#4280. Holiday Music Assembly Programs

Music, level: all
Posted Fri Dec 5 16:56:16 PST 2008 by Music Teachers Chatboard (Music Teachers Chatboard).
Music Teachers Chatboard

AmyIdaho posted on the Music Teachers Chatboard encouraging colleagues to share information about the programs they presented for the holiday season. Amy said:

I'm being really lazy this year and just spelling CHRISTMAS with kids holding block letters. Each letter represents a song. And once the word is spelled, we sing We Wish You a Merry Christmas...and that's it! It's for 1st grade.

C- Christmas Greeting (Denise Gagne) (Stand and sing)
H- Hip Hop Reindeer (K8) (sing with actions)
R- Ring Ring Ring the Bells (Denise Gagne)(with instruments)
I- It's a Holiday World (Music Express Vol. 5 No. 3)
(Dance and Sing and instruments)
S- Suzy Snowflake (Reader's Digest Christmas Book)
(kids hold snowflakes and make them dance for part of
the song)
T- All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth
(McGraw-Hill Share the Music)(Kids hold big goofy smiles
they made hooked to tongue depressors and make them
dance for part of the song)
M- Many Thanks (K8)(Stand and sing...Thank you's in other
languages)
A- Christmas ABC's (Denise Gagne)(Sing with actions)
S- Santa Claus is Coming to Town
(McGraw-Hill Share the Music) (Sing with actions)
We Wish You a Merry Christmas (K8)(Sing with actions)

Tara/NJ posted:
Great idea, Amy!
I have two concerts and this is what we're doing (so far):
K-1-2 2nds come on first with "Blitzen's Boogie" (K8)
complete with antlers and our amazing hip hop dancing boy as Blitzen. then all sing "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree"
K's have their song (not sure what it is since I don't teach them)

1st grade does: Loose Tooth poem into "All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth" then "This Little Light of Mine" (we'll ask the audience to sing the response portion on the last verse, when we sing "Shine all over Willard" - the name of our school). 1sts and 2nds sing a Bisbee arrangement of a Hebrew folk song, "Hanukah." All sing "Nuttin' for Christmas" 2nds sing "Spin a Little Dreidl" (MK8 - hope it's not too ambitious!) and we end with "Ev'rybody's Goin' on a Sleigh Ride" (MK8)

3-4-5 All sing "We Wish You a Swingin' Holiday" (great
partner song from MK8) 3rds sing "Snow Beautiful Snow" - John
Jacobson partner song to "Over the River & Through the Woods"
All sing "Holiday Lights" by Gallina 4ths play "Sleigh BAG" from MK8 All sing "It's the Holiday Season" (Gallina arrangement) All sing "Deck the Hall" - a three way partner song by Jacobson (I HOPE we can do this but we still haven't
learned it!)
5ths sing "Debka Hora" with orff arrangement and
dance (Kriske/Delelles) All sing "Song of Peace" from MK8 with sign language. All sing this amazing Ruth Artman version of "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" set to the jingle bells
melody. I believe the idea of this arrangement came from this site :)

DonnaR/CA posted:
WHEW!
On 11/18/08, Tara/NJ wrote:
> Great idea, Amy!
First grade: Canned program: "The Littlest Christmas Tree", but with one added song for Hanukkah. (Our district insists that we
recognize Hanukkah and do a "balanced" program. So the Hanukkah song "balances" it. Yeah right.)
Kindergarten: Not till January, thankfully. It's just a demonstration program. Whew!

Upper elementary choir: "Winter in the Country" is the theme. Songs include "Winter in the Country", "Peaceful Night", "Grandma's Chicken Soup" and "This Little Light of Mine" from
Music K-8/Plank Road publishing. Plus "A'Soalin'", "God Bless All" (round), "Gloria, Gloria" (Haydn, our tough piece), and
"Alegria, Alegria" (it's in Share the Music, but I changed it a bit).

lis posted:
Wow! Sounds like some really great programs! I teach at a 3rd/4th grade school of 850+ students. I choose 4 or 5 classes from each
grade to do the program. A total of around 200 students (100 for each grade). The idea is to get LOTS of parents out... only the ones
whose kids are performing show up, of course. Plus, the more kids involved, the better chance of kid participation and a stronger performance, we hope.

Anyway, third graders are doing "We Are the Stars" as the introduction song. It's cutsie. Then Deck the Halls, three verses,
with non-pitched percussion instruments. An Orff arrangement of the spiritual, There was a Little Baby, Jingle Bell Dance (using three
large circles of kids on the gym floor), and Silent Night in sign language.

For the transition of third grades going off and fourth grades coming up, we have an Orff ensemble of 8 kids playing the Overture from Delelles and Kriske's "FIve Gold Rings". ( I LOVE that whole
play, but it is too ambitious for my groups!)

The fourth graders are doing:
Angels and Shepherds, with Orff, An Austrian Carol (Mary Helen Solomon arrangement) with Orff and dancers, Merry Day (song with body percussion by Konnie Saliba), Nuttin' for Christmas (using
soloists), Have a Holly Jolly Christmas, and Variations on Jingle Bells (hilarious arrangement of JB in march, waltz, spiritual, cha-cha, boogie woogie styles) Then We Wish You a Merry Christmas.

Garland/GA posted:
I am somewhat lucky in that both the schools I teach in I don't have a Christmas program except for my chorus kids.

