It’s the most wonderful time of the year and the perfect time season to break out your best Christmas writing prompts and activities! With the impending winter season and list of holidays to celebrate in December, there are plenty of topics for your students to write about, but maybe you need a few specific ideas to break that writer’s block?
The teacher team at Teach Starter has compiled some ready-to-use Christmas writing prompts and writing activities for your students to enjoy and expand their writing skills. Keep reading for Christmas writing prompts, personification writing ideas, how-to descriptive writing prompts, would you rather ideas and more Christmas writing activities for kids.
Christmas Writing Activities for Kids
Write a Letter to Community Members
Giving to others is the spirit of the season, so why not give the gift of a kind word with a writing activity that spreads holiday cheer?
Have your students use a writing template to write a kind letter to a veteran or someone who lives in your local nursing home? Many people in the community may not have close family members to spend time with or hear from, and a student-written letter can bring warm holiday cheer. Not only does this give students an opportunity to practice their letter writing, but it also serves as a lesson in thinking of others.
Write About the Change in Seasons
It may be Christmas time, but that’s not the only big day on the calendar. The first day of winter is smack dab in the middle of December, and it offers up perfect writing prompts!
For example, you can have your students write about how the weather changes from fall to winter in your area. What happens to the trees? How different is the temperature? Supplement this activity with a sketch of the changes they notice.
Write a Letter to the Grinch
Everyone thinks to write a letter to Santa, but what about the green furry creature we call the Grinch? California second-grade teacher Anna Demeritt shared that she had her students write letters to the Grinch explaining why they loved Christmas and why the Grinch’s heart should change about the time of year.
Each letter was accompanied by a Grinch drawing. Compile all the letters together into a cute bulletin board display!
Photo courtesy of California second-grade teacher Anna Demeritt
Write a Letter to Santa … And Get One Back!
We know, we know, it’s not the most creative Christmas writing activity. Then again, this oldie is still a goodie! Writing a letter to Santa is even more fun when you can get a letter back from the big guy (with a little help from the elves at the United States Post Office, of course).
Here’s how it works:
- Write a personalized response to your students’ letters and sign it from Santa.
- Insert both letters into an envelope and address it to your classroom — so Santa knows where to send his replies.
- Send off to the USPS.
- Wait for your special letter to your class to come back with an official North Pole postmark!
To find out how to get letters back to your students, visit the United States Post Office.
Give Santa a Vacation
Everyone deserves some rest and relaxation, including Santa! Fourth and fifth-grade teacher Mrs. J of Canada had her students design a vacation for Santa, describing where he should go and what he should do while he’s there.
This student had a creative response saying Santa should go to the moon and float, play hide and seek, play video games, do some math and yoga!
Photo courtesy of fourth and fifth-grade teacher Mrs. J of Alberta, Canada
Create North Pole Postcards
If you’re teaching older students who have moved beyond the “letter to Santa” stage, why not have your class write postcards from the North Pole, incorporating some of the things they have learned in science class about the Earth’s northernmost point, such as climate, animal life and landscape.
These postcards also make a quick and easy alternative to Christmas cards.
Roll to Create a Holiday Story
Put a Christmas twist on writing center activities before winter break with this hands-on Roll to Create a Holiday Story writing activity that uses a die and a chart to provide students with story elements they then put into their narrative writing.
How to use this resource:
- Students roll a die and identify the corresponding story element on the chart.
- Each story element is recorded at the bottom of the sheet.
- Once students have “rolled” the characters, setting, and problem for their story, they can begin to write their narrative.
Write About Learning Something New
Encourage your students to think about what they know about winter and holiday celebrations around the world. Have they ever experienced the holiday season in a different country? Is there a holiday, tradition or celebration they’d like to know more about? Some of your students’ responses may just inspire a new lesson in the classroom this winter!
Practice Writing Thank You Cards
‘Tis the season to practice gratitude, and with the holidays upon us, many of your students will be giving and receiving gifts. You can’t make anyone send thank you notes (sigh), but you can practice letter writing in the classroom by writing thank you notes to school staff members to brighten their holidays.
Encourage your students to say thank you to the custodian who keeps the classroom in tip-top shape, the cafeteria staff who keep them in cartons of milk, or perhaps to the teacher’s aide who helps out in your classroom.
Not only is this a good way to practice their letter-writing skills, but it’s a good social-emotional lesson on gratitude too.
Select Random Holiday Words and Write About Them
We’re kind of partial to our free spin wheel widget for the classroom. It has soooo many possibilities in the classroom. One creative writing idea for Christmas? Add a few holiday words, spin the wheel, and ue it as a Christmas writing prompt!
You can direct students to write as much as they can in five minutes about the holiday word. You can also make this activity more inclusive by using winter words like these in place of the Christmas words.
Write a Holiday How To
This expository writing activity puts a holiday twist on “how to” writing as your students practice writing instructions on decorating the holiday tree.
