What Christmas song is more perfectly themed to pull out the handbells than Christmas Bells! Of course, it’s a MUST this holiday season! I love this cute and sweet short song and it’s even more fun when you add this Christmas Bells Handbells Chart!
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Handbells Set on Amazon
You’ll need a 13, 20, or higher hand bell count for this Hand Bell Chart. Moving up from 8 adds the sharps, and this song has an F#!
Amazon has some bell sets that can help you have so much fun with bells in Primary! This 13-note handbell set includes the 8 original notes and 5 sharps to give you a great range of songs you can use these bells with!
Or this desk bell style with 13 notes helps protect the bells from touch and still ring out beautifully to play along with your song choice!
To super easily add Handbells to ANY Primary song, you can grab our Handbell Music Note Cards in our shop! All of our lesson plans are completely free, but we do have a series of music cards available for purchase. They’re perfect for easily reusing for any of your singing time lesson plans. Don’t forget there’s a discount code in every weekly newsletter.
Christmas Bells Handbells
Sing through Christmas Bells song once before introducing the bells. Then, display the poster with the bell notes.
Have everyone practice like they are ringing a pretend bell for each of the notes so they can learn the timing. You can hold your hand vertically and tap it forward in all the right places.
Keep in mind that the last line repeats, “In Bethlehem” but only repeat the bells for “Bethlehem.”
When they’re ready with the pattern, have 4 helpers come up with the light blue, purple, dark blue, and orange notes to start. Each helper will hold one bell and ring on their color match.
After a time or two through, switch out helpers and move up to 7 total helpers with all of the colors.
Ask the kids to share what they notice or hear. You can help show how the notes go up, up, up at the end, that the last line repeats, that there’s one special black handled note (F#) as it’s a sharp!
Extension Activities:
- In a small Primary, use 4 helpers with 1-2 bells each.
- #1 – Light Blue G (6 notes)
- #2 – Purple B (3 notes) + Green black handle F# (3 notes)
- #3 – Dark Blue A (3 notes) + Red C (1 note)
- #4 – Orange D (4 notes) + Yellow E (1 note)
- Hand out jingle bell bracelets and have all the kids ring out their bells on each of the notes. Or ring out the jingle bells for a couple of keywords including “Christmas,” “Hear,” and “Bethlehem.” This gives more kids a chance to participate!
- Hum instead of singing (or pick a letter sound to sing like “aaaah”). This is great for inside singing the words in their mind and will be really pretty with the bells!
Christmas Bells Printable Handbells Chart
This printable bell chart includes a 1-page overview of how to use the handbells in singing time. There’s also 2 versions of the bell chart a 2-page option and a larger 3-page option.
You can print both or just the size hand bell chart that’s right for your Primary and fits your needs.
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Head over next to see our printable Color & Sing Primary Christmas Songbook!
What other fun ways could you extend this Christmas Bells Handbells activity during Singing Time?
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