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���˿��� Teach > School Radio > Assemblies and Collective Worship
KS1 audio: Something to Think About / KS2 audio: Together

Pre-programme questions:

• Show children the focus image. What do you think might be inside the present?
• Is it better to give or to receive a present?
• What’s the most unusual present you’ve ever received / given?
• What’s the best present you’ve ever received / given?
• What is a Christmas carol? Can you sing any? (NB Christmas carols are connected with the Nativity story in some way, so ‘Santa got stuck up the chimney’ and other similar songs are not strictly Christmas carols!)

Programme content:

Welcome and introduction: Ben introduces the programme and welcomes the children.
Voxpops: Children tell us about presents they’ve given and received and about what they think makes a present special.
Song: ‘Away in a manger’ (Come and Praise Beginning, no 44).
Story: The story of Silent Night. A story about the composition of ‘Silent Night’ by Deborah Nash. Grandpa is telling his grandson a Christmas story. On a Christmas Eve, in a little village called Obendorf, Father Joseph Mohr remembers a poem he’d written two years previously - about the birth of Jesus - and asks his friend Franz to write him a melody for it. And so one of the best-loved Christmas carols is born. NB. The carol was composed by Joseph Mohr with music by Franz Xaver Gruber and first performed on Christmas Eve 1818.
Reflection: On thoughtful giving at Christmas time. Ensure the children are listening carefully.
Opportunity for prayer: thanking God for the joy of Christmas. The children can make the prayer their own by joining in with ‘Amen’ at the end.

After the programme:

Talk about the story:

• Why do you think Grandpa chose ‘Silent Night’ to tell his grandson? Do you think it helped him ‘sleep in heavenly peace’?
• Why do you think Joseph wrote that the night that Jesus was born was ‘silent’? What words might you have chosen to describe it?
• Why do you think Joseph wanted the words to have a simple melody and be accompanied by guitar, not organ?
• How do you think Joseph and Franz felt when they heard people singing the carol they had written?
• In the story, we heard that Franz’s tune was the best Christmas present. Have you ever had an unusual Christmas present like this?

Follow-up activities:

• Look at the words to ‘Silent Night’. Is the whole of the Christmas story in the carol, or are there parts missing? Look at the words of some other Christmas carols to see which part of the story they tell.
• Design a Christmas card based on the words of ‘Silent Night’.
• Take part in the Christmas present chal- lenge - can you think of a present that costs no money but that is worth a lot? Challenge each other to give one of these presents this year.
• Look at the words of ‘Silent Night’ in the original German. Can you work out which words say ‘silent’ and ‘night’? Look at it in other languages and see what the words are in those languages too.
• There are lots of different adjectives in the carol ‘Silent Night’. Can you find them all? (You may need to explain what some of them mean!) What other adjectives might you choose to put in their place?
• Look at photos of Obendorf. Would you like to live there?