The young students of Children's Circle Nursery School put a Southwestern spin on Christmas this year, complete with skinks and sombreros.

Eleven students and one of their teachers, Scarlett Lintner, performed “The Twelve Days of Christmas” during their holiday celebration.

The nursery school is located in the back of the Congregational Church of South Dartmouth and was formed in the early 1970s by the church’s women’s guild.

“We offer morning and all-day programs for children 3 to 5 years old,” said Lintner. “The focus is children’s literature. We do a lot of reading.”

Not only will children learn to read, they also perform theatrical versions of their reading list. For instance, every year, they school puts on a play based on a book as part of the students’ graduation ceremony.

For Christmas this year, the school performed a version of Philemon Sturges’ picture book “The Twelve Days of Christmas: A Piñata for the Piñon Tree.” The story uses the popular Christmas song as its backbone while adding a decidedly New Mexican feel to the story. In Sturges’ version, he trades out lords a-leaping with skinks a-skulking.

Instructors also teach children the foundation of the Spanish language, making Sturges’ a perfect fit for the nursery school.

In addition to the “Twelves Day of Christmas,” the female students performed their own intrepretation of the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies” and the males performed “March of the Toy Soldiers.” All the students then joined together to sing Hanukkah and Christmas tunes.

When the students aren’t singing and dancing, the school offers opportunities for students to branch out outside the classroom. In April, the students will have their own exhibition displayed at New Bedford’s Gallery X. After winter the kids will roll up their sleeves and participate in Dartmouth’s booming agricultural scene.

“We do a lot of gardening,” said Lintner. “The school has a plot at the Helfand Garden. We plant in the spring and they get to watch them grow.”