4 Easy Activities for the Last Week of School Before the Winter Holidays
These fun and easy winter-themed activities will keep your students engaged before the break.
The last week of school before winter break is an exciting time at school. There’s a lot to cross off on to-do lists and more than enough energy to go around as you and your students eagerly anticipate a much-needed break to recharge and refresh as the new year approaches.
With all the celebrations and parties that make this last week so special, learning should still play an important role for your students. These four fun and engaging winter-themed activities will not only keep your kids’ minds warm in the lead up to winter break, they’ll also inspire your students to tap their collective excitement and energy to work creatively and independently.
Share the wonders of winter with your young readers with these favorite snow and snowmen stories!
Students love learning about seasons and what makes them so special.
Throughout the last week of school before winter break, dedicate a portion of your day to review common symbols that represent winter, and then encourage kids to channel their creativity to make crafts, holiday cards, or other works of art inspired by those symbols. Snowflakes, fir trees, mittens, and winter activities such as sledding, skiing, and snowball fights are all great places to begin, but be sure to give your kids the opportunity to discuss and brainstorm other symbols that make winter special to them.
The Mayor of Mouseville announces a contest, awarding a prize to whomever builds the biggest snowman. Clayton and Desmond race against the clock to compete for the prize, only to discover that by working together, they can build the biggest snowman ever!
Dramatic and sweet, this book will evoke warm and cozy feelings in readers any time of the year. Perfect to share with little ones, the simplicity of the story shines bright.
The water cycle is engagingly told from the point of view of a little snowflake formed in a cloud.
Dot may be the littlest reindeer in the North Pole, but she has a big desire to help Santa pull his sleigh! But Dot just can't seem to fly the right way, no matter hard she runs, leaps, and kicks. Will Dot learn to fly, or is the littlest reindeer just too little?
Simple text and silly illustrations encourage younger students to consider how animals adapt to cold weather, stressing the importance of teamwork.
Just because it’s the last week of school before winter break doesn’t mean you shouldn’t spend time on spelling and introducing new winter-related words to your young learners. Of course, there’s no shortage of obscure, yet fun, words about winter for you to choose from, but once you have your words in place and completed a few spelling exercises, engage your students even further through some friendly competition.
Begin by choosing a few winter words your students don’t know the definition of and then divide your class into teams of three or four to make up definitions for these news words. Once complete, have teams vote on the one definition they believe is correct. (Don’t forget to incorporate the true definition in during voting.) The made-up definition that gets the most votes earns a point for the creative team behind it. The teams that vote for the correct definition also earn a point.
This competition will likely inspire your kids to go home and impress family and friends by weaving words such as apricity, hiemal, and subnivean into their winter break conversations.
This bundled-up gal isn't playing in the snow; she's slurping it up as fast as she can. Raccoons, reindeer, and bears look on with stunned amazement as she gobbles up even stranger items like a pipe, a scarf, two lumps of coal, and even the branches of a tree. What could she possibly be up to? What do all of these items add up to?
Snowflakes are in the air, and winter is here at last! Poppleton makes a new friend, sculpts a bust of Cherry Sue, and gets a wintry birthday surprise in these three witty, beautifully illustrated stories.
It's a snow day, and Bella is thrilled. There's no school, so she and Bub can play outside all day. Trouble is, Bub does not like the snow - it's slippery, freezing cold, and wet! What's even worse, there's a new kid next door, and he has a scary, monster-sized pet. Can Bub get past his fear of the snow and make a new friend at the same time?
Organized into color-coded levels, these short, compelling stories will have both emergent and more advanced readers entertained and engaged as they explore new stories with their favorite characters.
Every year Stoneybrook Middle School (the whole school!) gets invited to Leicester Lodge in Vermont for a week of winter adventure! A busload of little kids unexpectedly needs baby-sitters. Mary Anne uncovers a ghost in the lodge. Claudia and Stacey both fall in love with handsome French skiers. Kristy is helping her team win the Winter War . . . while California Dawn can barely stand up in her skates. And if it doesn't stop snowing, SMS may be snowbound until spring!
Inspired by the best-selling Who Would Win?... series, this exercise in persuasion pits two teams of students against one another in one polarizing outcome. Divide your class into two teams — one group for winter and another for summer — and instruct them to work together to develop arguments for why their assigned season is better than the other. Next, have each team choose one or two students to deliver their arguments to the class. You as the teacher gets to serve as the judge to declare a winner!
What can you do in the winter?
Now kids can feel like real pros with this exciting nonfiction series for beginning readers. Kids will be hooked on the thrilling real-world topics and big, bright photos.
Easy-to-read descriptions of the continuously changing seasons are accompanied by illustrations of activities that children can readily understand. Simple Spanish sentences are followed by English sentences on the same page.
The last week before winter break is the perfect time for students to put pen or pencil to paper to explore various genres of writing. Devote a portion of each remaining day of school before break to writing about winter in a new way with poetry, memoir, creative nonfiction, and more.
Also, encourage your students to use this last week of school to reflect upon what they’ve learned so far this year and what they hope to achieve next year, too.
Each year, as days grow shorter and trees become bare, the world outside seems to slow and darken. But for children, this time of year is magical. The frosty air crackles with play and laughter.
In this humorous and heartwarming story about compromise in friendship, squirrels Hank and Hoog navigate the upcoming season of winter. Can this friendship survive a difference in opinion?
Focusing on familiar seasonal themes, such as apple picking, sledding, planing a garden, and more, these short books helps kids learn simple one- to three-letter words by sight.
Perfect for reading on winter days, the book features photos of real snow crystals in their beautiful diversity. Snowflake-catching instructions are also included.
Twenty-five poems to introduce Robert Frost to young people. The selections are arranged by the seasons, and Sorensen's handsome watercolor illustrations capture the feel of the New England landscape without in any way trying to provide literal images for the poetry.