...or if you have an extra group that you see for supplementary or whatever.

1. Warm-up 1: Christmas Word Web/Brainstorming on the board.
2. Warm-up 2: Visual images of Christmas, but toss in a few images from around the world... example: African-American Santa Claus, Santa on a surfboard, Santa on a camel and ask where these images are from. Since Chanukah is in this activity, I also show them a menorah and a star of David. Since I am the PowerPoint Queen, I naturally used a PowerPoint for this. Images are readily available on the Internet.
3. Hand out the worksheet.
4. On your projector, show the "Canada" text (the one with the highlighted words) and demonstrate how to fill in the worksheet grid. Do the Korea line yourselves (no text necessary). By the way, nobody eats turkey for Christmas in Korea, but they do eat cake.
5. Separate the class into 7 groups. Each group has a different text to read. For visual support, I also made up a page of colour images to go with each country (See "Australia Images" to get an idea). This is a text-scanning exercise for specific information, which they should be used to doing in class.
6. In each country group, assign A-B-C-D. Now, all the A's get together, all the B's etc. This should reunite one student from each country together. Now, they need to ORALLY share (NOT COPYING) the information so that everyone's grid is filled in correctly.
7. Correct together as a class.
8. If time permits, have a quick game or something (which country celebrates on December 5? Which holidays are not about Christmas?...)

The information for the texts was found online, or by speaking with friends who celebrate in this way. I don't guarantee that it's 100% correct. Still, it's nice to bring something that is about the rest of the world into the classroom.

And.... there are sites online with more info re:Chanukah. Even a stencil so that you can make your own dreidel and play with it.

Oh, and having Quebec as a separate page does not imply that I am a Separatist.... I lived there for a long time, and Christmas was very unique and completely different from Christmas in Ontario.

I'm actually looking for any lessons for 1st and 2nd grade high schoolers but I thought I'd specifically ask about holiday lessons (halloween, thanksgiving and christmas).

how many lessons do you think one should do for each holiday? do you think i could get away with doing a whole month of halloween-related lessons and a whole month of christmas-related lessons? (i only see each class 4 times each month...if that.) Do you think I should do a Thanksgiving lessons at all? I would be talking about American Thanksgiving. Should I just do one lesson on it and focus on writing about what one is thankful for?

How do you think high school students would respond to doing some kind of craft? (with paper, scissors, glue, markets, etc.) I think the girls would be fine with it but what about the guys?

I asked my school to buy me some craft supplies in case I wanted to use them this holiday season and they did so now I feel like I need to use them- just not sure how. I did crafts all the time when I taught elementary here but I'm not sure what kind of crafts high schoolers would like to do.

So to conclude- I'd really appreciate some Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas lesson ideas and some craft ideas for high schoolers. Thanks!

Halloween went well last year. I did a lesson which briefly went over the history of Halloween and Jack O Lanterns. I had students wrap one up in toilet paper to make a mummy. I talked about Devils Night and pranks and showed them some Youtube videos and did a small puzzle to review vocab words. I'm looking for the lesson but I think I lost it when my laptop died earlier this year.

Hi Mokporandi,

Here's my two cents if you want it:

If your going to do thanksgiving I might suggest doing a lesson that compares American Thankgiving with the Korean Chusok holiday, your students will have a lot of input for you and you'll learn about of Korean culture/history while your at it. It will also make the lesson relevant to the kids.

I did my hallowe'en lesson based on Michael Jackson's Thriller (the lesson plan is posted on this site, I think it's on the Master List) video and the kids really enjoyed it. Koreans really enjoy scary movies and stuff so Halloween is definitely a holiday to take a advantage of. Most, if not all, of your students will know basic Halloween vocabulary by high school because of exposure they've had to it from previous NESs. Just be creative! You should have a week of midterms somewhere in October so you won't need to fill too many classes. I might suggest planning one solid Halloween lesson that everyone will get and then one "throwaway" lesson with games or crafts for the odd classes that are ahead of schedule compared to your other classes (it'll happen, trust me). That way you'll be evened out again heading into November.

Same goes for Christmas. Plan one really solid one and a couple of extra ideas because your schedule is gonna get messed up by final exams and holidays. Last year I had two classes that got 3 christmas themed lessons and other classes that only got one. I showed "The Snowman" which is a 30 minute cartoon without any speaking, and had an english worksheet to go with that, I think it's posted on here... I also did a couple of lessons with christmas carols, which my girls loved (I'm at an all-girls HS BTW), and for those odd classes out we watched the original 'how the grinch stole christmas' cartoon and played a game. They will be pretty zonked by the end of the year, so anything incorporating music or video will be well recieved.

Do you have your own classroom? Because if you do, a great way to use up those art supplies is have the students make decorations for the classroom. Most of these kids are so stressed out about studying and their upcoming exams that any break from "nose in the textbook" will probably be welcomed. Plus, I think it makes for different associations in the brain for language retrieval (that's the psych major in me coming out) so they'll retain it better.

I combined a few powerpoint's together to make this lesson where students must create their own holiday in groups. We have speaking tests coming up so this is a way for them to practice coming up in front of the class and presenting.

Forgot to add this. Activity: Music Festival Event Plan

Great idea, do you think I could stretch this into a 2-hour summer camp class.  Also, most of my students have smartphones now so they could film their advertisement on their phones!!WFDYTY

Hi,

I took this lesson and changed it for my Grade 2/3 middle school classes.

1. You start with an introduction to festivals and some info and a clip of Glastonbury, then some vocab (you could add loads more here)

2. The students then plan their own music festival (i just choose categories that my classes would be most interested in but you could add headliners, food, etc).
3. They then  present it to the rest of the class, the class then vote for their favorite festival. 
I've attached ppt, plan and presentation outline.

Thanks, to the fist person who made this, saved me a lot of work!

I like to work in mini-project based lessons for my classes.  This one is approximately 4 x 50min long, done in 3 weeks (last week is double block time).  But please modify to fit your own scheduled.

*Lessons have been adapted from textbooks, waygook.org lessons, etc.


Week 1:

1.  Show calendar song to activate interest. Go over the lyrics fist, on mute.  Then play song. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlu1jwvFBZE )
2.  Presentation based lesson.  Students can fill in missing words from the handout while giving presentation.  blank out the words yourself.  Video clips are inserted throughout the ppt.
(here are the youtube links for the clips, you can download them yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLbTJYILTq0 ; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1SCmt8NpU8 ; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7M3ofz3TvA )

It's a lot of Teacher talking, but they use this information in forth coming lessons and the teacher then talks less and less.

Week 3: double/block lesson is suggested

With the build up to Chuseok students are excited and very enthusiastic to do this.  Also, with previous weeks' lessons they have the tools and ability to complete this part very well.

(period 1)
1.  Handout papers and introduce topic.  Do example with students.

2.  Allow time for students to complete their own mini-poster of a holiday (invented or real) according to the specific outlines in the handout.

3. Students present their poster and explain it.

(period 2)
4.  Students continue to present their poster and explain it (rest of  class).

5.  Talk with student briefly about the upcoming holiday – Chuseok.  Show presentation on differences/similarities between Chuseok and (Am.) Thanksgiving.

6.  Make Venn Diagram.

7.  Do Thanksgiving word search.