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I love the winter season and all the fun celebrations it holds! When it gets closer to winter break and the holidays, the students definitely get antsy. I’ve found that the more I can harness that energy towards (somewhat) productive means, the better it is for everyone.
Here are some of my favorite ways to incorporate the holidays! Throw a fireplace video up on the screen, some background music and have fun with the season!
#1 Thank You Note/Shout-out Writing
This one can genuinely change the tone and flavor of your class. For real, my teacher hack for hard days (and can we talk about how there are somehow more of those this time of year?!) is to bust out this activity.
Here’s how it goes
- Do you want to do thank you notes? Or a shout-out style note?
- Decide your parameters: do you want students to extend gratitude to literally anyone? Or keep it in the school? When I do this at the end of the school year, I make it a requirement that students write one to a peer and one to an adult on our campus mostly because this allows me to guarantee delivery
- Keep it simple: Calling out awesome things people are doing is one way to create a more supportive environment. Making this a “shout-out” activity is a fun way to call out people & qualities that may sometimes go unnoticed. I worked at a school that made this a required part of every staff meeting, with the expectation that you wrote one per kid throughout the course of the year, and each one would be added to the “shout-out” board in the main school hallway
I’ve created a pack of thank you note and shout out templates that are ready to print. No prep is needed on your part and there are color or black and white options. You can purchase it here.
#2 Candy Cane Argument Argument Activity
This is similar to my Candy Corn writing activity and the Pumpkin Pie one for Thanksgiving. I definitely recommend having some candy canes on hand for students to snack on while they write. You can “plant” the topic a few days ahead with a class poll about candy canes.
Here’s how it goes
- Students take out a paper & they have to write an argument for why candy canes are a delicious treat. Depending on the age/what you’ve taught, you could have them use imagery (5 senses) and/or rhetorical appeals and devices.
- After a set time, you have them flip to the other side and write an argument for why it’s not good. I would go so far as to say “disgusting”.
- There’s a few directions you can go from here: mini debates, whole class debates, 4 corners, speed d(eb)ates or even having them practice writing a counter argument since they have demonstrated arguments from both sides
This one is so fun! It’s a great activity to practice argument and challenges students to take multiple perspectives and develop strong arguments for a position they don’t passionately believe in.
I’ve created a full lesson plan for this, with a slide deck and rubric. You can purchase it here.
#3 Fun Winter Writing Prompts
I developed this pack of writing prompts so that I would always be ready with options. Some years, I’ve only had time for them to do a quick extended paragraph instead of a full-blown written piece. Other times, we’ve worked through the whole writing process with one of the prompts. The graphic organizers and rubric make it easy to guide students. If you have a little extra time & you don’t have a specific genre you need to work on, give students the options and let them pick which genre & prompt they want to write about.
