Things to do with kids on short weeks
For teachers and parents, the holidays are really hectic times. The series of holiday events and short weeks make it difficult to keep on any sort of schedule or keep a routine. Whether you are looking for ajob and trying to keep your sanity while your kids are home from school or attempting to find productive ways to keep your students engaged, finding activities that work can really help.
Here are 5 things that can keep students productive during short holiday weeks:
Collaborative creative writing – Break students into groups and ask them to work on collaborative short stories. This type of activity can span several days and can handle the frequent student absences that occur during the holidays. At the end of the week, each group can read their stories and get feedback from the class.
Chapters that need more review – Another good strategy is to teach a lesson that typical requires a great deal of review on the week preceding a short week. This way, you can use the short week for additional review.
Holiday activity plan brainstorming - If you only have a short amount of time for a class, it might be the perfect time to get the students involved in planning holiday activities. It can be a great opportunity to get students to brainstorm and come up with a workable plan for celebrating the holiday.
Movies that capture the theme – Movies are always a good standby for those weeks when classes only meet once or twice. It's important to pick movies that are interesting and also can tie in with the subjects you have been covering.
Video projects – When trying to teach diversity and learn about different types of holiday traditions, it can be fun to ask your students to vlog or make a video project about how their families celebrate the holidays. Then, they can share their presentation with the class and discuss the meanings of different holiday traditions.
What do you do in your classroom during the short holiday weeks? Please share your ideas and tips in the comments.
By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a 9 year blog veteran and a freelance writer for EducationJobsiteBlog and Nexxt. Along with helping others find the job of their dreams, she enjoys computer geekery, raising a teenager, supporting her local library, writing about herself in the third person and working on her next novel.
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