Creative Classroom Fun Before Winter Break

The weeks following Thanksgiving break leading up to winter break can be a chaotic time in the classroom. For teachers, it becomes imperative that you have new activities and lessons constantly in circulation to keep your students’ attention. But it is equally important that you give students the opportunity to harness their excitement and channel it into their learning!

December Writing Journal

There are many holidays that are celebrated in the month of December, not just Christmas. Give students the time to journal about what they are looking forward to this month! The writing process can look different for all ages, a few ideas are:

Kindergarten: Have your students draw a picture, finish a sentence starter, and label their picture.
First Grade: Similar to kindergarten, add an extra step of encouraging your students to add adjectives or a second sentence.
Second Grade: Brainstorm with the students key words they may use in their sentences. Then, provide them with a word bank and a required number of sentences. Once they are finished, ask the students to draw a picture to match their writing.

Try this journal page with your lesson!

Classroom Cozy Reading Challenge

This next idea is geared towards the teachers that have a holiday party planned before the break. It is also for the teachers that are trying to create pockets of time each day for quiet in their classrooms. Students get very excited the weeks leading up to the break and their holiday party. Classroom management can be a challenge, but here is a fun reading challenge that can help the students “earn” their holiday party!

Goal: Students will be able to read independently books for (set time amount) today.

Set your classroom environment up for success to build up the length of time students are asked to read each day. To avoid extra movement around the classroom, have your students get their book bins or a stack of books and choose a spot to get cozy. Then, turn on one of the many cozy winter fireplaces found online to play in the background. Keep track of the minutes read leading up to the holiday party or winter break! Set a realistic goal ahead of time for the students to earn their party after they have met their reading goal.

If you need more detailed tips on how to create cozy reading spaces, you can find them here!

Stuck in a Snow Globe Craft

One of my favorite crafts to help pass the winter days with my students that can stay up past December is, “Stuck in a Snow Globe”. This is a multistep craft that ends with the students having something to hang on their lockers or cubbies in the hallway!

Getting Started:

Have your students get their snow gear on
Take pictures of each child posing for you to this prompt “How would you look or feel in a snow globe?”

Craft Prep:

Find a tool online or using your own software to remove the background on each students picture
Then print and cut out the pictures (you could have students cut out their pictures themselves, this may be tricky for younger ages).
Make an outline of a snow globe
Trace onto blue paper or onto a piece of paper to be copied or printed on blue paper

Craft Time!

Students will use their crayons to draw a winter wonderland scene in their snow globe
- Some ideas to include in the globe are: Pine trees, a snowman, snow falling from the sky and on the ground.
Then, students will glue down their pictures into the snow globe!
Final touches, take a Q-Tip of white paint and have students add some extra snow falling.

Once dried, cut out the snow globe and write their name on the base. I like to then laminate the snow globes for a longer lasting craft. Then, place the snow globes on the outside of their lockers or cubbies for some winter decoration.

My final tip of advice to help yourself navigate the month of December is the following: have some extra coloring pages and blank cards on hand. When it seems like your students are having a hard time focusing or starting to get rambunctious, whip out some blank cards and tell them to draw a holiday card for someone else! It will give them a little creative reset and yourself some time to get your classroom organized and ready for January.

I hope that you all have a restful winter break, I can whole heartedly say that you will have definitely earned it by the time it comes around! If you can help it, don’t go in on your days off!