December

We did lots of Christmas vocabulary and traditional Latin American Christmas songs this month. Unfortunately, our last week before Winter break was cancelled for snow so we didn't act out the Christmas story as we usually would. We did sing some fun songs, though.

The first song is called "Los peces en el río" (The fish in the river). That doesn't sound Christmassy, does it? It is a very popular Christmas song and actually has a wonderful message. The lyrics are:

La Virgen se está peinando (here we pretended to brush our hair)
Entre cortina y cortina
Sus cabellos son de oro
Y el peine de plata fina

Pero mira como beben (here we did the fish mouth and swam like fish)
los peces en el río
Pero mira cómo beben
por ver a Dios nacido.
Beben y beben
y vuelven a beber.
Los peces en el río
por ver a Dios nacer.

La Virgen lava pañales (here, we pretended to put away diapers)
y los tiende en el romero,
los pajarillos cantando,
y el romero floreciendo.

You can download the version of the song that we sang at MDO here:


Another very popular Latin American Christmas song we sang was "Campana sobre campana". Campanas are bells, and in this song, as the angels ring bells, we ask what "nuevas" (news) they are bringing. We held bells and rang them during the chorus.

The lyrics are:

Campana sobre campana
y sobre campana una
asomate a la ventana (we pretended to look in a window for the baby Jesus)
verás al niño en la cuna

Chorus
Belen campanas de Belen (we rang bells just like the angels)
que los angeles tocan que nuevas me traes

Caminando a media noche
donde va mira el pastor
que llevarte y a cuidarte
como Dios mi corazon

Some of the children requested that we sing a song that they recognize in English, so we sang the Spanish version of Silent Night (Noche de Paz). Here is the version I used:

We read a wonderful book called El arbol de navidad. This book appears to be out of print, but there are some used copies for a few cents on Amazon if you want to order one! It uses very basic (but useful) vocabulary, and it is in Spanish and English for those of you who like to see the meaning of the phrases on each page.



I had planned to sing one more song with the children that we used last year, but the snow stopped us. This is a song about a child riding a little donkey (burrito) into Bethlehem (Belén) to see the baby Jesus. It has a fun beat. If you have children who are small enough, it is a good one to sing (or listen to) as you bounce the child on your knee, as if he/she is riding a donkey.