How well do you incorporate the winter season into your lesson plans? Winter offers a variety of learning opportunities for children, and it's also a great time to help your students work on their literacy skills. Whether it's learning words that describe winter or reading winter-related books, finding ways to incorporate the winter season into your literacy lesson plans can help children increase their vocabulary and practice their reading and writing skills.
1. Create a Winter Vocabulary Word List for Children to Learn
From chilly and dreary to frosty and frigid, there are a variety of fun words that can be used to describe winter. See what winter words your students can think of before giving them the word list. This is a great way for them to contribute, and they may think of a word you missed. Ask them to write a sentence for each vocabulary word, or give them a word search or crossword puzzle to solve with some of the words from the word list. Another idea is to have them use stamps to spell out each vocabulary word—this is a great hands-on activity that will help them learn how to spell the words.
2. Include Fun Winter Writing Projects in Your Lesson Plans
Whether it's writing winter-related stories or coming up with winter rhymes/poems, there are a variety of ways you can incorporate winter into writing projects. Consider giving children a winter-related word or picture as a writing prompt, or ask them to write an essay about an experience they've had outside in winter.
3. Stock Your Classroom Library with Winter-Related Books
From books about snow to books about animals in winter, it's important that your classroom library has winter-related books available for children to read. Children's books can help children learn new words and concepts while also helping them practice their reading and pronunciation skills.
Visit the Language and Literacy section of our website for literacy-related games, puzzles, charts, and other materials. Whether it's making poetry more accessible in your classroom, designing your classroom reading area, or using wordless texts, the Literacy category of our Insights and Inspirations section also offers educators a variety of helpful tips and resources.