Crafting a Festive Classroom: A Comprehensive Guide to Introducing Christmas with Personalized Activities – Free PDF Worksheet
Crafting a Festive Classroom
Aims
To learn and review Christmas vocabulary
- To practise reading skills
- To practise speaking about different Christmas traditions from around the world and
unusual presents - To write a short Christmas–themed poem.
- Age group: 11- adult
- Level: A2 / B1+
- Time: 60 –90 minutes
- Materials:
- Christmas Student worksheet
- Internet links: http://www.soon.org.uk/en/articles/christmas/around-the-world.html – interesting site
with facts about Christmas around the world.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/25310454 – CBBC video about to how to make the perfect mince pie
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/oxfam-unwrapped Oxfam charity gift page
http://www.whychristmas.com/ – Page dedicated to answering questions about Christmas
http://www.knowalot.org/christmas-kids-quiz.htm – website with several online Christmas quizzes.
Crafting a Festive Classroom
This lesson has some ideas for how to introduce the topic of Christmas. Your own experiences and thoughts about the festive season will enhance the lesson and you will be a great source of information for your students on this theme.
The lesson begins with some simple warmer or filler tasks. Task 2 is a mini-quiz about Christmas around the world and could be a useful starting point to talk about Christmas traditions where you’re teaching or about
other winter festivals if you’re in a country that doesn’t celebrate Christmas.
Task 3 is based on a reading text about Christmas in the UK. It is aimed at intermediate level students and above and could be used as a spring-board into a discussion about many aspects of the festive season.
Task 4 gets students to think of three resolutions for the new year and this is followed by some more creative tasks aimed at younger learner. Task 7 is aimed at teenagers and looks at some unusual gift ideas for Christmas. Mix and match the activities as you feel suitable to your class and add your own ideas too to make a personalised Christmas class.
Procedure
If you have any visual aids such as Christmas cards or any Christmassy pictures you could use them first to get students thinking about the theme. Alternatively use the Christmas flashcards mentioned above and then ask students to see how many words they can remember from the flashcards you’ve presented. Making an acrostics puzzle like this is one way to brainstorm the new vocabulary. Words must be interlinked like
crosswords are. Encourage students to think of anything at all they think of when they think about Christmas time. Start this activity together so the students get the idea, then let students continue in pairs or groups and see how many words they can link up.
All downloads are in PDF format
Also check out these free resources on Christmas and New Year’s Eve
