For Halloween, Thanksgiving, and the Christmas holidays, students can complete activities that also cover state indicators. Students will enjoy these creative activities.
The materials needed are simple. Teachers will need plain white copy paper, construction paper, colored pencils, markers, scissors, and glue sticks.
Halloween or Harvest Holiday Ideas
Teachers can connect poetry to Halloween, the harvest, and/or Trick-or-Treat night in the area. First, teachers will need to review figurative language or poetry techniques. There are 10 basic ones in the Poetry Techniques and Lyric Lesson: metaphor, simile, personification, alliteration, assonance, consonance, rhyme, personification, hyperbole, and onomatopoeia.
After students are familiar with the elements, they will need to select one. Next, they will need to write an example of it with a Halloween or harvest theme.
For example, if a student chooses the literary element of alliteration, he or she could write: "The black bats flew before twilight."
On the page, the students would need to write "Alliteration." Then, the student would need to illustrate the example of alliteration.
Thanksgiving Activities
Connect descriptive writing to the Thanksgiving holiday. Students can describe their family traditions during the Thanksgiving holidays. If students are struggling with this writing activity, they can try to answer some or all of the following questions:
- Where does your family go for dinner?
- Who does the cooking?
- Do you help in any way?
- Do you have to help clean up or wash the dishes?
- Does your family have any traditions, such as how the turkey is cut, special pies or dishes, songs, etc?
- After the big dinner, what does your family do?
Once students have written their descriptive essay, they can share their special traditions with the class. The teacher can also ask students to mount the essay to a piece of construction paper and illustrate it.
Christmas or Holiday Activities
For the holiday season, students can make ornaments. On these ornaments, students will write a poem about their favorite holiday memory. Teachers will need to review rhyme pattern or rhyme schemes.
Students should write a six line poem that focuses on a memory and it should have a rhyme scheme. Next, students will cut out a design on construction paper. If foam sheets can be purchased, this material makes better ornaments. Next, students will write the poem neatly on the shape. Then, students need to decorate the ornament. Students can punch a hole the ornament and add yarn so that they can hang them on a Christmas tree.
These three activities will help your students celebrate the holiday season. Some middle schools no longer allow students to have parties. However, this will allow students to be creative and focus on the holiday season.
Resources:
Kellie Hayden - She is a 19 year veteran teacher with a master's degree in education and NBCT, 2000. Kellie teaches 8th grade language arts, TAG and ...
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