Author Topic: ~The Christmas Countdown ~ (Read 8572 times)

dwebsterlfc · « **Reply #20 on:** November 30, 2010, 10:22:23 am »

For any festival based events, this website is awesome if you want to actually do things educational rather than just fun http://www.eslholidaylessons.com/ I'm thinking about doing some things from here and then getting them to learn a Christmas song. What song do you think would be best for high school students, considering they can easily think things are lame if they're not cool.

vitamin-d · « **Reply #21 on:** December 01, 2010, 07:40:23 am »

Thanks for the kind words, GreenFloyd - I hope it works out to be adaptable for your school.

@ dwebsterlfc - Eslholidaylessons is a great website; I used it for the Guy Fawkes lesson I made. However, I decided to make my own listening and writing activities this time so they could have the chance to listen to a female voice.

With regards to getting high school students to sing, I have no idea what to recommend.
I taught elementary last year and we sang all the time (unfortunately), so I tried it once or twice in high school but to little gain.
The closest the learners came to singing was during the world cup, with that song by Kn'aan.

Does anyone have any advice on how to get high school learners to sing?

teacher_del · « **Reply #22 on:** December 01, 2010, 08:12:23 am »

All I can suggest on the singing front is to try find examples of cool-looking people singing the song in question. If someone they deem admirable has no problem with singing the song, then it's less of a social risk to do so themselves if some other students do it with them.

You could also explain the tradition of caroling and say you will now practice caroling. Say that people who go caroling traditionally get hot drinks and cookies. If they sing, give them tea and those cheap (brown and orange box) Chic Choc cookies that are on sale at HomePlus.

lizardflix · « **Reply #23 on:** December 02, 2010, 11:21:33 am »

Hi, thanks for posting this stuff. I have a question. When I try to open The Christmas Countdown, I get an error that says the "outline cannot be read... no text converter is installed for this file type"

Is there a particular edition of Powerpoint that I need to open this or is this something to do with fonts etc? Any idea? My Powerpoint is an English version.

Thanks!
bb

vitamin-d · « **Reply #24 on:** December 02, 2010, 11:42:11 am »

Sorry, I'm not great with computers.

http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00135.htm
I don't know if this might help.

As far as I know, it's been working for other people.
I made the PPT on Office 2003, English edition.
Have you tried opening the game on numerous computers?
If so, do you still get the same problem?

mistee · « **Reply #25 on:** December 06, 2010, 08:44:29 am »

WOWZA! These are some amazing powerpoints ~ thanks for sharing with all of us, I can't even begin to imagine the amount of time and effort you put into it! Cheers!

be the ball · « **Reply #26 on:** December 06, 2010, 09:05:31 am »

Very impressive work. I'm personally not comfortable teaching religious stuff to my students but you have given me lots of structural ideas for creating my own lessons. Awesome stuff, thanks for sharing!

sheila · « **Reply #27 on:** December 06, 2010, 09:29:08 am »

vitamin-d · « **Reply #28 on:** December 06, 2010, 11:19:57 am »

Wow, thanks for posting those Sheila.
There's a lot to keep us going...

Ms.Smith · « **Reply #29 on:** December 06, 2010, 12:44:56 pm »

I'll be making 3D cards with my students using these templates:

http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/3d_christmas_snowman_and_tree.htm

they can cut it out, colour, and write a message ~~ I like doing simple craft activities with my students at the end of the year even with my middle schoolers.

Last year we made small paper boxes using this template:

http://www.paperscrapz.screentastic.ca/box%20templates/butterflyboxpattern.pdf

students first colour, and write a message on the bottom of the box, then cut it out. when they have finished they ask me for a chocolate, which they can put in their box and give to a friend.
I used a timer so the students had to budget their time to finish their box in time to ask me for a chocolate. Without a timer, they never seem to finish...

ENJOY!

toniyellow · « **Reply #30 on:** December 06, 2010, 01:03:43 pm »

I made a Christmas tree out of hands with my English club. Simple, but looks cool so my coteachers now want to do it with every grade and make a giant one.

dwebsterlfc · « **Reply #31 on:** December 06, 2010, 01:28:34 pm »

Hey I've just downloaded the ppt's.

Have you actually taught this lesson yet? if so how did it go? The content's spot on, i'm just worried about the fonts and backgrounds on the slides. I can imagine my students struggling with it. I'm not having a go because it looks real good, I just don't wanna end up in class with students saying David teacher we can't read this lol.

Thanks.

vitamin-d · « **Reply #32 on:** December 06, 2010, 02:08:21 pm »

@ emilyteacher - really great card templates, thanks for those. I'll attach them as PDF below.

@ toniyellow - that tree is damn creative, I'm really impressed.
I don't have English Club again for a couple of weeks, but when I do I will most probably be using that idea.
Thanks for that!

@dwebsterlfc - No, I haven't taught the lesson yet. It's still a little early.
The fonts and backgrounds are really up to you. Change them if you're worried.

My learners are quite used to me using wacky fonts.
I've done my best to size the fonts up and use colours that show, but it really is up to you as all classes are different...
I also have a big projector screen, so the learners here don't really struggle at all.

vitamin-d · « **Reply #33 on:** December 06, 2010, 02:17:27 pm »

Also, I've made a very quick PPT to refresh the learners on some of the images and items of Christmas.
Music accompanies the PPT. You can either have them watch it and call out the item before the word appears, or just leave it running on loop while they get on with something creative for the classroom. Anyway, hope it can be of some help.

lzucker2 · « **Reply #34 on:** December 06, 2010, 03:00:38 pm »

amazing stuff! thank you so much!!

#basedcowboyshirt · « **Reply #35 on:** December 08, 2010, 09:46:34 am »

This is a total delight. Thanks!

Also, it was hilarious when one of my teachers told me off for the references to paganism's influence on Christmas.

I got a whole schpiel of 'Christmas came from Jesus and only Jesus and it's wrong to teach otherwise.'

Thanks again for the powerpoint. I have so much fun using it.

Busan33 · « **Reply #36 on:** December 08, 2010, 12:36:02 pm »

This stuff is awesome Dan!! Thanks so much for sharing, I am sure you spent a lot of time on these!

meganekko · « **Reply #37 on:** December 10, 2010, 10:06:19 am »

this is the most impressive PPT i've ever seen! i'm going to use it with my adult class today for our final class together. i'm sure it'll be a hit! thanks for your hard work.

KiddieCAT · « **Reply #38 on:** December 10, 2010, 02:38:14 pm »

Hey, since we're throwing out classroom christmas decor ideas here's my plan...

6th grade will make christmas party invitations. I'm gonna financially support this lesson with glitter and hopefully some other Reg, green, shiney crafy supplies at Emart this weekend so the cards and more unique and the 6th graders get more into making them.

4th and 5th will make holiday ornaments for the christmas tress I'm gonna make outta green/brown contruction paper. (I made the thanksgiving tree with 4th graders handprints that looks great in the room so feeling sad about taking it down, but I can replace it with the new christmas tree.) So for the ornaments, I've printed/cut/laminated for ornament stencils to get them started and then let 'em loose with the glitter/etc. At the end of class they tape their specific ornament to the tree. I'm also considering teaching my 4th graders the 12 days of christmas as a means of reviewing the numbers during that lesson. For sure I will be playing christmas music in the background all during the lesson!

vitamin-d · « **Reply #39 on:** December 13, 2010, 10:13:09 am »

Awesome - let us know how it all goes guys

Started decorating with the learners today, and they're loving it.
Especially the Christmas music.

News:

Author Topic: ~The Christmas Countdown ~ (Read 8572 times)