In December, we had a super fun time looking at Christmas Around the World! Our first week happened to be on December 6, which was Saint Nicholas Day, so we had a storytime all about St. Nicholas! During storytime, I had the kids make a “shoe” craft, which they  placed outside the door of our storytime room. I then had one of my coworkers fill the shoes up with a bunch of goodies so that when they left storytime, they were all surprised. Had St. Nicholas visited us?

I also had a new opening song this week. I borrowed a Wiggles cd from another library in Michigan and used their song “Christmas Around the World” as an opening song for every Passport Pals in December. I got the shakers out and let the kids dance around with the shakers to begin our time together. It was a super fun month!

Here are the plans that I used for the first week of December.

Passport Pals: St. Nicholas Day

Song: Christmas Around the World (Wiggles #7) while kids come in (with shakers)

Welcome to our first week of Christmas Around the World! We are going to be going several places this month, so let’s do our Continent Cheer to get started!

Song: Continent Cheer (GGM #3)

Suitcase: Santa hat, shoes, small candy, coins (I wore the Santa hat for the rest of Passport Pals)

Today is actually a very special day to many people — a day called “St. Nicholas Day”.

Tell a Saint Nicholas story using a “Story stocking” — fill the stocking with parts of the story to pull out and tell. Have a Santa hat first, then a snowflake (for the terrible blizzard), followed by a  can of food, socks & gold coins (for the story of the girls and the dowry). This is the story I told:

St. Nicholas was a real man who lived many years ago. He cared very much for other people. It is said that one time there was a terrible blizzard and a whole town was suffering from lack of food. (take out snowflake ornament) . St. Nicholas pulled a sled filled with grain into the middle of the town so that they would have food! (show can of food). There is another story of St. Nicholas that said that he heard about some poor young girls. These girls didn’t have money, and back then they needed money so that they could get married. They were afraid they would never be able to get married. St. Nicholas wanted to help them, so he got some gold coins and snuck them into their house at night. It is said that he threw the coins into the house and the coins landed in the socks that the girls had hung by the fire to dry (take out socks). It didn’t take long for people to start putting their shoes (take out a shoe) out at night on December 5, hoping that, in the morning, the shoes would be filled with coins (take out coins). Today we hang stockings by the chimney and hope that ST. NICHOLAS . . . or SANTA CLAUS . . . will bring us something special!

Song: Jolly Old Saint Nicholas (or another Santa Claus song)

Do you know who we often call Saint Nicholas? Santa Claus!

Read Santa Duck by David Milgrim

Craft: Make Shoes for St. Nicholas, have kids place outside of door for remaining time (have a coworker put small treats in their shoes while storytime finishes) I found the template for these shoes here.

Read The Three Bears’ Christmas

Song: another Santa Song . . . .

Read “Where Does Joe Go” by Tracey Campbell Pearson

Stamp Passport: Santa stamp, let kids go out to get their shoes with their treats!!!

Author: Cheri Gamble

Cheri Gamble is a minister's wife and mom to five boys who lives in Southwestern Lower Michigan. She and her husband, Tom, have been married for over twenty years and they have been involved with vocational ministry for just as long. Cheri enjoys working with the children and youth at her church as a Sunday School teacher, children's worship leader, and children's music and drama leader. She also works as the Project Manager at the local Pregnancy Resource Center. In her free time, Cheri enjoys reading, writing, working on her blog, and watching football with her boys. View all posts by Cheri Gamble