Explore creative and engaging seasonal activities for educators. Discover ideas and resources to make learning fun throughout the year.
Here is my curated collection of winter activities! I hope they will make this season merry and bright in your classroom. Whether you’re celebrating the magic of the winter solstice or indulging in holiday festivities, these engaging ideas are designed to bring joy, laughter, and a sprinkle of cheery warmth to your December, January, and February days.
This Canva presentation is the newest addition to my winter activities lineup. Fifteen trivia questions with bright, winter-colored graphics are featured. And after each question, the answer follows. You are welcome to edit the presentation template to customize it for your particular audience.
Vanishing Vowels: Winter Edition is also hot off the press. The fall version had thousands of views, so I thought a winter edition would be a good follow-up. Vanishing Vowels focuses on words related to a particular season. In this winter activity, 20 words are presented without any vowels. Students need to figure out what the word is! Each slide with missing vowels is immediately followed by the complete word and an image representation of the word.
Two ways to use this winter-themed activity:
Are you looking for a fun word game to play as a winter activity? Give this 18-word syllacrostic puzzle a try! Here’s a quick overview if you aren’t familiar with syllacrostic puzzles. You’ll be given a box filled with various syllables. Then, you need to use those syllables to solve a list of related words. For each word, you’ll get three hints:
Your task is to combine the given syllables into words that fit the length and syllable criteria.
Flippity is a fantastic online generator of many tools. It has been around for several years and is created and maintained by one talented guy, Steve. I wish I could buy this guy a hot chocolate topped with many thanks. His user-friendly interface provides teachers with 28 customizable templates and games for the classroom.
One of the tools is the Quiz Show (think Jeopardy). Check out the Holidays Quiz Show with these categories: symbols, food, action, clothing, and traditions. It’s a fantastic winter activity for the whole class! If you get tired of holiday trivia, check out the cheese category.
If you follow my blogs, you know digital breakouts are my passion projects, so I made one to be a winter activity. The seasonal Winter Breakout is a beginner-level digital breakout. It has five locks: a word, five-color, four-number, five-direction, and eight-letter lock. It is the easiest of the two digital breakouts I’m sharing today. Now, you might be asking, how is it easier?
The Snowstorm Stumper digital breakout has four locks: a six-color, five-direction, four-number, and four-letter. Whether you are new to my breakouts or a breakout fanatic, here are a couple of insider tips. I always try to include one or two hidden links for lock answers. I rarely use links to outside websites as I never know when the link might break or inappropriate content could pop up. I never mix up the order of colors or numbers. Enter them as you see them in the breakout, but letters might be scrambled. Enjoy this winter breakout activity!
Tips for the brand new breaker-outer!
- If your class has never solved a breakout, I would solve a breakout for them and model your thought process first.
- Then, try solving one as a whole-class activity.
- If that goes well, try it in small groups!
- Teach students to look at the locks on the Google Form and read through them first to get a heads-up on what they are looking for. (For example, if one of the locks is a four-color lock, look on the page for a group of four colors.)
- Teach them to write down the combinations they have tried to keep from trying the same answer over and over.
Engage in the festive fun of unscrambling Christmas carols with this entertaining winter activity. I’ve given 18 classic Christmas songs new titles using similar words or synonyms. For example, “The Tiny Percussionist Lad” becomes my version of “The Little Drummer Boy.” You’ll see the synonym title immediately followed by its correct title. Explore the slide deck to test your carol knowledge or customize the activity for your classroom or as a staff icebreaker. Enjoy the merry task of unscrambling and spreading holiday cheer, whether solo or with a group!
In this winter activity, leverage Emoji Kitchen to put a creative twist on The Twelve Days of Christmas. Use Emoji Kitchen to generate unique animals and characters for your personalized rendition of the song. Teachers, you can make a copy of the slide deck or use the Canva template to aid you in updating the twelve days of Christmas.
Hoping that one or more of these activities can be tailored for the snowy season or, if you are in Texas, at least the cooler part of the year. As always, teachers, if you need any assistance or the answers for the breakouts, please email me, Peggy, at preimers@tcea.org. Happy holidays!
