Candy Canes and Chaos: Keep Students Engaged as the Holidays Approach
It’s hard for teachers to compete with the excitement of the holiday season. There’s winter break, classic holiday movies, and lights displays. Not to mention the upcoming celebrations with friends and family as the year comes to a close. All of this makes it difficult for students to focus on their assignments…right at a time when teachers are diligently working to complete units and wrap up the term.
But it’s not a lost cause. This time of year is also the perfect time to engage students in new ways. Try some of these resources to pull your students’ attention back from their holiday wish lists and into the classroom.
Four Corners is a fun way for students to take a break from their desks and review material for end of term assessments. Create statements and have students move to the corner of the classroom that shows their chosen response. The students discuss the reasons for their choice as a group and then share their thoughts with the class. This activity requires minimal prep and helps students engage with the material, one another, and you.
Use our Give One, Get One resource to create active, peer-to-peer discussions. With this activity, students take time to reflect on a topic or question. Then they pair up to “give” their ideas and “get” ideas from their partner. This provides each student with space to speak, and encourages them to consider new ideas and perspectives while deepening their own understanding.
For larger group discussions, try our Hexagonal Thinking Project. In this activity, students collaborate in groups to discuss and arrange hexagons, each labeled with a concept or term related to the lesson. The hexagons help them explore connections in the material as they create a visual web. Students then reflect on the connections they identified and evaluate each other’s reasoning.
Shaking things up a bit and using different strategies and activities to engage students will make the holiday season much more productive for them. And less stressful for you! For additional ideas and free resources, visit our website.