December is full of holidays and awareness month observances, but if you only know about Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year’s Eve, you’re not alone. Are you curious about some other days and special month celebrations you can celebrate in your classroom during the 12th month of the year?
You’ve come to the right place!
Welcome to the December edition of your Teach Starter month guide! Our team of teachers — they’re the experts from around the country who create the curriculum-aligned resources on the Teach Starter site — have created a list for every month to help save your precious planning time but keep you on top of every important event.
Here’s a look at some of the important awareness months that are marked in America in December, plus a few ideas to celebrate with your students. Are you ready to read a new book, practice good hygiene and introduce your class to a new language?
Let’s dive in!
December Awareness Months
Universal Human Rights Month
It seems fitting that Universal Human Rights Month is celebrated every December here in the US and all around the world, along with Human Rights Day on December 10. This final month of the year is a good time to look back on all that has occurred and pledge to do better in the next 12 months to come (and beyond!).
The UDHR (Universal Declaration of Human Rights) originated in 1948 by the General Assembly of the United Nations and will be celebrated next year on December 10th to mark its 75th anniversary. This Declaration guarantees the rights of all individuals without distinction based on nationality, gender, ethnic origin, or any other status. Human Rights Day in 2022 will launch the year-long campaign to showcase the UDHR and focus on its legacy and relevance.
How can you teach human rights in the classroom? You can start with this short TED-Ed video to get the conversation going:
We’ve compiled some activities you can implement in the classroom including our UN Declaration flash cards and Match-Up Game.
Along with Human Rights Day, Nobel Prize Day also falls on December 10 and can easily be added to your lesson plans with My Nobel Prize templates. Encourage your students to ponder how they can make the world a better place at school, at home and in their community.
Read a New Book Month
It’s almost a new year, so why not encourage some new reading? Before the holiday break begins, celebrate Read a New Book Month by completing a Library Scavenger Hunt with your students., and continue the celebrations into the vacation. Instead of assigning homework over the holiday break, have each student check out a book they’d like to read over the break. After all, winter is the perfect time to curl up with a good book.
Teaching younger students? Start at square one by teaching the Parts of a Book. After learning each part, students can cut and paste each new vocabulary word they’ve learned with this matching activity.
We know that the holiday classroom can get chaotic with the excitement of Santa’s arrival and school break. Reading to your class can give both yourself and your students some much-needed downtime while still being productive. Students can quietly work on coloring pages while you read some season-appropriate picks:
- The Shortest Day: Celebrating the Winter Solstice by Wendy Pfeffer — This read-aloud takes a look at the different cultural celebrations that have centered around the first day of winter over the years in places around the world.
- Seven Spools of Thread: A Kwanzaa Story by Angela Shelf Medearis — Explore the seven principles of Kwanzaa with this read-aloud that tells the story of seven brothers who often fight with one another. When their father dies, he leaves them with a challenge that requires them to learn to work together.
- Lucia Morning in Sweden by Ewa Rydaker — Introduce your class to the special Swedish holiday of Lucia Day, which is celebrated every year on December 13! This holiday book is told through the eyes of the three children in the Svennson family as they wake up on the holiday.
- Lights of Winter: Winter Celebrations around the World by Heather Conrad — As the title implies, this is another book that introduces kids to winter holidays that occur around the world, including some they are likely familiar with like Christmas and Hanukkah, plus Saturnalia, Yule, Teng Chieh and more!
Ask your students which books they’d like to read as a class in the New Year and start a list. Students can reflect on the stories they listen to with an Our Class is Reading template. If you find yourself with students who struggle with reading or simply haven’t found joy in reading, consider adding these book titles to your classroom library.
If you’re a school librarian, consider creating new book bulletin boards to get those young minds inspired. Some themes could include:
- Travel the world through books
- Book versus movie
- Banned books
- Well-behaved women seldom make history
- Warm up with a good book
- Dear Diary
- A book a day keeps the monsters away
Use these bookmark templates for cute holiday gifts your students will enjoy coloring and using in their newly borrowed book!
Handwashing Awareness Month
‘Tis the season to be sneezing, but there may be a way to prevent colds from spreading all around your classroom — a lesson on hygiene. National Handwashing Awareness Week falls on the first full week of December, and it’s never a bad time to remind students of the importance of handwashing.
The CDC recommends remembering these five easy steps for hand washing:
- wet
- lather
- scrub
- rinse
- dry
Students can remember to lather their hands for the entirety of the ABC song before rinsing and drying off. Children’s Hospital Colorado gives an easy demonstration you can share with your class:
Students can work in pairs or small groups to complete this How To Wash Your Hands Procedure Text Sequencing Activity. You can also consider hanging a hand-washing poster in your classroom or the nearest restroom to encourage proper hand-washing.
Learn a Foreign Language Month
Teaching a foreign language in an elementary school? December is your month to shine — and a chance to remind students once again of all the reasons your class rocks.
Not a foreign language teacher? You can still add some fun to the classroom — hang a Spanish greetings poster or American Sign Language poster on your classroom wall to offer students a chance to explore a new language.
Providing subtle references to everyday objects can be another easy way to expose your kids to new vocabulary and spelling, such as in these Spanish Classroom Equipment Signs.
You can also broaden the foreign language focus to a cultural discussion during morning meeting time. Ask your students:
- In which countries do people speak _____ (Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese…)?
- Do you have family members at home who speak another language? Which language?
- Which language would you like to study and why?
- Do you listen to any music in a foreign language?
These types of questions can enhance activities such as our All About My Culture Paper Fortune Teller and get your class to connect and feel comfortable sharing their backgrounds with each other.
Check out our holiday collection for curriculum-aligned resources to see what other fun events you can add to your classroom schedule this season!
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