Here are some of our teacher team’s favorite “how to” Christmas writing prompts:
- How do you build a snowman?
- How do you decorate a Christmas tree?
- How do you bake gingerbread cookies?
- How do you build a snow fort?
- How do you create a snow angel?
- How do you decorate a gingerbread house?
- How do you take care of Santa’s reindeer?
- How do you prepare a house for the holidays?
Use Would You Rather Questions as Writing Prompts
Would you rather questions make excellent writing prompts! Provide students with challenging Christmas would you rather questions, and require them to use facts to back up their persuasive paragraph.
Use Holiday Finger Puppets
How cute are these holiday finger puppets? Using puppets in the classroom is great for language-building and can be used to reinforce the concepts of prepositions in your centers for younger learners. For example, a child can move their puppet “under” the table, and their classmates have to use the right words (the gingerbread is “under”).
These puppets include a/an:
- Christmas Tree
- Snowman
- Elf
- Santa Claus
- Gingerbread Man
- Reindeer
- And more…
For older kids, try these writing ideas:
- Encourage students to choose a few of the finger puppets and write a script for a puppet show they can perform for the class.
- Have students choose their favorite 2–3 finger puppets and write a story using them as characters.
- Have students complete a character description for their favorite puppet.
Use a Christmas Scene
Why not use this winter Christmas image and task cards set to spark some great imaginative writing? The Santa-themed image comes with more than a dozen different prompts to help kids practice their inferencing skills. But you can take it a step further!
Here are some writing prompts that you can use:
- Have your students practice writing dialogue by writing a conversation Santa and the elf might be having.
- Have your students practice their descriptive language by writing sentences about the scene.
- Have your students write a narrative text explaining who is in the sleigh outside the window if Santa is inside.
- Have your students write about the events leading up to the scene in the picture.
Utilize Your Elf on the Shelf
Many teachers are using the Elf On a Shelf in the classroom these days. Why not use this to your advantage and get the cheeky elf to write a message on the whiteboard that requires the children to write a letter back?
For more hints and tips, check out these cool Elf on the Shelf Ideas for the Classroom.
Make Holiday Cards
Making holiday cards is a writing activity and a craft activity all in one, and these glittery tree cards are always a hit with students.
Materials
- Green glittery paper
- Colored construction paper or cardstock
- Pipe cleaners
- Thin ribbon
- Glue or adhesive tape
Instructions
- To make the strips for the tree, cut out strips so that the height of the strip is half of the width, getting larger as you go (our card uses 1-in x 0.5-in, 2-in x 1-in, 3-in x 1.5-in, 3.5-in x 2-in, and 4-in x 2-in)
- Fold each strip so the top outer corners meet in the middle at the bottom.
- Starting at the top, glue each tree triangle to your card so that the folds are facing up, slightly overlapping each piece as you go.
- Top your tree with the yellow star, and paste your brown paper tree trunk at the bottom.
- Twist together the pipe cleaners and cut them in half. Attach one strip to the top of the card and one to the bottom.
Voila! You have a beautiful, shiny holiday card ready for students to fill out with a written message.
More Christmas Writing Prompts for Kids
Do you need a few more ideas to keep the holiday festivities flowing in your writing classes? Get those little elves thinking creatively with some of these Christmas writing prompt ideas:
- Write from the point of view of one of Santa’s elves. What does your day look like? Which toys did you make?
- Write a persuasive letter to Santa describing why you’d be a great elf at the North Pole building toys.
- Write a poem about the Christmas season. Describe the smells, the decorations, the feelings…
- Write some ways you can be generous during the holiday season. In your school? In your community?
- Is it better to give presents or receive them?
- Describe what Christmas morning looks like at your house.
- Describe your ideal Christmas dinner. What are you eating and who would you invite?
- What do you think about stores displaying Christmas items so early? Is it too early? Do you like it?
- Write about a day in the life of Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.
- Write from the perspective of Mrs. Claus. What’s it like being the wife of one of the most famous men on earth?
- Which reindeer from Santa’s team would you want to be and why?
- It’s your turn to be the chef! What would you like to cook for Christmas dinner this year?
- Do you think Christmas should be more than once a year? Why or why not?
- If you could invent a new Christmas tradition, what would it be?
- If you could live inside a gingerbread house, which candies would make up your dwelling?
- Which character from The Nutcracker would you like to play and why?
- How would you spend your time if you were snowed inside for a whole day?
- Oh no! Santa is stuck in your chimney! Write a plan of action to help him get out.
- If you could visit any country at Christmas time, where would you go and why?
- What is a special Christmas tradition you do with your family?
- What does the spirit of Christmas mean to you?
- What is your favorite Christmas movie and why?
- What do you think Santa Claus wants for Christmas? Write a list of items you think he’d appreciate.
- What’s the best gift you’ve ever received? How about the best give you’ve ever given someone?
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