IDEA #1

PK-K students could draw and label a picture of Santa… or they could paint and label Santa! Kindergarteners in Maria Bachuchin’s class at Bailly Elementary (Chesterton, IN) used their knowledge of pictorial writing to “draw” Santa with paint instead of crayons. They painted Santa one day and labeled him on another. Painting is a great motivator for young writers and could be applied to a variety of different holiday items (e.g., Christmas tree, the North Pole, etc.).

IDEA #2

If students have a solid understanding of phonics, invite them to generate holiday-based lists. Provide a photo as inspiration and ask them to list everything they see in the scene. This activity allows students to continue to work on sound-stretch spelling, writing on a line, and precise vocabulary and word choice.

IDEA #3

If students are already writing single sentences, then this third idea might be just what you’re looking for. Kindergarten teacher Maria Bachuchin set Twinkle the elf in front of students. Naturally, they had lots of questions. What is that? What’s his name? Whose is that? How old is it? Rather than answering their numerous questions, Maria simply said, “Let’s write these questions down.”

For several days, students wrote questions to Twinkle. Maria planned this activity to coincide with instruction about writing question sentences. (TIP: Maria made sure that Twinkle replied. Of course, that only prompted students to write even more!)