Before reading any further in the Christmas & Holiday themed post, please consider diversifying your lessons this month and read here first!
If you know me, you know I think the 'ber months are the greatest of all, and I'm reading to finish them strong with all of my favorite December read alouds and craftivities! I'm also big into classroom community building YEAR ROUND, but ESPECIALLY IN DECEMBER --> Check out my blog post for Community Building in December HERE <-- COMING SOON
Let's getting started on sharing some AWESOME holiday read alouds and craftivities for primary grades!
A Wish to Be a Christmas Tree by Colleen Monroe:
Wow, do I love this story. It's about a tree who always wished to be chosen as a Christmas tree, but never did. While the tree is feeling down on himself, his fellow woodland friends help to remind him of how wonderful he is. Finally, they give him his wish and decorate him to be a Christmas tree in the woods.
I love the message behind this story, and it got me thinking, we often wish to be something we aren't and forget about what we ALREADY bring to the table. This story gives our students the perfect opportunity to "decorate" each others trees, and build each other up with compliments. I spread this craft out over a few days.
First with an introduction to the students about our class goals in decorating each others trees and brainstorming some good qualities we notice in each other. We add these to an anchor chart, and then over the next few days we fill each others' bags with ornaments with complimentary words on them. On the last day, each student receives their bag and decorates their tree with kind, descriptive words about themself from their classmates.
Click, Clack, HO! HO! HO! by Doreen Cronin:
I'm sure many of you are familiar with the story, but just in case you aren't, this one is about a duck who gets stuck, and one by one animals try to help him out, but also get stuck. Then, Santa comes along and OF COURSE Santa doesn't get stuck! Finally, they're all able to celebrate around the tree!
This one is FULL of festive fun. It also is great for primary grades to focus on story retelling and sequencing, because the events are repetitive, and laid out simply.
The Gingerbread Kid Goes to School by Joan Holub:
Get ready for some Gingerbread FUN with this story! It's all about the gingerbread KID running from different staff members of the school after being made by the principal!
The craftivity paired below is perfect for primary math practice.
This craft includes one to one cardinality, as well as addition and subtraction templates.
The Gingerbread Mouse by Katy Bratun:
This sweet story of a mouse whose house was struck by a tree branch, perfectly lends itself to a festive STEM activity with your students. Enjoy this FREE planning page below!
Before diving head first into a stem activity, I suggest introducing your students to STEM using an introduction resource like this one from BROWNE'S BUNCH OF STEM!
FUN CRAFTIVITY USING ABC focused or CVC focused books on Get Epic!
If you plan to do this craft, you can assign a multitude of read alouds from GetEpic.com to your students.
For an ABC tree, you can search "Discover the Alphabet" books from xist publishing.
If you want CVC books, search the author "Marv Alinas" who has plenty of great CVC books.
After reading a handful of these books with your class (depending on if you're doing and ABC Tree, CVC Tree, or adding presents underneath to do BOTH) pass out ornaments and/or present pieces from my resource for them to create their own CVC word, or ABC word starting with their assigned letter.
For the ABC resource, make sure you give a letter to each particular student based on the letters they DO NOT KNOW and need more practice with!
When you're ready to assemble your tree, use green bright paper or green construction paper and roll and hot glue to your wall or bulletin board. Start with one at the top, then fill in with more on each descending row.
Five Busy Elves by Patricia Hegarty:
This is your typical counting story with tons of festive fun! I pair this with a counting craftivity to help my students begin skip counting! Be sure to get some fun bright paper to make this craftivity quick and simple for your kiddos, and they can color their elves to look however they'd like.
The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg:
Do I have to say much about this classic?! I pair this book with our polar express pajama day, along with this bundle from TPT by the brisky girls.
Check out my blog post on building class community during the holidays to talk about more themed days during December! COMING SOON
TO GET ALL OF THESE CRAFTIVITIES IN THIS BUNDLE (excludes polar express pajama day pack) CLICK HERE!
Comment below and let me know how you're loving these read alouds and craftivities!!!!
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Creating Class Community in December COMING SOON
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