Winter Break Writeups

As winter break approaches, teachers meet it with mixed emotions. The time off does wonders for you, but when your students come back hyped up on holiday treats—and their concentration completely derailed—it sometimes makes you wonder what happened.

Deter their mental meltdowns with six fun assignments designed to keep student literacy skills fresh over the break.

• Keep a holiday diary. Even if they just write one sentence a day about what they did, this will get them spelling words and composing sentences, and they’ll have the memories on record.
• Make a traditions list. Have them keep track of everything they do every year—or things they wish they’d do again next year.
• Read to a grandparent, younger sibling, or someone who could use the holiday cheer. Not only will they feel good for helping someone else but they’ll get good practice and probably some encouragement too.
• Choose books to read from a class list. When you give your students a list of books to read over the holidays, they may not read them all, but at least they’ll have an idea of where to go when they’re in the mood. Check out the Children's Choice books here.
• Complete a reading journal. Give them a fill in the blank printout, with prompts like, When I first saw the cover, I thought this book was about ___ and My favorite part was ___.
• Make up a carol. As they combine rhythm and melody, they may actually be humming when they write the lyrics down.