Nativity

I am very happy to be teaching at St. Monica Centre for Early Learning. It is a small school of four kindergarten classes and four grade one classes.  In November, when our staff was preparing to decorate our school for the festive season, we thought that it would be nice to have a Christmas display outside.  We have so many budding artists at our school that we thought that it would be great to use this as an opportunity to display their work.  After all, what is more precious than the artwork of five and six year old children?

We had each child in the school draw a nativity picture and we went through them and chose parts from several pictures.  We chose a Mary, a Joseph, a donkey, two angels, a star, and a lamb.  The pictures were blown up on the overhead and were traced onto plywood.  A jigsaw was used to cut them out, and each class was assigned to work on a piece.  The children were responsible for sanding the rough edges of the wood and for painting them.

Once the pieces were painted by the children, the main lines were traced out in black, giving them super definition.  The characters were given six light coats of spray varnish and were set aside to dry thoroughly.

A stable was built scaled to the size of the characters to give a three dimensional look to our nativity.  The frame was built out of one by fours, and the back and roof were made out of two four by eight sheets of plywood.  The plywood was attached to the one by four framework using wood glue and screws.

We attached the nativity characters to the stable with screws so that they could easily be removed after Christmas for storage. One staff member brought a bale of straw that we placed inside the stable, and we finished it with some Christmas lights and a spotlight.  It was beautiful and the children all took pride in their masterpiece.

The stable is great, because it can be kept inside the school throughout the year and used in hallway displays for scarecrows. Snowmen, and yes, even for dinosaurs !