Halloween, hands down, is my favorite holiday to celebrate. But come to find out, my forte is creating activities for Turkey Day and the fall season. Below, I’ve compiled all the Thanksgiving and autumn-themed activities I’ve created! I hope this list will be beneficial to you and your students in the classroom. There is a little something for every classroom. Here’s the list of what you’ll find:
This Canva presentation is the newest addition to my Thanksgiving activities lineup. Fifteen trivia questions with bright, fall-colored graphics are featured. And after each question, the answer follows. You are welcome to edit the presentation template to customize it for your particular audience.
This presentation has 17 thought-provoking choices for Thanksgiving. The activity has fun graphics and gifs to go along with the “would you rather” questions. You are also welcome to edit the template and add, remove, edit, or change up the options however you’d like. Like all the other Would You Rather games, it can be played in several ways. As the teacher, you can decide, and there are no wrong answers!
This is another ready-to-go activity for your use, and you can modify the template to suit your needs. Each of the 13 slides has four options, and the participant decides which option doesn’t belong. There isn’t just one correct answer for most! It’s interesting to hear what object students pick and why. Have your students give their reason, and cheers to lively discussions!
Vanishing Vowels is a fall-themed activity that focuses on words related to the season. In this activity, 30 words are presented without any vowels. Students need to figure out what the word is! Each slide with missing vowels is immediately followed by the complete word and an image representation of the word.
Two ways to use this fall-themed activity:
Any holiday resource collection of mine will definitely include a digital breakout. This one’s not only a fun challenge, but it’s filled with interesting facts about the holiday. Did you know Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey, which he called “a respectable bird,” to be our national animal instead of the bald eagle? Or that Thanksgiving became a national holiday due, in large part, to one pioneering woman? Jump in, learn even more, and see if you can break out!
One interesting fact, this breakout was released on November 13, 2017. After six years, at the start of this month, 14,407 participants have successfully solved and broken out of this Thanksgiving digital breakout. WOW! And don’t forget teachers, send a request to preimers@tcea.org for the lock answers.
Make a copy of my Google Slides Giving Thanks slide deck and use this activity as a simple way to express thankfulness during the Thanksgiving season. Assign each student a slide, and they can add their words of gratitude with text boxes. I would save changing the font until their list of words is complete (because you and I know how choosing fonts is so much FUN!).
Are you looking for a fun word game to play this Thanksgiving? Give this 18-word syllacrostic puzzle a try! In case you aren’t familiar with syllacrostic puzzles, here’s a quick overview. You’ll be given a box filled with various syllables. Then you need to use those syllables to solve a list of Thanksgiving-related words. For each word, you’ll get three hints:
Your task is to combine the given syllables into words that fit the length and syllable criteria.
If you’re looking for a story starter or a creative writing prompt for students themed around school and Thanksgiving, then this “who, what, when, and where” randomizer can get the creative juices flowing. Check out the randomizer (above) I created for this Thanksgiving season.
I’m sure you have heard of the NCAA brackets for March Madness. Now, with Flippity, you can design a bracket challenge for Thanksgiving. Check out the pre-made bracket I designed for the holiday and play with your family or students! The bracket will determine the winner of “What food could I do without on my Thanksgiving plate?” Or, you could flip this around and say, “What food could I not live without on my Thanksgiving plate?”
Try out an online wheel spinner and unscramble some scrambled-up spelling or vocabulary words! Try spinning the wheel and see which student, family member, or school faculty member can unscramble the word first or type the word correctly in the chat. I used the free Wheel of Names website for this ready-to-use Thanksgiving activity, complete with autumn hues.
If you have built an online Jack-O-Lantern with Eric Curts from Control Alt Achieve, check out my Dress Up a Turkey activity. It’s a fun way to be creative and learn how to use the arrange and rotate tool in Google Slides. You are welcome to make a copy of this slide deck, complete with all kinds of feathers, eyeballs, hats, and shoes to clothe your turkey.