At school #1 they always schedule my PTO for December, I don't have a choice b/c it is replacing the Kindergarten Christmas program that
they did (same show every year) up until 2 years ago. My chorus students don't have a spring show so we do several songs that have nothing to do with the holidays that we will be using for our spring field trip. Our concert is SSB (always start with Star Spangled Banner), the 3 Broadway pieces we are doing at the moment, Ode to the
Treble Clef from Music K-8, Winter Wonderland (student request), and 3 songs from the Christmas Showstoppers book:
North Pole Rock and Roll
Santa Claus Rock
Christmas is OK

On the Treble Clef song I traced the clipart from Music K-8 on a poster and we will have a kid walking around with it making "kissy
faces" at it and such. Christmas is OK we are going all out and kids that have signed up will do some Square Dancing!

School #2 has a Christmas program that our EIP teachers have their kids do, I never have anything to do with it unless they ask, they
normally stick to stuff that is appropriate for the kids voices (plus I'm always at school #1 on the same night as this).

My chorus kids sing as part of the Christmas assembly (pretty much a holiday talent show...) but I'm never there that week so the AP who
is musically inclined usually conducts. They will sing the Christmas songs I listed except for Christmas is OK.

Their major performance is for Music in our Schools month. At both schools they have done away with any other performances for PTO and have "family fun nights" doing dances or science nights. Before they did that all the teachers did their own programs anyway so I really didn't get much say.

Martha posted:

We will be doing three nights of programs so that all our little pre-K's get a chance to perform.

Last year we did "Bob Humbug the Christmas Grump" from Milliken and while I thought it was really cute I don't think the songs are really
appropriate for 4 year olds and we had to put way too much time into memorizing.
This year we are doing five songs about winter (although I got the Christmas Grump approved all the way to the central office last year my assistant principal still freaked out about it at the last minute and made us take half the
decorations down, etc. I've decided to avoid Christmas during the program from now on.)

Our songs are:
"Snowflakes Snowflakes" (piggyback song to Twinkle Twinkle
Little Star) Five Fat Turkeys (love this song) Two Warm Mittens (piggyback to He's Got the Whole World in His Hands)
Five Little Snowmen Snowpants (from Music k-8)

I'm happy to have chosen all songs that are well within reach for the kids but will be very cute for the parents. I'm not stressed about it at all!

AmMusic posted:

Well thanks to reading this chatboard (so happy I recently discovered it!) I stole the idea from one of you to add music to the book, Snowmen at Night :) It's a First Grade Winter
Program and I split 7 classes of 1st graders into 2 groups and do the same performance twice in one evening.

Our principal will read the story on power point
presentation and kids will sing:
The Hap Hap Happy Snowman (old Disney song)
Bye'm Bye with glocks & finger cymbals (SB World of Music)
Hot Chocolate! with motions & inst. (Poem I made up similar to Peas Porage Hot.)
First Skater's Waltz with dance (Songs the Tickle Funny Bone)
I Like to Have Fun with motions MK8
So Long! with motions MK8

Wayne posted:

We are trying a new approach to programs for our Kindergarten and 1st Grade programs this
year. We are going SIMPLE! Since we only see our classes once each week, we felt we were wasting a lot of instructional time drilling for programs. This way our little ones have the experience of performing, but without as much prep!

We have an annual Santa Breakfast on a SATURDAY
morning(8:00-12:00 A.M.)... breakfast in the
cafeteria... vendors throughout the school (lots of shopping)
and of course...Santa is here!

Both our first grade and Kindergarten performances will take place during the Santa Breakfast. We are lucky to have two
music teachers...I'm doing the 1st grade program at 8:30 a.m. and the other teacher is directing the K performance at 9:30 a.m.

Here is what I'm doing with 1st grade:
Poem (Greeting)
Play the Bells to Celebrate/with instruments (Denise Gagne)
Poem
Love Came Down at Christmas (McGraw-Hill/Share the Music)
Poem
Jolly Old Saint Nicholas (McGraw-Hill/Spotlight on Music)
Blitzen's Boogie (Music K-8)
Closing poem

About a week later we have a choir performance and they are
singing:
Joy To The World (Music K-8)
Still, Still, Still (Ready to Sing...Christmas, Jay Althouse)
Masters In This Hall (Music K-8)
Jingle Jive (Music K-8)
Silver Bells (Music Express)
Rockin' On The Housetop (Music Express)

Renee posted:

I teach at a small K-7 school and we do one big concert.
My program is as follows:

Kindergarteners: SANTA (like bingo by Denise Gagne), Penguin Polka by Teresa Jennings

5th/7th general music: Jingle bells using orff and boomwhackers

5th Grade Band: Hot cross buns, rolling along, Mozart melody

6th/7th Grade band: First Holiday Concert, When the saints go marching
in.

1,2,3,4: Winter Musical: How the Penguins Saved Christmas

Denise-Wi posted:

I have two programs, both have the "All-American Holiday" theme (songs about,from, or composed by American composers)
Sorry I don't have composers/publishers with me right now.

K-3---
K-Cooking, Football, Turkey
-Joyful Bells,Jingle, the Happy Bell, Tideo, Jingle Bells,

1st-
Here Comes Santa Claus
Comin' Down the Chimney
Great Big Star

1st and 2nd Grade:
Lady Liberty

2nd-
Over the River and Through the Wood
Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey.
Rudolph
Cranberries Forever

3rd-(they actually have Hawaii as their American theme)
play xylophones for Kinders on Jingle, the Happy Bell
Christmas Luau
Hukilau
Go, Tell it on the Mountain

K-3rd - Winter in America

4th-Alaska is their region
Northern Lights
Eskimo Ice Cream Dance
An American Song

4th and 5th: Winter Waltz

5th-
BA Cowboy
Hoedown
Jingle Bells/I hear those Jingle Bells

5th and 6th Grade: Green and White

6th Grade:
Blue Christmas (boys)
Holly Jolly Christmas (girls)
Nuttin' for Christmas
Go Where I Send Thee

4-6th-
There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays
Seems like a lot - especially considering both programs are in the same evening.