🎅🎄🎁 Christmas
Silver bells are ringing! I hope you enjoy the Christmas Lesson Plan! Here is a quick overview:
Christmas Guided Writing - Birthday Card for Jesus & Letter to Santa
25 Days of Christmas Lift-the-Flap Advent Calendar
Subtraction Scavenger Hunt
Subtraction Dominoes
Ugly Sweater Craft
States of Matter Investigation
Graham Cracker House Engineering Challenge
Christmas Around the World Social Studies Lesson
Hot Cocoa Sensory Bin
Figurines Ice Rink
Cosmic Kids Christmas Yoga
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Enjoy! Tiff
🎅🎄🎁 Christmas
Christmas Guided Writing
Celebrate the season with two guided writing activities your students will be sure to love.
First, choose from two options for this year's letter to Santa. Use the blank letter with lines only or use the fill in the blank version. Then address the envelope for Santa.
Then, make a birthday card for Jesus and decorate his birthday cake!
25 Days of Christmas Lift-the-Flap
Make everyday till Christmas filled with Christmas Cheer! Choose your adventure this holiday season as you pick which fun activities you will do on each day with this 25 Days of Christmas Advent Calendar.
This was inspired by artwork my 5 year-old did completely by herself. We had so much fun making a printable version together with 60 options to choose from.
English Language Arts - Phonemic Awareness
Week-by-Week Phonics Packets
Although I personally prefer to use hands on activities to teach concepts, I like having some worksheets on hand for assessments. With December in full-swing, I am using this time to see what my daughter has mastered, what she needs work on and what she should be introduced to.
Each phonics focus has 5 pages of worksheets and a checklist. We usually split a phonics focus over several days. I like that there are multiple mini activities on each page and a checklist on each section so you can mark them off as you go.
Reading Lessons
There are only two resources I like to make sure I include on each week’s lesson plan, Prodigies Music (below) and Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons. This book has thousands of 5 star reviews on Amazon for a reason. It’s an effective, no-prep way to teach reading. We are 40 or so lessons in and I can already see a huge difference, my daughter actually sounds out the words instead of guessing.
The lessons are short (15-20min), easy to grasp and sequential. The entire lesson is scripted and color coded so it’s fool proof, just read the words in pink. It also is designed for kids that don’t know their alphabet or letter sounds yet, so you can start right away. Their claim is that after completing all 100 lessons your child will be able to read at a 2nd grade level!
Math - Subtraction
Subtraction Scavenger Hunt
My daughter hates staying still, so this subtraction scavenger hunt was the perfect activity for the last week before winter break. She loved running around the house to find the correct number of objects to match the subtraction equations.
She used pinecones, puzzle pieces, mini erasers, golden bells, candy canes and other holiday objects around the house to complete her work. This was part of a larger Numbers Scavenger Hunt pack by This Reading Mama that we’ve used throughout the year.
Subtraction Dominoes
Great for practicing subitizing and subtraction at the same time. Great for assessing the cardinality skill of being able to instantly recognize a quantity without counting. And I loved that it also helped students visualize the equation instead of just showing the numerals.
Art and Music
Ugly Sweater Craft
The ugly possibilities are endless! Make your own Ugly Christmas Sweater art in three different sizes: large, medium and small.
We used crayons, pom poms, snowflake confetti, rhinestones, glitter, and mini bows. But these would be fun to use with dab-a-dot markers, oil pastels, paint pens, etc. Could also be used as a salt painting template.
Print on colored cardstock to give it a fun background color or on white for more options. Cut out and hang the large size on a clothesline with clothes pins to decorate your classroom or home. Use the medium size for Christmas Cards or the small size would be great for ornaments.
Prodigies Music
Do…Re…Mi…
We love Prodigies! Prodigies Music is simply an incredible curriculum for teaching music. Ages 2-5 is the critical time to develop a life-long sense of pitch. Their curriculum is designed to develop a sense of pitch with easy to use desk bells that don’t require any tuning. They also teach piano, recorder and ukulele. Their subscription includes everything you can think of 450+ videos, worksheets, free bell mats, sheet music all color coded so it’s super easy to learn. If you don’t have an instrument they have a bunch of rhythm focused content that doesn’t require an instrument.
