The Langdon Sarah Thompson School took their Christmas carols out into the community on Dec. 20.
“We sang and drew the community out to spread some holiday cheer,” said Sarah Thompson grade one teacher Geeta Behal.
While the students sang Christmas carols, they also delivered Christmas cards to members of the community.
Behal was inspired to deliver Christmas cards to the community, as she had done a similar project with her class at a different school.
“We surprised the community by delivering Christmas cards. The kids spent this week creating Christmas cards for people out in the community,” Behal said.
“My class made about 60 to 70 cards, they put a lot of love and effort into it, and all of the other classes also created cards,” she said.
When Behal told the other teachers she wanted her class to create Christmas cards to deliver to the community, everyone was very excited to become a part of the project.
“I thought we should be singing too, and let’s take our caroling outside,” said Sarah Thompson grade five teacher Kristie Mackie.
“Something we really wanted to do in our school this year was to build community connections. It’s really important for us, and for our students to recognize how important that is,” Mackie said.
To prepare the students for Christmas caroling outside, the Sarah Thompson Music Teacher Portia Crooks had the students practice three melodies, Jingle Bells, Rudolph, and We Wish You a Merry Christmas.
“We picked three easy Christmas carols where the kids wouldn’t need to have music with them,” Crooks said.
“This is the first year we went out, normally we just do it as a school, and we have about 10 Christmas carols,” she said.
In the past, the students would gather in the school gym to sing the carols with a track and the lyrics on a screen.
“They went out into the community, and didn’t have any music, they had to sing a capella, that’s why we chose three songs, so they didn’t have to carry any music sheets,” Crooks said.
“We wanted to have the length of songs not too long for some of the younger grades, but long enough to keep the older grades entertained,” Mackie added.
