Sometimes it is hard to find activities to help the older elementary students get into the holiday spirit. First of all, they are maturing and may no longer be interested in a lot of the activities they used to, and it’s sometimes hard finding new things they have not already completed in previous years. I am also opposed to the worksheets that are given to students as a “holiday activity” but it’s actually just a normal worksheet with candy canes across the top.
This brings me to my Christmas reading activities I did with my upper elementary (4th and 5th) grades this year. My classroom focuses largely on creative, as well as critical thinking and these activities definitely did just that!
- Rewriting lyrics… “Frosty the Snowman”, “The Christmas song”, “Santa Claus is coming to town”
- I printed off several copies of these lyrics and allowed them to work alone or with a partner. The only instructions I gave was that you should be able to recognize the song, but you need to change at least one large element. I also allowed them to do another Christmas song if they wanted to and could find or know the lyrics.
This class is so incredibly creative, and they had a great time singing them for the class when they were finished!
- Christmas Closings creative writing.
Students are given the last sentence of a story, and they are challenged with writing the story leading up to that specific ending. One the last day before Christmas break, I made hot chocolate in a crockpot and the students got a treat while they listened to their classmates read their stories by the “fire” (or YouTube fireplace).
- Erasure poems:
Darian Dauchan has great poetry videos on youtube, and my students always love him! In this video he has them write erasure poems, but instead of using the poem he suggested I had the students use “The Night Before Christmas”.
- Listen and review christmas stories:
On this link students have 10 options of Christmas read alouds to use (they must listen to at least 4). You can use my list or come up with any read alouds you like (or even have the students choose their own).
Next, they will use this paper to review their most and least favorite stories, as well as create a 4-way Venn diagram with the stories they chose. I had to really talk about what “defend your answer” means, because I had many students try to turn in response like, “This story was the best because it was funny”. That is a singular statement, and not a defense so it made for a great teachable moment. I also, again, allowed them to work alone or with a partner.