Every teacher knows about the craziness that is December. You will see your students' highest moments of excitement, and for some students, their lowest days. Many students will be absent at various times for illness, hockey tournaments, family events, or even leave early for Winter Break.
It's not just the students that are riding the emotional rollercoaster in December. You probably are too. Maybe you just did report cards, or have a big school performance to organize. You might be involved in music in the community too. You also have personal commitments, and your own health that is probably suffering at this time of year.
We know we can't just not teach anything new in December. We need to find ways to make the curriculum engaging. Some days, that's just too much even.
We can't just put on a movie. We've got to at least try to have meaningful activities, most of the time.
Simple worksheet activities can fill that need. No need for tech, just put some music on in the background, put a fireplace video on the screen, and bring the energy level down a notch.
If you know you're going to need a chill day for whatever reason, try to have a lesson before hand to get the content across. Then on the chill day (or the sub day), they'll have some base knowledge for the activities. They'll have fun, but they're also reviewing content! Or, they can be used as an introduction to a new unit. Learning traditional Christmas carols for a performance? Students will enjoy learning some fun facts about them. Feeling nostalgic? Introduce your students to popular Christmas songs or movies one day, and then the worksheets another day.
In my new seasonal resource, there are matching activities covering 6 different topics (one page for each):
- Popular Christmas songs
- Christmas carols
- Christmas words
- Christmas traditions around the world
- Christmas movies
- general winter words
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