I hope you are ready to get all jolly in your English class! I know that not all teachers celebrate Christmas in class (and that’s all right as well), but if you are one of those who love Christmas activities, this blog post is for you.
Christmas gets me excited and I go into full speed with all the decorations. Therefore, Christmas tree and lights, fake snow and all tinsel and bright make their way to my house and class. Besides all the ornaments, the holidays season is excellent for offering learning opportunities with inspiring Christmas activities to the students in my English class.
Do you want to take a sneak peek inside what I’ve prepared for this year? Great! Come inside my classroom.
12 Days of Christmas
Our day starts with reflection, journaling and writing. I count 12 days until the Christmas break and at the beginning of each class, we start with these fun and reflective activities. Here is day 1 if you want to start as well with me this year!
Blackout Poetry
I don’t know about your students, but mine love blackout poetry. So all the holidays and celebrations need to have a blackout poetry activity in them. This Christmas is no exception. The fun part is that I use real Christmas short stories to create poems. I really do not like just using random pages from a book. First we read the story, analyze it, understand it and then the students create their Christmas blackout poetry. It’s a win-win situation for sure. I give them this example and they create unique projects I like to display in our class.
Sell This Gingerbread House!
I love gingerbread houses. Every year I create one for my kids. Sometimes I bake the house myself, other years I just buy a prebaked one and assemble it. The gingerbread house tradition is something I love and do every Christmas. So I thought to myself, why not bring it to class? This is why we’re doing this year an informative description writing around gingerbread houses. Therefore, Each student will get a gingerbread house and they have to describe it in such an attractive manner that they sell it to their classmates. This is one of the Christmas activities that my students simply ask for more.
Reading Ornaments
Trimming the class is not only my job. I like to get my students involved as well. This year we use Christmas tree ornaments that will be crafted by them out of the novels and short stories that they have read or will read during these weeks. The tree ornament is about plot and theme, the candy cane deals with interesting quotes, the star is all about keywords and the bauble helps them write a summary. It is a reading craft that gets students more engaged than a simple worksheet.
Paired Reading Texts
This Christmas I’m offering my students the chance to improve their reading skills. Even if many teachers are afraid to tackle reading tasks during this period, I believe it is the perfect opportunity to do this. This is why my Christmas unit includes a varied assortment of reading texts: informational, poetry and short story. This year the article that we’ll read is about pop music and Christmas, the poem is by E.E. Cummings with his little tree and the short story is the classical The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry.
If you like these Christmas activities, you can try them out in your English class as well. It is a joyous time and the students are more receptive than ever, even if you feel that all they are looking forward to is the Christmas holiday. So join the Christmas fun and have merry days in your class!
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Enjoyed looking at this, very good stuff, regards. “Love begets love, love knows no rules, this is the same for all.” by Virgil.
Very good blog article.Thanks Again. Awesome.