My first teaching job was in a school in an elementary school in KY, I didnt like that I had bus duty everyday after school and none of the other teachers had to do that, I was (of course) in charge of the Christmas program so decided to do a version of A Charlie Brown Christmas because I had the book. There was no money for anything in this school so I wrote some simple songs to go along with the script used some folk songs and each of my classes learned one song. Then what to do about the actors? I decided since I had to be after school with the kids waiting for the late bus that they might like to be the actors and they did. No auditions no idea who could or couldnt handle it. They volunteered for parts and we had fun. I was so nervous for the first performance(my 1st one) that I made my husband drive me there because I didnt trust myself to actually go. When we got there we discovered that the janitor had thrown out all our props. We scurried to find what we could but the biggest problem was that we were using a Bible for the last part where Linus reads the story-kids had memorized all the other parts but this kid had trouble memorizing( he had some learning disabilities) so he was reading it from the bible. There was no place to get a bible in the school. I knew the words so I figured I could just say it. When we got to that part the little boy just smiled at me stepped up to the microphone and recited it word for word profoundly impacting the audience. I used that play for all the elementary schools after that. You never know how a situation even one you grumble about, can be a blessing to you and others Wishing you a Merry Christmas full of unexpected blessings
Posted on: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 15:16:20 +0000