The entire Christmas season seems to hum with excitement. Rather than fighting to stay focused, my family trades in our regular lessons for Christmas school. It’s still a season rich with learning, but its contrast to regular lessons keeps us motivated rather than distracted.
You can find treasure troves of science lessons and experiments: snowflakes, stars, conifers, etc. There is no end to Christmas-themed math worksheets across the internet, but my favorite school lessons are Christmas Language Arts.
How to Make Christmas Language Arts Fun
- Sharpen those writing skills by writing letters to soldiers!
- Advent Idea Box is full of Christmas-themed learning. Each day of Advent has its own themed lesson studying about a Christmas tradition such as the poinsettia, nutcrackers, shepherds, etc. They also highlight a country and its customs. Each day has book recommendations for some great family reading time.
- Use your favorite Christmas hymns for dictation/copywork or use hymn study worksheets for a complete study.
- Simblissity Cottage has a free Jesse Tree Copywork ebook.
- Wrap up your family’s favorite Christmas books and let your children unwrap one every day. Snuggle up and read and enjoy some time together.
- Use Christmas words (such as Christmas, Snowman, Angels, Shepherd) and write as many words as you can think of from their letters. Who can come up with the most words?
- Practice handwriting and encourage thankfulness by writing thank you notes for each Christmas gift received.
- Have them make a list of questions they have about the history of Christmas traditions.
- Take them to the library or shop online to find books about the historic Christmas tradition that interests them most.
- Have them read these books (or portions of them) and internet articles in order to find the answers to their questions.
- Encourage your older students to write an informative article on what they discovered and have them include pictures and make an illustrated cover for their article.
- Do not forget to teach older students how to write a Bibliography page citing which works they used in their research.
If doing a full Christmas school isn’t an option, you can still bring some fun into your language arts lessons by creating a Writing Prompt Christmas Calendar. Buy or make a calendar with pockets for each day and put a writing prompt on a slip of paper for each day’s pocket. Here are some ideas for prompts.
Christmas Writing Prompts
- Write a review of your favorite Christmas book or movie.
- Learn about personification and write about a sugar cookie as if it has human traits.
- Write instructions for making a gingerbread house.
- Pretend you are a shepherd and write about the night you met the Son of God.
- Write a biography of The Grinch.
- Share your favorite part of the Christmas story.
- Write a letter to a soldier.
- Pretend you are a reindeer and write about your first night flying Santa’s sleigh.
- Write instructions for building a snowman.
- Share your favorite Christmas tradition.
- Write a story about a talking snowflake that never melts.
- Study and write a biography of St. Boniface and the Christmas Tree.
- Write about a favorite Christmas memory.
- Choose three countries and create a Venn Diagram comparing their Christmas traditions.
- Write about a stocking that is bigger on the inside. What surprises might you find inside?
- Pretend you are an animal from the Christmas stable and write about the night of Christ’s birth.
- Write an essay explaining the meaning of Christmas.
- Compose a poem about Christmastime.
- Write a haiku about snow.
What are some of your favorite ways to cover Language Arts at Christmastime? I’d love to hear new ideas!
