The holidays are upon us, and your students are bubbling over with excitement. Don’t want to be a grinch but still want to pack a lot of learning into these weeks before the winter break? Listen in as Caitlin and Jessica host Joe and Quyen, Top Floor Teachers who have a great holiday project to share with you!
Joe and Quyen share their 3-week Celebrating Winter lesson, where students compare, contrast, and write about winter holidays around the world. Students will love exploring various cultures so much that they may not even notice they’re building their knowledge about main ideas, key details, context clues, and more.
If you’re interested in trying out this unit, Joe and Quyen will offer guidance on how to get started without feeling overwhelmed, plus give ideas for adapting the lesson in different ways. Take a listen to learn how to keep your kids learning this December!
Tune in now to hear:
- [00:40] Welcome, Joe and Quyen from Top Floor Teachers!
- [02:70] Joe and Quyen talk about how to keep the learning going when students are starting to “check out” before winter break
- [04:40] Teaching author’s perspective? Help your students learn about holidays around the world!
- [05:50] How to make this lesson diverse and inclusive
- [07:00] Using this lesson to focus on main idea and key details
- [08:10] Joe and Quyen break down the timeline of this 3-week “Celebrating Winter” lesson
- [09:40] Using a “passport” to help students learn about holidays and make connections between them
- [11:00] Adding small, fun activities like holiday Kahoot
- [12:20] Adding engagement to improve upon a curriculum
- [14:40] Extension ideas for this lesson
- [16:30] Joe and Quyen explain how middle school teachers can adapt this lesson for their own classrooms, and where to begin
- [20:20] Want to learn more from Joe and Quyen? Check them out on Instagram
Subscribe & Review in iTunes
Are you subscribed to our podcast? If you’re not, we want to encourage you to do that today. We don’t want you to miss a single episode. We add a brand-new episode every week, and if you’re not subscribed, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out on those. Click here to subscribe in iTunes!
Now if you’re feeling extra awesome today, we would be super grateful if you left us a review over on iTunes, too. Those reviews help other people find our podcast, and they’re also so much fun for us to go in and read. Just click here to review, select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” and let us know what your favorite part of the podcast is. Thank you!
