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We all know that during the holiday season it is harder to engage our students. Using holiday and seasonal activities helps to get over that hurdle. These Christmas writing activities will have your students focused and engaged while working on important writing skills.
Engaging students in writing can be tough, holidays or no holidays. There’s something about a blank piece of paper and a really broad topic that overwhelms students. By just taking these away and changing up the methodology we can grab their attention and get them focused on writing. Shorter writing activities are also a great way to really focus on one specific writing skill. Once students have practiced the concept, it is then easier for them to incorporate their new writing skill into larger writing assignments.
These Christmas themed flip books are a great way to engage your students with the holiday writing and help them work on a variety of writing and language arts skills. The small, mini flip book format makes them something fun and exciting for students too. Inside this resource you will have 6 mini-books to engage your students in different types of writing. These no prep writing activities include directions so your students know just what to do. A great resource to whole class writing or adding to the writing center. Here’s what your students will work on using these Christmas writing activities.
Many of the writing activities in the Christmas Flip Books will help students work on improving their descriptive writing skills. Starting with brainstorming adjectives that relate to the topic, students can practice adding these words into their sentences. By connecting the descriptive writing to something that students have experienced with multiple senses, they process of thinking of describing words is easier.
This flip book on My Christmas Tree is a great example. On two of tabs in this mini-book, students will focus descriptive writing. They will start with listing adjectives to describe their tree. Then they move on to using adjectives in sentences as they describe the ornaments.
Three of the 6 mini-books have descriptive writing activities. This allows students to have multiple opportunities to practice this important writing skill. You can find the descriptive writing activities in the My Christmas Tree, A Christmas Bakery and the Wrap It Up mini-books.
Another important life skill we can teach our students is that of thinking through why they have opinions. It is one thing to have an opinion, we all have them, but it is another to be able to explain why we have an opinion. As our students get older, they transition from just believing what they are told to developing their own opinions. But being able to think through and explain why we have those opinions is an important part of that. Helping our students learn that “just because” or “I don’t know” are not good reasons.
Using the Christmas flip books, students will work on stating their opinions and explaining why they have that opinion. It might be their favorite Christmas ornament in My Christmas Tree, explaining what gift they would give to someone in Great Gift Giving, or writing about their favorite Christmas Carol. All opportunities to practice writing and supporting their opinions.
Learning how to write persuasively is another great skill we can teach our students. Whether they have a future in advertising, the courtroom or public service, being able to lay out a well crafted, persuasive plan is great life skill. Using the Christmas mini-books, students will practice their persuasive powers.
Practicing persuasion takes a couple of different forms in these mini-books. In A Christmas Bakery, students will create an advertisement for the bakery. This is a great way to learn how images and words can go together to persuade. Additionally, in My Christmas Tree students will write to try to persuade someone to come and see their decorated tree.
Another writing skill your students will work on is how to writing. Being able to clearly and concisely write steps or instructions is an important skill for our students to develop.
Using the Christmas mini-books your students will have the opportunity to practice how to writing about activities they have already done in real life. The Wrap it Up mini-book will have your students writing about how to wrap a present. Here students will include a list of needed supplies in addition to writing the steps.
What’s great about this activity is that it is really simple to set-up a hands-on gift wrapping station so that kids can experience it before they write about it.
Using recycled newspaper, construction paper or wrapping paper, students can practice before writing. You can also use the hands-on gift wrapping station to have students “test” their steps. Working with a partner, students can read one step at a time while the other person completes the action. Make sure to have students do exactly what was said – no reading between the lines allowed. This activity is a wonderful way to help students see how they can be more specific with their words. Here’s an example of this type of activity done with how to writing for making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
As you can see, this type of activity really helps students to think about their words. It’s great for a whole class lesson as an engagement activity, but it’s also great to put the final writing to the test. I don’t know about you but a gift wrapping station is a lot less mess than PB&J!
While these activities cover many important writing skills, there’s more too. Students will have opportunities to do some creative writing in A Christmas Bakery, and practice word variety in Christmas Carols as they work on synonyms. There’s also a fun flip book with word puzzles and a chance to write out their Christmas list.
Your students will love writing this holiday season with these Christmas Flip Books. And you, well you will love just how easy it is to engage your students in working on a variety of writing skills during the holiday season. You can grab these Christmas Flip Books in my store on Teachers Pay Teachers.
Between my love of Christmas and my desire to engage students, I have a variety of fun learning activities that are perfect for this time of year. Here’s just a few that I know you and your students will love.
You might need these resources now, or you might have found your way here in July. Either way, just pin this to your favorite classroom Pinterest board so you can come back any time for fun and engaging Christmas writing activities.
Hi, I’m Shelly! Thank you for being here. I love helping third, fourth, and fifth grade teachers with fun and engaging activities that require no to little prep! Let me help you by taking some of the stress and work off your plate.
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