Digital resources in education are amazing. They have so many benefits in the 21st century classroom. From increased student engagement to the application of technology skills to supporting the paperless classroom, digital is a part of education. Whether you are digital out of necessity or by choice, your students will love these digital Holidays Around the World activities.
Holidays Gone Digital
Holidays Around the World, the digital version, is a 21st century classroom activity based on the very popular lessons that have been used in the classroom for many years. Now in digital form, students get the same great learning opportunities and fun!
Let’s take a look inside these fun and engaging units.
1. Learning About the Holiday
Each of the Holidays Around the World units includes a non-fiction reader so that students can learn about the holiday. These readers are written at a reading level that makes them great for whole class lessons, read alouds and independent reading. Many of the units have more than one non-fiction reader that allows students to learn about different aspects of the holiday.
Each reader also includes comprehension questions so that students can work on reading comprehension skills.
In addition to reading comprehension, students will be able to dig deeper into their understanding of the holiday by working on important vocabulary. Students can begin by matching the vocabulary words to the picture. Then, they build on that knowledge as they are challenged to match the definitions for the vocabulary words and to write a sentence using the word.
2. Connecting the Holiday to Literature
Each holiday also has a special literature connection. This allows students to experience the holiday in a different way, through the eyes of the author. Stories are a great way engage students in learning. They also provide great teaching opportunities.
Due to copyright issues, a digital reading of the story is not included in the unit. There are a couple of different ways to approach this. If you are meeting in person or in a virtual classroom setting, read the book like any other read aloud. If this is not possible, then check You Tube to see if there is a video read aloud of the story. Many, if not all of these books, can be found read on video. Here’s a video reading of The Night of Las Posadas that is very well done.
Good – right? I know that my students would be just as engaged with a video reading as they would an in person read aloud.
Teacher Tip: Video read alouds are also a great way to engage students in learning while you are setting up for an activity. Sometimes we just need a couple of minutes to get an activity ready. Instead of doing the read aloud yourself, see if there is a video read aloud that allows to you to kill two birds with one store.
After the read aloud, there are comprehension questions for each story. This allows you to connect your holidays around the world lesson to both social studies and language arts standards.
3. Extension Activities
Extension activities are a wonderful way to get students to apply what they have learned about the holiday in a fun way. Many times, Holidays Around the World, has craft based activities. For this digital version, we have taken more fun activities that can all be completed digitally.
Each holiday unit includes a 100 chart mystery picture. Students will follow the instructions and fill in each square using the colored squares provided. This drag and drop coloring activity is not only fun, but an excellent activity to work on improving hand-eye coordination. It’s also a great activity for practicing with the mouse. And . . . if your students are working on numbers to 100 it’s a great math activity too!
Students will also love drawing pictures related to each holiday using the directed drawings. These directed drawing instructions are in digital format and provide lots of opportunities. Students can follow the instructions and draw on paper, or they can try their hand at digital drawing using the Scribble tool. If students use a stylus this can be almost as easy as drawing on paper. It can be more challenging using a mouse, but it can be done. You can also challenge students to try to build the picture using shapes from the Shape tool. By taking the drawing activities to a digital form, you can add in technology skills practice too!
Holidays Around the World
You can find all of these Holidays Around the World activities in the Emily Education store. Each is paired with the original Holidays Around the World unit so you have lots and lots of resources at your fingertips!
Find more ideas for teaching Holidays Around the World in this blog post!
You can use all digital resources or mix and match with the printable resources too. The possibilities are limitless!
Save these Digital Holidays Around the World Ideas
Pin this to your favorite classroom Pinterest board and quickly come back when you need to add some digital holiday fun to your lesson plans.
