Incorporating Cookie Cutters (or Ornaments) into a Christmas Singing Time Activity

This Sunday I want to spend a little bit of time on three songs (two of which are in the upcoming Christmas program) ... if time I have other Christmas songs in mind but three is probably ambitious, at least in junior primary. To keep it interesting, and because I have a bunch of cookie cutters that I have been trying to incorporate into an activity, this will be a cookie cutter Sunday.

Ideas for ways to incorporate cookie cutters into a Sunday activity. A little bit of brainstorming:
You can substitute this with ornaments or something else you have in a decent quantity - seasonal preferred.

• Option #1 -- Children will reach reach their hand into a sack and pull out a cookie cutter. The shape of the cookie cutter that they pull out will determine the song that we sing so we will go back and forth with different songs. I will have different activities planned for each song in advance.
• Option #2 -- Fishing for cookie cutters. I realized a bunch of my cookie cutters are not magnetic so I can't do this one (unless I tape magnets to each cookie cutter), but I would have loved to have the children fish for cookie cutters. Each cookie cutter would represent a fun way to sing the song. 
• Option #3 --  Look under your chairs! I will have someone come up and choose a cookie cutter without looking. Then, I'll ask everyone to look under their chairs, where I will have attached a shape that matches the cookie cutters. If their shape matches that of the cookie cutter (and there will be multiples of each shape so more than one child should have the matching shape), then I will have an extra activity for them. I'm trying to do what that extra activity will be - one option could be that there's an extra drawing for the extra activity. Another option could be that that if they have the matching cookie cutter, they have to recite a line of the song to show how well they have memorized it, or something.
• Option #4 -- When I was a piano student as a child, my piano teacher gave everyone a cookie cutter ornament as a present. She attached a ribbon to the cookie cutter and wrote on it "cut out for greatness." I still have my ornament. I could incorporate this into the lesson and talk about what it means to be great ... then add in one of the activities from the other options.
• Option #5 -- Find the cookie cutter. I will hid cookie cutters throughout the room. Each time we finish singing through one song, a child will be called up to point out one of the cookie cutters. We will take the cookie cutter down that the child selects, then ...
• Option #6 -- (This is what I ended up doing.) I drew the cookie cutter patterns onto sheets of paper, and gave each child a pattern. I then had children come up and draw cookie cutters out of a bag. If their cookie cutter matched the pattern, they were asked to participate in a special activity for that pattern.

The main songs and ways that I want to work on singing them:


Samuel Tells the Story of Baby Jesus
I'll keep this one simple and throw up the flip chart I used last year just to review the song with the children.

Joy to the World
Practice the verses we learned last week and see how well we learned them. I had the children help me make up motions to the song last week so I'll ask them to help me to remember the motions.

He Sent His Son
Since this is a question and answer song, I want the kids to go back and forth this week, asking one side to sing the question, and one side to sing the answer. I think I will do this, and then have the children swap turns so that the other side sings the question and answer.

I will also sing this song with them in different "fun" ways ...

Welcoming Christmas with "Joy to the World" - A Gift Wrapped Song

Our primary has been asked to sing two songs during the Christmas program. We started learning "He Sent His Son" last month. This Sunday, I want to introduce the second song- the first verse of "Joy to the World." The children will sing the first verse, and then the choir will sing the additional verses, so I want to teach the children all four verses, but only the first one is critical.

I expect the children will be very familiar with verse one of this song so it's almost more of a song review than learning a new song.

I plan to "gift wrap" the song to introduce it and to introduce the season when we remember the birth of our Savior. I won't tell the children what song I am introducing but will have them unwrap the pictures to try to see if they can identify the song initially. Some of the objects include:

Joy to the World
Joy to the world, the Lord is come;
[1. star over a globe] , [2. the nativity piece for baby Jesus]

Let earth receive her King!
[3. a crown]

Let ev-'ery heart prepare him room,
[4. a heart]

And Saints and an-gels sing,
[5. picture of the early saints + picture of the angels trumpeting]

And Saints and an-gels sing,
[6. the musical "repeat" symbol, which looks like this:   :||  ]

And Saints, and Saints, and an-gels sing,
[7. the musical "repeat" symbol, which looks like this:   :||  ]

The children that I call to the front to pick a package will unwrap the package, and then place it in the order that the number indicates for the item. After each present is opened, I will ask the children to raise their hands if they think they know what song we are singing. I will do this each time until all the presents are opened. Then, I will ask children to keep their hands raised if they want to guess the song.

I will then review what each item represents, then sing the song with the children.

I will then ask the children if they know the song well enough to sing it without all the objects. If they don't, I will only remove a few objects at a time to continue practicing the first verse.

As an interesting FYI about the song, I will also tell the children that the song was written about 300 years ago and that it was not intended to be sung only at Christmas time!

Once the children show me they know verse 1 very well, we will move to verse 2. To learn verse 2, I will ask the children to help me invent motions for each line of the song. I don't expect to have time to work on any lines past verse 2.

Samuel Tells the Story of Baby Jesus
If I do have time though, I will put up the flip chart I made last year for "Samuel Tells the Story of Baby Jesus,"  a song we worked on last year that I love. This song lends itself so well to flipcharts that there are several really great ones on the Internet, like this one or this one.