December Classroom Activities!

It's my favorite time of the year, y'all!  I truly live for December. It's not even December yet. But the second everyone has digested their turkey, I basically declare Christmas. (I would start way earlier, except we host Thanksgiving and the hubs seems to feel that people don't want to have Thanksgiving dinner next to a Christmas tree.)  25 days is far too short, so I try to soak in every second before November is over. 

Our living room tree is already up! :) 

So, now we are all turning our attention to keeping our babies at school engaged in rigorous, yet festive activities...which is a tough balance if you ask me. We want to be fun and make school a place of celebration, but we've all got basically another month before Winter break starts, and we can't just have a free-for-all, now can we? I think Teachers Pay Teachers has so many brilliant activities that get students (of all ages!) thinking, working, and learning through holiday-themed activities. I wanted to showcase a few of my own to illustrate some ideas of things you could get your kiddos working on this December! 

Paragraph Puzzlers This resource was inspired by my 2nd graders last year and how the structure of a paragraph was so. dang. hard. to remember. When they got to put their hands on the pieces and move them around to build a paragraph, and then re-write it (sometimes even expand on it!) it was like the lightbulb finally came on.  I have December, January, and February in my store for ya if you want to get your hands on this activity!

Math Enrichment: Order of Operations I have been working with a group of kiddos at school (I'm a coach now and I work with all grades)  who have a really hard time with equations, and knowing what to do first. I made this product for them so we could practice the order of operations together! It comes with little cards for them to have the rules right in front of them (not PEMDAS!), and as they solve equations they collect letters to solve a fun riddle...Santa has gone missing and the reindeer need to know where to find him! Your students will love solving this fun puzzle while practicing some pretty serious math!!

 

Google Drive Story Builder This may be my favorite product I have made. Ever. Kiddos get to build this holiday story as they go. Do you remember the old choose-your-own-adventure books??? This is essentially that...but in Google Drive. I'm obsessed. It's hard to photograph this one in action because it is web-based...but here are some screen shots of what your students will see!

This one is all about Santa, so it's perfect for the holidays! You can see that the text is a little bit advanced, and since it's web-based, it is great reading and writing work for your big kids! 
Winter Vocabulary Mad Libs I have mad libs in a vocabulary pack for Halloween...and I loved them so much I created a file of mad libs for Winter, too. I tried to keep it pretty neutral to winter so it could be used through January and February, too!

This is what the mad libs look like:

SO much fun. These make me wish I was a student. My teachers never let me do mad libs!!
The TPT Cyber Sale is coming up, so now is the perfect time to snag some great products for your students to use this December! I hope you found something you may need here today.
Happy teaching, y'al
XOXO, Stephanie

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