Looking to share the festive spirit with your students this Christmas? Check out these FREE Christmas-themed lessons and top tips for adding some Christmas sparkle to your classes!
Use Christmas-themed rewards
Not looking for a full Christmas-themed class, but still want to celebrate the festive season with your students? Check out our FREE Christmas Rewards resource, which includes three fun, festive activities. Each time your student completes a task or scores points in a quiz, let them do the next step of the rewards activity.
Decorate your classroom background and dress up!
Another great way to add some Christmas fun to your classes without disrupting your standard class schedule! Simply decorate your class background (or cheat with a virtual one – we won’t tell if you don’t!) with tinsel, fairy lights, wreaths, etc.
Take it a step further and dress up yourself too! A fun Santa hat, reindeer antlers, tinsel scarf, Christmas jumper or cute bauble earrings add some fun to your outfit. This is a great conversation starter too – perfect for practicing describing clothes, present continuous tense, etc.
Switch up your WordWall themes
Many Abridge Academy lessons have WordWall activities, such as quizzes, matching activities, etc. You can find these embedded into lessons and linked in the “resources” section underneath.
Simply click through to view the activity on the WordWall website, then select the “winter” or “Christmas” theme in the “visual style” settings under the activity.
Set Christmas-themed homework projects
Share the Christmas spirit with your students outside the classroom by setting fun, festive homework tasks!
You can find a MASSIVE Christmas activities pack, along with many more Christmas-themed worksheets, in the Abridge Academy Advent Calendar.
Don’t want to set them formal homework? Creative craft projects like snowflake papercutting are a lot of fun, or you could recommend your favourite Christmas books and movies for them to enjoy!
Enjoy creative Christmas crafts
Students LOVE getting creative during the festive season. Here are some easy creative ideas:
- Making their own advent calendar (free template).
- Festive papercutting: snowflakes, Christmas trees, etc.
- Decorating baubles, paper chains and other decorations.
- Designing and writing a Christmas card.
Christmas books and movies
A highlight of the festive season for many kids (and adults!) is of course sitting down with the family to enjoy a festive movie or two, or curling up on the sofa reading books by the fire.
Check out these six Christmas books to recommend to your ESL students this year!
Play Christmas music
Nothing says Christmas like Christmas music! Put on some fun festive tunes in the background during class while your students are working on independent tasks, or even have a whole lesson dedicated to learning the lyrics and singing along!
Host a Christmas party!
Check out these FREE Christmas lessons from Abridge Academy for your online ESL classes – perfect to add into your regular class schedule, or as a stand-alone Christmas party / free promotional event! These lessons are designed for 30-minute classes with A1-A2 level students (beginner – pre-intermediate), reviewing and consolidating core English topics. You’ll need to sign up for free to access these lessons.
- Decorating a Christmas tree (shapes and colors);
- Building a snowman (parts of the body);
- Dressing elves (clothes);
- Lost Santa (directions);
- Dear Santa (gifts);
- Christmas dinner (food);
- Christmas traditions around the world (reading);
- Song: Let it Snow (singing).
Feeling inspired?
Let us know in the comments what you’re planning on doing to celebrate Christmas with your students this year!