They have a free trial and discounts for annual memberships! Great deal! You can even check out some of their videos for free on YouTube.
Science
States of Matter Investigation
Investigate the different States of Matter and state changes with this fun book-tivity. I read the awesome Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out-Science Book “What Is the World Made Of?: All About Solids, Liquids and Gases” and visually demonstrated the concepts in the book while drawing them on a mini white board.
I poured some water in a plastic beaker to show water in a liquid state. Then I used spherical ice cubes to show water in a solid state. I had some prepared ahead of time and then we made new ones with mini wreaths frozen inside. Then we put the spherical ice cubes in a sauce pot and heated it up to show that first the ice turned to water then to water vapor. Finally to complete the cycle, we put some liquid water in a dry glass with ice to see condensation in action as the water vapor turned back to a liquid state on the outside of the glass.
Supplies: “What Is the World Made Of?”book, beaker, mini white board, white board pens, sauce pan, ice cubes, ice cube tray, water, mini wreaths or small toys to freeze
Graham Cracker House Engineering Challenge
For years we’ve done an Annual “Gingerbread” house making competition where we invite all our friends over and see who can make the most inspired creation using only edible materials.
For homeschool this year, we did a smaller scale version. The challenge was to build a house out of graham crackers that had a roof and did not collapse. Although she needed help with the frame for the roof, my 5 year old was able to build everything else herself!
Switch it up and see who can make the tallest stable structure!
Supplies: graham crackers, royal icing (confectioners sugar, egg whites, cream of tartar, kosher salt), gum drops, Christmas light cupcake toppers, candy cane Hershey’s kisses, Ginger Family Cookies, mini marshmallows, mini candy canes and Christmas colored peanut M&Ms.
Social Studies
Christmas Around The World
Take a trip around the world this Christmas with these amazing free printables. Travel to 30 different countries by exploring links to National Geographic, Time For Kids and videos. Use these fun printables to record what was learned about each country. Also includes a blank page if your country isn’t included, coloring pages, writing prompts and more.
You could explore a country a day or just pick a few countries to learn about. We picked the U.S.A. and Egypt!
Sensory Play
Hot Cocoa Sensory Play
It was no surprise that this sensory bin was an instant hit. This was our first edible sensory bin so I was worried about bugs, but since the bin has a lid we’ve had no problems.
My girls loved pouring their “hot cocoa” and topping it with marshmallows. They of course sampled their supplies like all good chefs do, but thankfully they were more focused on playing than gorging on marshmallows.
I found these awesome mini plastic mugs at the Daiso japanese dollar store, but Target has similar ones with letters on them.
Supplies: Cocoa Krispies Cereal, mini marshmallows, mini candy cane cupcake toppers, Melissa and Doug cooking set, mini plastic mugs.
Figurine Ice Rink
This was a great activity to help reinforce the concepts we learned in the different States of Matter investigation.
First, I placed a quarter sheet pan flat in my freezer, then I poured in water with some blue food coloring and froze it overnight.
The result was this awesome ice rink for our Frozen figurines…and some very blue hands. If you don’t want blue hands, just make clear ice. But the blue made it extra fun, lol…it only took a day to wear off.
Supplies: quarter sheet pan, water, blue food coloring (use sparingly, lol), Frozen Busy Book figurines, mini bottle brush trees
Physical Education
Cosmic Kids Christmas
Go on a Christmas Yoga Adventure with Jamie from Cosmic Kids. Stretch and move your body to this fun Christmas themed yoga workout and at the end you will be sure to be filled with Christmas cheer!
Book List
Don’t have the budget or space to get more books? The library has been pretty great for us so far, but they are sometimes out of the more popular books. One place that you can always count on to find great books is Epic Books! Try Epic Basic for FREE! You can find awesome read to me books for free, Unlimited plan includes access to 40,000+ books!
Looking for a Social Studies lesson? We love getting our Universal Yums country themed snack box each month which includes a 12 page booklet with facts about the country and a bunch of snacks to try. We love learning about the ingredients grown in different countries and fun facts like potato chips weren’t always popular in Italy.
Know of any other awesome Christmas themed resources? Please comment below!
Do you know anyone else that would enjoy these free weekly lesson plans? Get them on the list!
