Do you do holiday activities in your upper elementary classroom? In preschool, Kindergarten and through second grade or so, it’s common to make a big deal out of every holiday. Students are still learning about what the holidays are, and they love to celebrate with decorations, dress up, crafts, etc.
However, by the time students reach upper elementary – fourth grade, fifth grade, and middle school, not a lot of emphasis is put on the holidays. I rarely taught holidays beyond Christmas when I taught fourth grade. Part of the problem is that during the holiday, there’s no school, so there’s not a lot of time to teach about them. Also, I do not like stopping whatever unit I’m teaching to pause and teach a holiday.
A couple of years ago, I realized that when we had a holiday off of school, the students barely knew what it was for. This made me realize that even if I had little time, I needed to do something to teach the holiday. I still didn’t want to take time to do a craft. I didn’t want to do a big project. But I needed something.
What I decided was to do holiday language arts activities in upper elementary. This way I could practice language arts and holidays and not feel like I was wasting any time. The shorter the activity the better, because I could slip it into a little block of time. Here are some ideas of things that you could do in your classroom if you’re in the same boat as I was.
Holiday Language Arts Activities
- Have students quickly research a holiday in small groups and prepare a short 3-5 minute message to share with the class. Maybe each group could focus on a different part of the holiday.
- Find some short YouTube videos about the history of the holiday. Watch it first to make sure it’s appropriate, of course, but they make great ones nowadays.
- Do a creative writing project – I’ve seen ones about how to make hot chocolate. I’ve used How to Wrap a Present. They are always fun choices.
- Use holiday nonfiction reading passages to help students with reading and comprehension skills
Holiday Nonfiction Reading Passages
I wrote a series of nonfiction passages based on holidays that students get off of school (except for Valentine’s Day). The obvious ones are Christmas and Thanksgiving. But I also wanted students to understand Presidents’ Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, etc.
The history of some of these holidays are a bit muddled (think Thanksgiving), so I tried to focus on as much fact as I could, but also acknowledge that in some areas the history is not known for certain. In addition to a nonfiction passage about the history of each holiday, I also did two other passages about related topics. For example, Labor Day includes a passage on Labor Day, Rosie the Riveter, and Labor Conditions, while Presidents’ Day contains the history of Presidents’ Day passage, and also George Washington and Mount Rushmore.
The idea is that these could be used in a very short amount of time. I’ve done them in a few minutes with a small group at school, with a whole group, or sent a passage home for a short homework page. I have found that students really enjoy learning the history of holidays, as many of them have not heard it before.
Are you interested in trying these nonfiction passages in your classroom? Check them out below:
