infographic | ELT inspired

Well, every last week before our Christmas school break, we ALWAYS leave the course books aside and start….enjoying Christmas !

Actually, it all starts much earlier…..about a month before Christmas, I put up our Advent calendars, full of surprises inside…! This is when all the fun starts! We continue with our 4th graders short Christmas plays rehearsals and our artistic Christmas cards ( to be offered to our Christmas show guests ) and we conclude with the Christmas games and activities week!!

I’m sharing some NEW ideas and games that have really worked with my students, this year!

An Alternative Advent calendar

I just love Advent calendars and I use different ones, each year in class! This year, we had an alternative advent calendar, where we all had to do an act of kindness, each day. I found the idea on http://www.muminthemadhouse.com/

Kindness can cost nothing and I want to teach my students to be kinder than they need to be and feel that focusing on acts of kindness during Advent , will be a great learning experience and also spread some joy.

Our kindness mission statement:

Spread the word – encourage other people to join in and become happiness heroes

Have fun and enjoy making other people happy

To be kinder than you need to be

I loved this idea! We should remind kids that, it’s more about the giving than the receiving. It is so easy to lose track of it in all the dazzle and ads and gifts and lights outside. It all becomes about the gifts and not the meaning and spirit of the holiday.

I used an old Advent calendar I had at home, but you can also use the classroom wall, as the ideal place to display the Advent trees. You can simply blue tac’d them to the wall. This would work well on any surface and be topped with a lovely star decoration.

Another idea is a hanging Advent Calendar . You can use small pegs, but strung them on to cord and then hung the trees on the wall.

Some acts of kindness ideas for your own Advent Calendar!

Donate a coat or jumper to charity (leaving a happy note in the pocket)
Donate to the local food bank
Make christmas cards for your neighbours
Leave change in the vending machine
Sort through your toys and donate any that you no longer play with to charity or your local church
Leave chalk messages around where you live
Sharpen all the pencils in the classroom at breaktime
Write a letter to your sibling telling them why you love them
Leave a beautiful homemade bookmark in your library book and give one to the Librarian
Leave the pound in the shopping trolley next time you go to the supermarket
Deliver cookies to your neighbours
Tidy your bedroom
Write a note and mail them to the houses with great christmas lights saying thank you for lighting up their house for you to see
Sit next to someone you normally don’t at the lunch table and be nice to them
Be a holiday helper – volunteer to deliver local christmas cards
Make a bird feeder
Send a care package to someone in the military
Find three of your toys to give to the local childrens hospital
Pass on some of your books to friends
Give a lottery ticket to a stranger
Donate books to your school library
Leave out water for the birds
Write thank you cards for your teacher, coach, Cubs leader or people that have influenced you in a positive way
Clean up the area where you live by picking up litter. Make sure you wear gloves and do it with an adult.
Help round the house without being asked to
Donate pet food to a local shelter
Put together a shoebox for your local church
Write a thank you note for the bin collectors and post person
Wash your parents car
Give a homeless person a blanket
Deice your neighbours windshields in the morning
Take everyone in your class a candy cane or cookie
Take poinsettias to your nearest nursing home
Make a christmas card for the school receptionist
Offer to help an elderly friend or neighbour with their christmas decorations
Make christmas flowers for the reception at school
Make a thank you card for the school crossing staff
Cook dinner for your family
Offer to pack the shopping bags of the person in front of you and behind you at the supermarket
Invite a new friend for a play date or out to play
Walk someone elses dog
Give out a complement
Give out free hugs today
Hold the door open for people all day
Smile all day
Let someone go in front of you in a queue
Introduce yourself to someone new at school and chat with them
Ring an elderly relative and have a nice chat to them

My super power

I ask my student to imagine that , from 1/1/201…, all of them possess a super power that no one else knows about. The reason they were given these powers is so that they can use them to become better people and change the World!

I ask them to create the superhero version of themselves and explain why this superpower is important and what is the thing they can change about themselves or the World!

New Year acrostic poem

Each student should refer to something they would like to achieve/change/have or not have for this year.

eg This year I’d like to have

2 large pieces of chocolate cake every day

0 worries and problems

1 big brown bookcase

6 months of vacation

My 201…infographic

I ask my students to create their infographics about their hopes or ambitions. Found the idea on http://www.easel.ly

Fortune teller

I ask them to write down 3 new things they would like to try this year and test whether their wishes ill come true afterwards…A great warming-up, too.

Year in review

This is a nice activity for older students. I ask them to write short paragraphs about the things that made last year special/difficult/challenging for them. It can be done with or without a photos collage.

My New Year message to the world

I ask them to imagine that, their words of hope and prayers for the New Year ,might reach the troubled young people either here or in distant war-torn countries.

Then I write this question on the board:

What would your message say, and to whom would you send it?

The elf poem

This is an amazing activity which I learned about in one of the Tesol Macedonia/Thrace/Northern Greece Christmas events, a couple of years ago….I think, the activity was presented to us by Katerina Kyriakidou.

I tell my kids that, they are going to hear a poem twice. After each dictation they have to write down as much as they can remember from the poem.

We can give them any poem.Then, the class dictates the poem back to the teacher.This poem below, was written by Linda Brown.

” I saw an elf, all dressed in green

The cutest elf I’ve ever seen

I said: like your turned-up toes

He wrinkled up his elfin nose

I said: I like your nice green beard

He blushed and smiled

then, disappeared!”

My variation to this activity was to ask them write their own similar poems, as homework!

The plate drawing game

This is one old-time-classic game, we all love!

This year, I could not afford to buy paper plates for all my students, therefore we used A4 sheets of paper to draw on….

Students, place their plates on top of their heads and are given the directions below:

Draw a line for a floor
Draw a Christmas tree . Add decorations of your choice.
Draw a star on top of the tree
Draw a fireplace with a mantel next to the tree
Draw a present under the tree
Draw a stocking hanging from the mantel of the fireplace.Add something IN it, if possible.

Winner: the player with the most points

Points

2 points if the tree touches the floor

2 points if the stocking is touching the mantel

1 point if the star is above the tree

1 point if the star touches the tree

1 point if the fireplace doesn’t touch he tree

1 point if you draw something in the stocking

2 points, if the present is under the tree.

An alternative letter to Santa

I ask the older students to write a letter to Santa asking for a present for someone ELSE!

I begin by bringing a homemade present I received or made for someone.

What makes that present special? Does it reflect the personality of the giver?

I then invite my students to tell about presents they have made for others. Why are such presents so remembered?I even have them ask their parents about special presents they have given and received.

Presents from the Heart

I ask students to think of presents from the heart and tell or write about them ( preferably, on festive paper) starting out like this:

The gift I would most want to have two years from now is………

The gift you most often give to me, maybe without even knowing is…….

If I had only one wish to wish you, I would wish you………….

Thank you for all the gifts you give to me, especially………………………

Story or class discussion starters

Why do you think being an elf is a “toyriffic” job?

With so much work to be done, when do you think Santa’s elves get a chance to celebrate?

How are they getting ready for Christmas?

What would an elf want for Christmas?

What elf jobs would you like to do?

How do you think the workshop and elf jobs will be different in 2020?

Musical Xmas

I first read about this activity in the ELTNews newspaper , November 2010 issue . It was one of the inspiring ideas shared there, by Akis Davanelos , a Greek teacher trainer and publisher.If you manage to find that issue and read the whole article about how to ” Practice GRAMMAR before Christmas”, on page 10, you’ll be surprised by his amazing ideas!

Akis, suggests that we could use the following songs to practice various grammar points:

Past tenses:

Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer

Frosty the Snowman

Prepositions

Jingle Bells

The Christmas song ( Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…)

Pronunciation points ( Rhyming words)

Frosty the Snowman

Jingle bell rock

Let it snow

Rocking around the Christmas tree

The Christmas song

Winter Wonderland

Away in a Manger

We Three Kings

We can also, ask our students to write their own versions based on well known Xmas tunes.

The twelve days of Christmas

The Christmas song

The Christmas story book game

A game I ..invented this year and my students simply loved! I read them a story about Christmas customs and traditions in other countries. Each time they heard the name of a country, they had to pass a little notebook to the person on their right! The last student, could take it home!They really loved it, and it was the perfect motivator for them , to get focused on the story !

Christmas Charades

A traditional game with a Christmas twist…

Put the class into two teams.

Give each team a set of cards.

Explain the rules: One person from each team starts. He/she will select a card. on each card is written the name of a song, book or film (with a Christmas link). He/she must then mime what is said on the card to the rest of his/her group. No speaking is allowed.

First, we should mime the category, ie song-open hands around mouth, book- open hands in a book reading pose and projector-like pose for a film.

Star wars!

Also, explain symbols for “little words” eg T shape for “the”, thumb and forehead together for “little word” etc.

When the team guesses the first one, the second person can take a card and so on.

The winners are the first team to mime and guess all their cards correctly.

The “Thank you” game

You need a pen and a piece of paper for each player.

In every turn, each player has to write one line on the piece of paper in their hand, fold it over so that the next player can’t see what has been written and pass it on to the player on their left.

In order, each payer has to write: