Helicopter Stories Helped Our Nativity

“Do a Nativity,” they said.

“The parents will love it,” they said.

And so we did.

We bought a script and rehearsed for hours and hours, during the months of October, November, and December. The whole process was extremely stressful, and I am still not convinced on the advantages of it for the children. Yes, they gained some performance experience, but I suspect for most of them this was not a particularly positive one. Yes, the parents loved it, but we didn’t. 

Then I came across the book, Princesses Dragons and Helicopter Stories, by Trisha Lee. I introduced Helicopter Stories to my classroom over the Summer Term, and what followed amazed me. Children who had never before expressed any interest in mark making had stories to tell. Not only did they want to dictate their ideas but they began to show a greater interest in mark making in general. Helicopter Stories was such a hit that I wondered if I could use the approach as a new way to organise the Nativity.

I suggested to my boss that we could write our own Nativity, using the Helicopter Stories approach, and I explained to her what I would do. She was interested, and allowed me to try it out. We spent September and October running Helicopter Stories sessions, encouraging the nursery children to tell their stories and act them out.

At the October half term I took in a simple version of the Christmas story and spent a couple of weeks telling it to the children, in different ways, until they knew the story well and could tell it to me and to each other. We then began the process of collecting their Nativity stories. Each child was given the opportunity to dictate the Christmas story. I got very many versions, all with their own impressions of Christmas mixed in. Between them they told the whole story, so I stuck it together, adding songs between “scene changes.” We had many Helicopter Stories acting sessions, so they could act out the versions they had written. I think we only had two run throughs in all, and we sang all the songs lots in the two weeks leading up to the performance. On the day, I put out a load of costumes, asked parents to bring dressing gowns, tea towels, etc. and the children made it up as they went along. I narrated and the children acted their hearts out – they even demonstrated their ownership of the performance by adding their own characters.

We have run this cycle through twice now. It has been so popular with the parents that we had to hire a separate hall for the performance this year – it turns out you can’t fit all the parents, grandparents, and the whole pre-school into one room.

 Extracts from the script:

Mary and Joseph. There’s a baby in her tummy. “Look! She’s got a baby in her tummy!”
They went on a journey and it was a long journey and they wanted to sleep.
Joseph walking. And then on the donkey. He’s going “Clip, clop.”
It got a bit dark. The girl was tired. “Can we have a bed?” There no room.
Night time.
“Have you got any space?” And “No.” The man didn’t have any room. “No room.” Because they keep knocking and they have no space. There’s too much people in his house.
“Oh no, we’re full. You sleep with the animals round the back,” they said. “We got no space.” And then they said, “You can stay here if you want to. If you want you can sleep with the animals.”

I can thoroughly recommend a Helicopter Stories style nativity – let the children do it.