Journey to Bethlehem: a drama activity with script

I created a simple drama for children to follow the events of Jesus' birth as the shepherds did. I used adults as the head shepherd and angel. We used the script in Sunday School. You could  adapt this for other uses, including a live perforance. You could also record it during Sunday school class and show that during a Christmas Eve service.

The script document file is in the attachments below.

This is KidFrugal, so for scenery I used what we had on hand when we re-enacted the Luke 2 story of the shepherds. Our kids loved it!

The first thing I did was to make one of our kids' rooms into the field where the shepherds were. I used some leftover green bulletin board paper for grass. The cartoon-like sheep came from Creative for Kids. It is a wall sticker which can be re-positioned. I mounted mine on foamcore-board and used Command Strips to put it up.

Normally these sheep are part of the wall murals in our main room. You can see below how I used Command Strips to attach it to the wall. The newer version Creative for Kids makes can be moved over and over again, so mounting them and the Command Strips may no longer be necessary if you don't mind peeling the decals off the wall and moving them.

<click on photos to see them larger>

Next, I found some old Christmas scene-setters. I used the shepherd and the sheep to add to my hillside. Oriental Trading has some great Design-A-Room sets for the nativity. (The curtain hanging to the right of the sheep is hiding the heavenly host of angels.)

I was fortunate to have over 20 feet of the Bethlehem Town Design-A-Room Background left from a previous project. It actually stuck to the wall because of static electricity. Unfortunately, I did not get a picture of it before it fell down - but it lasted for over a week. I wrapped it around the other 2 walls of the room and it felt like we were on a hillside outside of Bethlehem.

I used an overhead projector to draw these angels for the heavenly host. I had a helper dressed as an angel come in and address the children as if they were the shepherds. Then she pulled back the curtain revealing the host of angels. I also had some bright lights that I flicked on at the proper time, illuminating the whole room. (We started out in the dark, pretending it was nighttime.)

We followed the biblical account in Luke very carefully. After the angels' pronouncement, we decided we should go to Bethlehem to see this thing which they had told us about. And how do you find Bethlehem? This old garage sale sign came in handy for that.

Someday, the structure in the picture below will be a stage with a door and puppet window, but right now it is just sitting there. So I decided to re-purpose it into the stable. (See the donkey in there?!) You could also use an old puppet theater like I have done in the past.

I used the rest of the plastic wall scenery in the "stable." The manger is from our Christmas programs in the past, and I borrowed the baby doll from the nursery. I cut up brown packing paper on the paper cutter to make the "hay" for in the manger. I tore an old sheet into strips to wrap the baby Jesus in. (Those are the two main clues in the script to help us find the baby - a manger and swaddling clothes.)

Cost? Nothing, since we had everything on hand.

Moderator's note: This resource is from Rotation.org member Joan Eppehimer's KidFrugal blog, which she is sharing here at Rotation.org in order to preserve it for posterity and make it available more widely with our community.  It is part of a large group of lessons and resources that she developed to make "ministry happen when there are no resources to make it happen." Thank you, Joan, for sharing your creativity with our community!

You can read more about Joan and her ministry here.