Christmas Bucket List for the Classroom

There’s nothing quite like the Christmas and holiday season! And with it quickly approaching us, what better thing to do than round up some of our favorite Christmas Bucket List Items for the Classroom!

1. Put the burning fireplace YouTube video (complete with crackling sounds) on the projector (or smartboard), add some Pandora Christmas carols, and transform independent reading time into something magical! Don’t be surprised when your kids want to read for an additional amount of time!

2. Watch a Christmas movie together … If your principal or district frowns on movie watching, make it educational! Have students answer a text-dependent question and gather evidence as they watch the movie. (Here’s the question our fifth graders answered while watching It’s a Wonderful Life: “Analyze the three life lessons George Bailey learned over the course of the film.”)

3. Read aloud a Christmas book, or two, or three … bonus if it’s snowing outside! Some of our favorites are The Polar Express; The Night Before Christmas; and Olive, the Other Reindeer. To make this activity more academically challenging, use our free Characterization Christmas Activity.

4. Start the day off with a hot chocolate party with extra marshmallows. We asked our room moms to help us pull this off for our students. Two of our moms came in, used the instant hot chocolate mix, and had the cups ready to go for when our students walked in! The kids loved this!

5. Make these awesome 3-D snowflakes and decorate your classroom.

6. Create Winter-y Descriptive Writing Masterpieces. We use this fun descriptive writing activity in our classroom to keep things fun but still academic. Students create their own real estate flyer to practice using descriptive words and details all while “selling” their Gingerbread House!