From trivia to digital breakouts, this roundup offers teachers a diverse mix of engaging Thanksgiving activities and games suitable for all grade levels. Whether you’re looking for a silly “dress up the turkey” lesson in Google Slides or a thinking exercise like the syllacrostic puzzle, this roundup has something for every student. I hope these classroom ideas help make your Thanksgiving lessons festive and memorable! Now go and gobble up some learning!
Looking for fall-themed activities to use in your classroom? Here are three different ready-to-use options you can use as brain breaks, bellringers, or warm-ups with your students during the fall season. Use these as they are, or feel free to modify them as needed! If you ever wondered what the difference is between a brain break, bellringer, and a warm-up, here are the definitions according to ChatGPT:
A “brain break” is a short pause or activity during a lesson or work session that allows individuals to briefly rest and recharge their minds. It’s intended to improve focus, engagement, and productivity.
A “bellringer” is a short activity or task assigned at the beginning of a class or session to engage students and help them transition into the learning environment.
A “warm-up” in school is a short activity or exercise at the beginning of a lesson or class session designed to prepare students for the upcoming learning tasks.
The beauty of these fall-themed activities lies in their flexibility. You can adapt them to suit your students’ needs and your teaching style. Or, if you discover new variations or have creative ideas, you can edit them. Don’t hesitate to add any ideas you have in the comments; they might be useful to others!
Vanishing Vowels is an engaging fall-themed activity that focuses on words related to the season. In this activity, the vowels are removed from the fall-related words, leaving only the consonants.
Two ways to use this fall-themed activity:
And, as always, if you have a different spin on Vanishing Vowels, please post a comment. I also have a classroom supplies version of Vanishing Vowels.
Think of the This, Not That activity as a mind-challenge puzzle. Each puzzle gives you five statements, and the goal is to figure out a commonality from the five statements. The words after the “but not” part of the statements sometimes help with the solutions. But sometimes, they are just distractions to the thought process. My This, Not That puzzles usually follow two lines of solutions: shared features or attributes of the items in the statements or shared features or attributes of the words in the statements.
Here is an example of a solution about shared features of the items. Let’s take Emily.
If your reasoning led you to believe she likes things that are short, you nailed this bellringer!
Here is a solution involving commonalities among the words themselves. For example, let’s take Miguel.
If your analysis led you to conclude that Miguel likes words containing a double “g,” you hit the bullseye!
Sometimes, the This, Not That puzzles can be a little tricky. So teachers, if you do not have time to figure out the answers, email me at preimers@tcea.org, and I’ll send them to you. Also, feel free to try out Edition 1 and Edition 2 of this activity!
I’m excited to share a Halloween-themed syllacrostic puzzle. This is the third syllacrostic I’ve made since I first tried my hand at this puzzle with a Thanksgiving-themed syllacrostic last fall. The response was favorable, so here we go with another fall syllacrostic – a Halloween one!
Just in case you are unfamiliar with this type of puzzle, here are the basics. A syllacrostic puzzle has 15 to 20 words to solve. You use the given pool of syllables to help you find the answers. The activity also has the following information as clues for each word:
I sure hope you can use these fall-themed activities in your classroom! Whether it’s deciphering Vanishing Vowels, unraveling the mysteries of This, Not That, or embracing the spooky challenge of the Halloween Syllacrostic, these activities are designed to add to your educational toolbox. And remember, if you need answers (teachers only), please send me an email at preimers@tcea.org. I look forward to hearing how you are using them with your students. Happy Fall!
Fall Is Here
Fall Activities for the Classroom
Fall Into Elementary Resources
Fall Websites
Seven Spooktacular Activities for Elementary Classroom
Spooky Games and Breakouts
Autumn-Themed Choice Boards
Trick or Treat Digital Breakout
For teachers, being at home during the summer is nice and relaxing. It’s a time to catch up on household projects and much-needed rest. But for teens, being stuck at home may be equivalent to torture. So, whether you have teens at your home this summer or you know some teens who could use some ideas, here are a few summer activity options they can consider to help them enjoy the break before it is over.
