Looking for engaging winter holiday activities that are more than just busy work? In this post, as part of our middle school ELA holiday series, we are focusing on winter holiday blogs, classroom activities, and middle school ELA resources that will help you celebrate the season while keeping students engaged, reviewing important standards, and having fun before winter break.
The holiday season is approaching and your middle schoolers can feel it!
This year, instead of fighting the excitement, use it to your advantage.
The winter holiday season is the perfect opportunity to reinforce the skills your students have already learned through creative writing, engaging review activities, grammar practice, and collaborative games.
Over the years we’ve shared several blog posts about this season. These posts are full of activity and resource ideas that are specific to middle school ELA.
In this middle school ELA holiday series, we are taking all our previously shared ideas and creating a one-stop shop of blog posts to read, activities to try, and resources to consider for each holiday season. This week, we’re talking about Christmas and winter holidays.
Enjoy!
Looking for inspiration before planning your December lessons? These blog posts are filled with engaging ideas that reinforce important middle school ELA standards while making the weeks before winter break memorable.
6 Easy (Low/No-Prep) Christmas ELA Activities for Middle School
Discover six festive activities that review reading, writing, grammar, and figurative language without requiring hours of teacher preparation.
Elf Activities for Middle School ELA: A Week-Long Character Development Mini Unit
Build an original elf character while practicing characterization, descriptive writing, script writing, persuasive writing, and grammar through a connected series of engaging activities.
Middle School ELA Christmas Activities: Creative Ways to Teach Figurative Language
Explore creative figurative language lessons including scavenger hunts, simile challenges, holiday writing activities, and collaborative review games.
The winter holidays provide countless opportunities for students to read, write, collaborate, and think creatively. These activities help students review important ELA skills while celebrating the season in meaningful ways.
Challenge students to create a fully developed elf character instead of simply coloring one.
Students determine their elf’s personality, background, goals, strengths, fears, family traditions, and even the symbolism behind the colors they wear. Finish by having students create a detailed sketch that reflects their character choices.
Throughout the week, students continue using this same character in narrative writing, script writing, and persuasive writing activities.
Pair students together and have their two elf characters solve a problem in Santa’s workshop.
Students write the interaction as a dramatic script using proper dialogue formatting, stage directions, and character names while allowing each elf’s personality to influence the scene.
Every elf has an opinion.
Students write and deliver a persuasive speech from the perspective of their elf, convincing Santa to approve something important.
Maybe they want a raise, an Elf Football League, better cafeteria options, improved workshop equipment, or more vacation time. Students practice persuasive techniques while remaining true to the personality they developed earlier.
Display a decorated Christmas tree and challenge students to create as many examples of figurative language as possible.
Students write similes, metaphors, personification, hyperbole, idioms, alliteration, and onomatopoeia inspired by the ornaments, lights, ribbons, and decorations they observe.
Write several holiday words on the board, such as stocking, candy cane, ornament, gingerbread house, wreath, and sleigh.
Then give students a list of unrelated nouns and challenge them to create as many original similes and metaphors as possible before time runs out. Afterwards, students share their strongest examples and discuss which comparisons create the clearest imagery.
Students write a creative letter to Santa while secretly incorporating every type of figurative language they’ve studied.
When everyone finishes, students exchange letters with a partner and become figurative language detectives, identifying each example they can find.
Grammar review doesn’t have to feel repetitive.
Students decorate gingerbread houses, Christmas trees, and elves while writing descriptive sentences using prepositional phrases. Afterwards, they identify both the prepositional phrases and the individual prepositions they used in their own writing.
The finished projects also make colorful classroom displays throughout December.
Instead of another worksheet or review packet, let students work collaboratively to solve holiday-themed puzzles.
Digital escape rooms give students opportunities to practice reading comprehension, chronological order, plot structure, figurative language, sequencing, and other essential ELA skills while working toward a common goal.
If you’re looking for ready-to-use holiday lessons that require little to no prep, these resources make it easy to keep students engaged while continuing to review important ELA standards before winter break.
The weeks before winter break don’t have to become a countdown to vacation.
Whether they’re creating original elf characters, writing persuasive speeches to Santa, solving digital escape rooms, strengthening figurative language, or practicing grammar through holiday-themed activities, students will leave for winter break having reviewed the skills they’ve worked so hard to build throughout the semester.
We hope these winter holiday blogs, activities, and resources help make December one of the most engaging and enjoyable times of the school year.
Happy Holidays from all of us at The Sparkly Notebook!
