Père Noël
Price range: $8.50 through $22.00
When Christmas time rolls around, children everywhere start making lists of potential items they would like to find in their stocking on Christmas morning. In this song, singers have a few favourite items they want Santa to remember to include in his sack of presents.
The familiar traditional song “Alouette” has been sung by countless children for decades. There is a reason that songs like this are sung for many generations. The melody is easy to sing and the range is accessible for young singers. Even though there are multiple verses, the repetitious words and patterns are easy for children to remember. These elements make it an ideal song for kindergarten and grade 1 singers, particularly if they are in a French immersion program and have a limited vocabulary early in the teaching year. Père Noël is playful and upbeat and there are sure to be parents in the audience who recognize the tune even it the words are not the ones they remember.
Listen to melody + piano accompaniment:
Listen to French treble ensemble:
Download Includes:
- Vocal score
- Lead sheet
- Director/piano score
- Lyrics
- Accompaniment – with melody guide
- Accompaniment – piano
- Donna & Andy band – instrumental track
- Donna & Andy (C’est Noël CD) French treble ensemble performance track
- Teaching Tips
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Père Noël
Follow along with the lyrics as you listen to the accompaniment with melody guide (sample) or the performance track for Père Noël.
Piano accompaniment + melody guide (sample)
Performance - French treble ensemble
Père Noël is one of 12 songs from the award-winning song collection "It's Christmas Time" (French title, "C'est Noël"). This bilingual collection of songs is in French and English. Donna Rhodenizer has written these songs in a variety of styles and skill levels for singers from ages 5-12+.
Learn more about this fun collection for elementary-aged kids, choirs and solo vocal students in French and English. The 146-page book provides the vocal score, full score and separate lyrics pages for 12 songs. Enjoy!
Please note:
Purchase audio tracks separately for the e-book version and Amazon print copies.
Print copies purchased (in North America) from the Donna & Andy website include 2 CDs (with performance and instrumental accompaniment tracks).
Add Props
Include props for your concert performance.
- Have students carry the items they are singing about, or hold up pictures of those items as they sing each verse.
- Include a large bag of presents as a prop.
See more details in the pdf download
Create Ownership
Ask students to give suggestions for items they would like to include in the song.
Add Drama
Choose a student to pretend to write a list of items while the class sings the song.
For a humorous effect, the student can add the song items to a very long list. A long piece of unrolled paper towel can be pressed into service as the list.
Call and Response
Use call and response to create contrast in the performance.
Divide singers into two groups with one group singing each item and the second group echoing.
- This is a great listening exercise for students, particularly younger singers.
- Stronger singers can be responsible for remembering the order of the items and the remainder of the singers only need to echo.
Père Noël
It can be difficult to choose music for the “Littles”. December concerts are early in the school year for first year students and even children in grade 1 are still sometimes unsure of how to match a pitch with other singers. Adding a second language to the complexity of choosing music for this age group makes it an even more formidable task. Songs for these young singers need to be repetitious and easy to remember.
Père Noël is one of many songs I created for my students to sing in school Christmas concerts because I couldn’t find any French songs simple enough for them to sing. Using the traditional melody, Alouette, I had written my own lyrics to create Father Christmas for my English students. As I searched for a French song the next year, I decided to write French lyrics using the same idea I had used for the English version. With the help of a French-speaking colleague, a French adaptation was created and it was used with students in the early French immersion classes. The song worked well and all of us were happy with our successful concert performance.
When you have enjoyed singing this song with your students - please drop by again and leave a Review on this page. Thanks so much - we really appreciate it!
Send us your video of Père Noël and perhaps we can post it here.
| License | Single User License, Classroom / Studio License, Treble Choir License |
|---|---|
| Context | Choir – Elementary, Choir Repertoire, Classroom Songs, Small Group Class, Vocal Solo, Choir – Unison, French |
| Topic | |
| Level | |
| Voicing | |
| Vocal Range | C4 – D5 |
| Duration | |
| Music | Traditional – arranged by Donna Rhodenizer |
| Lyrics | Donna Rhodenizer |
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