12 O Little Town of Bethlehem Singing Time Ideas

You’ll love this round-up of O Little Town of Bethlehem Singing Time Ideas to help you dive into teaching this song to your Primary this year. It’s one of the recommended songs as part of the 2025 Doctrine & Covenants song list to teach in December. It makes this a natural song selection to teach to your Primary kids for Christmas this year.

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O Little Town of Bethlehem Singing Time Packet

If you’re teaching O Little Town of Bethlehem this year, you’ll love this complete packet that includes ALL the extended printables with tons of engaging and varied lesson plans. It also includes our custom illustrated flip chart that includes a variety of print and format styles to best fit your Primary’s unique needs.

Grab the O Little Town of Bethlehem Singing Time packet in my shop here. It is also available in my Etsy shop here.

O Little Town of Bethlehem Flip Charts

You’ll find the perfect O Little Town of Bethlehem Flip Chart to help you teach this song with a variety of different options including a lyrics only, slideshow, and several formats included in a custom illustrated flip chart!

9 O Little Town of Bethlehem Singing Time Ideas

This post will help you find all of my O Little Town of Bethlehem teaching ideas (archives) around this blog. Plus, I’m also sharing additional favorite lesson plans from other Primary music leaders at the end of this post!

1. O Little Town of Bethlehem – Song Trivia

This fun O Little Town of Bethlehem Song Trivia game will challenge the children to listen closely to the words as you learn or review the song. There are easy trivia questions that can be answered by the lyrics with a variety of different questions.

2. O Little Town of Bethlehem – Dance Scarves

Add in movement with this O Little Town of Bethlehem Dance Scarves pattern. It’s a great way to add purposeful movement as you sing through the song on repeat. The movements are simple and engaging that are great for any age.

3. O Little Town of Bethlehem – Silent Video

Introduce this song in a whole new way with an O Little Town of Bethlehem Silent Video activity! You’ll listen to the music without singing along as you see the nativity scene play out to add depth and meaning with this spiritual connection lesson plan.

4. O Little Town of Bethlehem – Fill in the Blank

Challenge your senior primary children with this O Little Town of Bethlehem Fill in the Blank activity. Can they remember the words from the song to add them back in to the blanks? For another challenge, try adding a picture/symbol instead of the word!

5. O Little Town of Bethlehem – Finish the Picture

Take a new look at the lyrics with this O Little Town of Bethlehem Finish the Picture activity. You’ll finish the picture that relates to the lyrics for each line of the song. This is a great way to really engage with the song and connect what the words are to what they are really singing about – that first Christmas!

6. O Little Town of Bethlehem – Descant & Group Singing

If you have a Primary that loves to take on a challenge, you will love this O Little Town of Bethlehem Descant and Group Singing activity! Try adding this pretty descant to add something a little special and unique as you teach this song. This post also includes a fun group singing activity to split up the dynamics of how your Primary room sings through the song.

7. O Little Town of Bethlehem – Picture Puzzles

Use these engaging O Little Town of Bethlehem Picture Puzzles that help the lyrics paint a unique picture to decode. Can they figure out what each of these picture puzzles represent and where they align in song order.

8. O Little Town of Bethlehem – At the Stable

Take a trip back to Bethlehem and consider what it would have been like that very first Christmas night with this O Little Town of Bethlehem At the Stable activity. This is a great way to engage the children’s senses and help them think more about this moment in history being a real event that actually happened!

9. O Little Town of Bethlehem – Sing-Along Video

You’ll love this sweet O Little Town of Bethlehem sing-along video which is perfect to help you introduce the song for the first week or simply share a little different exposure to the song that the kids can sing right along with the lyrics. I also love to send sing-along videos to my Primary families each month so they can sing along with the song of the month at home or for practice leading up to the Primary Program!

12 More Ways to Teach O Little Town of Bethlehem

If you’re looking for even more inspiration, I’ve sourced some of my favorite ideas for other Primary Music Leaders to help you teach this song in fun and varied ways.

1. O Little Town of Bethlehem – Hand Bells

My Primary children always love it when I bring hand bells in and Merry Bells makes it easy with their play along videos or printable bell charts. This song is included in Christmas Songs set. Use the coupon code PrimarySinging to save 10%.

2. O Little Town of Bethlehem – Videos

Engage with this song by using one of these lovely and unique videos to share the music with the children in a new way. There are tons of different videos on YouTube to choose from, but these are a few of my favorites:

Nat King Cole sings O Little Town of Bethlehem

O Little Town of Bethlehem by the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square

Sarah McLachlan O Little Town of Bethlehem with a Guitar

3. O Little Town of Bethlehem – Dance Moves

O Little Town of Bethlehem Dance Moves – This video is slightly different than our hymn book, but you can still get some fun ideas here for adding some movement and dance to the song as you teach it.

For more activities, see these When Joseph Went to Bethlehem Singing Time ideas!

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What other fun O Little Town of Bethlehem singing time ideas have you tried? We’d love to see your fun ideas! Share them in the comments to add to this list.