Geocaching is like hunting for treasure, and it’s a great summer activity. Folks hide a cache, which could be as small as a chapstick tube or as large as a gallon jug, and then give clues and coordinates to it. Using your phone and one of many apps, you try to locate the cache. If you find it, then you leave your name on the list. Some caches will have items in which you can take one and leave something in its place. A few apps to consider as you begin geocaching include: Geocaching (iOS and Android), c:geo (Android), and GeoCaches (iOS)
Whether you like to hike or bike, there are a lot of trails that may be very close to where you live. And, with just a little bit of help from a well-organized website or app, you can plan for a great summer adventure outdoors. Here are some resources for you to consider using: AllTrails: Hike, Bike & Run (iOS and Android) and Hiking Project (iOS and Android). Be sure to also check out State Parks to locate state parks, forests, and other great natural areas to explore! Hiking is one of my favorite summer activities.
Being outside is nice, but being outside when you can see the stars is amazing. Why not add stargazing to your summer activities list? Knowing different constellations and galaxies can make looking at the night sky interesting and exciting – knowing that a particular star is several million light years away…wow! Yes, you can get some fancy shmancy telescopes that you can hook to your computer or control with your phone that can locate and identify stellar bodies for you, but you can easily enjoy stargazing on a budget. Begin your journey by visiting the Hubblesite where you’ll find news, photos, and information on what the Hubble space telescope is looking at now.
Start capturing what you see to tell a story, convey a feeling, or elicit a memory. You can easily do that with just a few basic photography skills and a good camera app. Photography is a great addition to your list of summer activities! If you feel you don’t have the skills to get started, then check out one of these websites to get you started: 12 Mobile Photography Tips Every Photographer Should Know and How to take good photos with a phone – 10 Killer Tips! If you are looking to upgrade your phone’s camera app, then consider PetaPixel’s list for Android or iPhone.
So, what will you encourage your teens to do this summer before it is over? What do you enjoy doing? Share with us in the comments section below any summer activities you’re planning and include us in your adventures!
Earth Day is coming up in April. How can we invest in our planet and celebrate Earth Day?
There is a wide range of actions that we can take to make a small difference. If everyone participated, we could make BIG, positive change. Check out these five measures you can start today in your classroom and continue throughout the school year. Remember, taking care of the earth is an everyday occurrence, not just once a year!
Here are five actions you and your students can start today.
1. Use a reusable water bottle.
2. Use materials wisely. For example, not cutting a shape out of the middle of construction paper.
3. Add a student helper to be in charge of shutting off the lights when leaving the room.
4. When students are waiting on rides, encourage them to pay attention. Cutting down on cars idling in the car line is a big help.
Bonus: If you can, encourage carpooling with one or more families for drop off and pick up. If the neighborhood is walkable or rideable, encourage walking or biking.
5. Get in the habit of recycling.
In honor of Earth Day, here is my newest digital breakout. The Earth Day Breakout has four digital locks, and just like all my breakouts, I can provide the four lock answers if you email me at preimers@tcea.org
Every Earth Day, I make a pledge to change one thing in my life to help out my home planet. In the past, since I travel frequently, I have pledged to return my hotel key cards to the front desk and shut off the lights in the hotel room when I leave. I also walk to my neighborhood mailbox instead of driving. A few years ago, I discontinued my gas lawn mower and bought a battery-charged mower.
This year, my lofty goal is to bring my own container to restaurants instead of taking my leftovers home in a one-time throwaway styrofoam container. Think of this pledge like a spin on a New Year’s resolution, except it’s an Earth Day resolution. To help keep myself accountable, here is a pledge card in Canva, or you can make a copy of the Google slide deck and store your pledges digitally.
If you’ve been bitten by the Canva bug, like I have, check out these two resources.
1. Earth Day Activity Book: An eight-page, customizable booklet that offers a writing activity, vocabulary, fill-in-the-blanks, information on renewable and nonrenewable resources, and should or shouldn’t activity.
2. Earth Day Graphing Math Worksheet: Includes four customizable graphing activities for students
EarthDay.org is a nonprofit organization that’s based in Washington, D.C. and has a worldwide reach. The website is a storage house for all things related to Earth Day. You might find the quizzes and fact sheet resources helpful!
