Twinkle, Twinkle Christmas Star

I then introduced the song, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star but changed the words to make it more festive.

                                   Twinkle, Twinkle Christmas Star

 Twinkle, twinkle Christmas Star,

{Hold hands up about shoulder height. Open and close hands}
 How I wonder what you are.

{Raise shoulders and hold hands out}
 Up above the tree so high,

{Raise hands high in the sky and open and close them again}
 Like a diamond in the sky.

{Form forefinger and thumb from each hand in a diamond shape}
 Twinkle, twinkle Christmas Star,

{Hold hands up about shoulder height. Open and close hands}
How I wonder what you are.

{Raise shoulders and hold hands out}
 

I sang the song a few times alone to give everyone an idea of what to sing and the adults joined in when they were ready. I then handed out a little song sheet with the lyrics. We repeated the lullaby quite a few times together to enable all adults to feel confident singing in English. I then gradually introduced the actions.

I then introduced the sensory bin. I used a large, under the bed, plastic storage box containing coloured red rice, clear and red glass nuggets and various things to decorate the tree; small red baubles, ribbon, sparkly pipe cleaners, pom poms and a toy star. I put the tree inside and we let them play. Two little girls got stuck right in and started decorating the tree without any prompts from us adults. As they put the decorations on the tree I talked about what they were doing "The tinsel. Oh, I can see that your're wrapping it around the tree! Beautiful. You want the bauble at the top? That one is so shiny. I repeated the words Christmas Tree, bauble, star and tinsel and the adjectives shiny and dull. They told us all about it too "tinsel", "baubles", "star".

We finished up with one beautiful tree and some very proud children (and adults)