to other water molecules crystallize into a hexagonal structure, where each point on the hexagon is an oxygen atom and each side of the hexagon is a hydrogen bonded to an oxygen. As freezing continues, more water molecules are added to this microscopic six-sided structure, causing it to grow in size into the six-sided macroscopic structure that we recognize as snow flakes.

Water's tendency to expand as it nears freezing - rather than condense, like most substances - is part of what lends its frozen crystal structure its unique shape. (It's also responsible for a number of water's unique properties, and why it's so essential to the existence of life.) Something to keep in mind the next time you're experimenting with good old H2O.

Complement with some stunning close-up photographs of snowflakes, here and here. (Some lovely pictures here)

[ Vyacheslav Ivanov via Kuriositas]

This is a great video if you are looking at symmetry in nature, the resources below are mainly focused on this area.

This is brilliant, all you could need for a 'Bonfire Night Party' maths investigation.

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Want to find out about your children's Christmas? Why not get them to create a Xmas infographic, who came to visit? How many brussel sprouts did they eat? How many pigs-in-blankets? Which presents did they receive and how many of each?