Celebrating holidays in the classroom can be challenging. Here's how to honor students' diverse backgrounds while keeping your schedule intact. Whether your classroom includes students celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or no holidays at all, here are some creative ways to harness the magic of the holiday season while keeping your schedule on track at the same time.
Embrace Diversity During the Holidays
As the holiday season approaches, I seize the opportunity to teach about festivals and celebrations around the world. This helps my students see the bigger holiday picture while promoting inclusivity. I’ve found that using photos, passages & articles, virtual field trips, and picture books are engaging and effective ways to teach various holiday traditions.
A few ideas to start the holiday inclusivity discussion:
- Use digital teaching slides to teach various holiday traditions, such as these Holidays Around the World slides.
- Use Google Earth to “visit” each festival location!
- Assign holiday traditions to groups or partners. Students can use a safe search site, such as Kiddle. They can share their learning by creating Google Slide presentations, illustrating a poster, or crafting a writing piece.
- Utilize leveled reading passages to enhance understanding of holiday traditions.
- Allow time for students to share their family traditions with the class. Not only will you learn more about your students, but you might find teachable moments on global celebrations and traditions. This is also a great opportunity to get parents involved. Send home a parent holiday questionnaire (linked at the end of this article) to find out the holiday traditions they hold dear, and which ones they do not celebrate.
No holiday parties? No problem!
If your district does not allow holiday themed celebrations, there is still fun to be had. Try focusing on winter-themed fun instead!
Transform your classroom into a winter wonderland or a gingerbread village for a fun, holiday-free theme. From centers to behavior tracking, themed snacks and science experiments, students will cherish this magical day!
Speaking of science, an ice melting experiment is perfect for the holiday season. Students will love guessing the best melting material.
Holiday Fun That Doesn’t Disrupt Learning Time
Sticking to the standards can be tough with the excitement of the approaching holidays. However, there are many ways to maintain the regular school day routine and schedule, while infusing some holiday season fun!
Holiday-Themed Morning Work
To keep things calm(ish), stick with your typical morning routines, but add a holiday twist. For example, swap out your math worksheets for ones with a seasonal theme. Or, try a holiday-themed placemat. Placemats focus on several skills, and are a student favorite. (Remember those placemats you were given at cafes as a kid?)
Special Brain Breaks
Brain breaks are necessary for students to recharge and reset. Change out your usual brain breaks to ones infused with holiday fun. Some favorites include Coach Corey Martin on YouTube, GoNoodle and UJU.
If you want a screen free brain break, try a student favorite game: musical pictures. Similar to musical chairs, holiday-themed pictures are placed in a circle on the floor, one for each student. You will have a miniature copy of each picture in a container. After playing a snippet of music, pull out a mini card. The student standing at the matching card is out and brings the card to you. Without the chairs to fight over, you’ll find musical pictures much less chaotic than musical chairs. Your students will want to play again and again!
Festive Classroom Jobs
Give your classroom jobs a festive facelift, but only in name. We both know you’ve spent countless hours modeling how students should perform these duties, so why add the chaos?! During the holiday season, simply change the name of the classroom jobs to match the seasonal vibe. For example, the classroom sweeper becomes the “Snowflake Sweeper”, or the mailbox helper is now the “Merry Mailman” —but only for the holidays.
Winter-Themed Writing Prompts
Even if you live in an eternally sunny spot, incorporating winter-themed writing prompts is a surefire way to bring in some winter magic. Choose seasonal prompts such as “Describe your dream snow day” or “If I could create my own holiday, it would be…” Prompts like these allow students to tap into their whimsical holiday excitement, without steering too far away from academics. I love using this collection of January writing prompts because they do not focus on specific holidays, and include differentiated templates and checklists. The checklists serve as an easy reminder for students to use common conventions in their writing!
Holiday-Themed Exit Tickets
Exit tickets are an amazingly quick way to assess student understanding and make data-informed teaching decisions. Why not add a holiday twist? After completing a lesson on a new concept, students write one thing they learned on a cut-out ornament or snowflake. Hang these up on a tree or the classroom door. Repeat this exit ticket procedure throughout December to build up a collection of seasonal academic art pieces that students will take pride in.
Holiday-Themed Math Centers
Let’s give a little attention to making your math block seasonal! What’s the best way to stay academically focused while engaging kids with holiday themes? Here’s your answer…holiday-themed math centers!
After being modeled in a whole group setting, these centers can be enjoyed by students all month long! I switch out the centers weekly. However, the last week of the month I pull out all ten centers, allowing students to review skills. A student once referred to this week as the “ultimate and epic game time” in math, so I call that a win!
Behavior Rewards – Holiday Style
Keep chaos at bay with holiday-inspired behavior incentives students will love! Rewards like holiday-themed coloring sheets, directed drawings, or earning a holiday movie have worked wonders to calm the seasonal shenanigans in my classroom. Be sure to stick to your normal behavior routine and system; just tweak the rewards.
What to do When You Have Students Who Cannot Celebrate
Okay, it’s time to face the elephant in the room: what about the students who cannot celebrate holidays? No worries at all! There are so many activities students will enjoy this time of year that do not focus on holiday traditions!
Service Learning
Focus on service-learning or giving back to the community during this time of year. This could be through a class-organized donation drive for a local charity. In my school, a grade level hosts a blanket drive each December, collecting hundreds of new or gently used blankets for the local homeless shelter.
Alternatively, consider having your students write letters to residents in a retirement home. I have seen firsthand how these letters have a lasting impact on those who receive them.
You could also focus on community building activities and turn December into a month of kindness and empathy! This benefits all students, regardless of which holidays they celebrate. One of my favorite activities is using a Kindness Advent Calendar. Each day in December, students complete a challenge listed on a calendar piece. These kindness prompts instill a slice of happiness throughout your campus during this time of holiday cheer.
As mentioned above, teachers who want to celebrate without a holiday focus can transform their classrooms into a whimsical winter theme for a day. Besides a snow globe or gingerbread theme, a winter art day or a pajama hot cocoa read-in create the same warm and cozy vibes as a traditional holiday party while remaining inclusive.
Communicating with Families to Respect Holiday Preferences
Be proactive this holiday season by sending home a pre-holiday questionnaire that asks about students’ traditions and preferences for seasonal classroom activities.
Sending home this letter addresses a sometimes sensitive topic, letting parents know that you value their traditions and beliefs, while also assisting with lesson planning!
Creating an inclusive and festive holiday season is achievable in your classroom. By incorporating one, two, or all of these ideas this year, your students are sure to remember the happy holiday memories made in your classroom.
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