The quizzes are broken into three topics:
Climate and Emissions Quizzes
Individual Action Quizzes
Conservation and Restoration Quizzes
If you are searching for facts to make a point hit home. Check out these:
Plastic Pollution Fact Sheets
Conservation & Biodiversity Fact Sheets
Food and Agriculture Facts Sheets
National Geographic is an American monthly magazine that was founded in 1888. This long-term establishment is great for exploring geography, cartography, and exploration, and it sponsors a website just for kids.
I found two articles for kids that you might like to use in your classroom. One article is on the History of Earth Day and includes additional tips to help the environment. Another article, Save the Earth Tips, offers five different slide deck galleries of beautiful animals threatened with extinction and ways you can help. Additionally, the Funny Fill-in for Earth Day digital mad-lib would be fun as a group, partnered, or individual activity for students.
Remember, every small action we take as a human race will help us win in the long run. Happy Earth Day! Teachers, don’t forget, if you need answers to the breakout send me an email at preimers@tcea.org.
More Earth Day Resources
Earth Day Ideas to Inspire Young Eco-Heroes
Digital Resources for Earth Day
Get Ready for Earth Day
Resources to Celebrate Earth Day in Elementary
Earth Day Digital Breakout
In honor of Earth Day, here is my newest digital breakout. The Earth Day Breakout has four digital locks, and just like all my breakouts, I can provide the four lock answers if you email me at preimers@tcea.org. This breakout is a good fit for upper elementary to middle school students. However, you know your students best.
Digital breakouts are an interactive way for students to explore a variety of topics. The process involves using knowledge and reasoning to solve a series of clues that “unlock” digital locks, just as you might with a physical breakout box.
Six Resources for Earth Day
Digital Resources for Earth Day
Get Ready for Earth Day
Resources to Celebrate Earth Day in Elementary
St. Patrick’s Day is a fun holiday celebrated on March 17 every year. The day provides a great opportunity for students to learn about Irish culture, history, and traditions. There are a lot of classroom resources available to help students learn more about this holiday. Let’s take a look at a few!
Learning about the history of St. Patrick’s Day is a great place to start. There are several online resources that provide a detailed account of the holiday, its origins, and its significance. A great source is the History Channel’s website, which has an article on the history of St. Patrick’s Day that is accessible to students of all ages.
Allow students to explore St. Patrick’s Day with some fun hands-on activities. Here you will find science experiments, technology, engineering, and math activities. For example, students can build a shamrock circuit, catapult lucky charms, build a leprechaun trap, and more.
Make learning about St. Patrick’s day fun with digital escape rooms! With digital escape rooms, students are actively engaged because they are solving problems in order to “escape.” This also challenges students to think outside the box. In this Seesaw activity, students try to catch the leprechaun and find his pot of gold. Students solve puzzles to collect materials to build a Leprechaun trap in this Digital Escape Room. Lastly, in this breakout, students pretend they are leprechauns! Their mission is to find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow by completing tasks correctly.
Take your students on a virtual field trip to Ireland and explore Ireland’s culture and history. There are many online resources that offer virtual tours of Ireland’s most famous landmarks, including the Cliffs of Moher. This site offers many virtual tours so students can see 360 views of Ireland right from the classroom. Some virtual tours include the National History Museum of Ireland, the Ailwee Caves, the Carrick-a-rede Rope Bridge, and more.
St. Patrick’s Day provides a great opportunity for students to learn about Irish culture, history, and traditions. By using the above resources, students can make the most of this holiday and gain a better understanding of its significance. For additional activities, be sure to check out these lesson plans, printable, and interactive tools for St. Patrick’s Day.
Lesson Plans, Printables, and Interactive Tools for St. Patrick’s Day
Fun and Simple Pi Day Activities
Sandwiched between Halloween and Christmas, Thanksgiving seems to miss out on the glory of the end-of-year holidays. Even in the retail world, stores go from trick-or-treat candy and the spooky-ooky to the glittery red and green of Christmas. We are barely into November, and Christmas music is playing in the stores! I mean, wow! I just gotta feel for the fourth Thursday of every November. Yes, I am that one who always roots for the underdog. So what about Thanksgiving activities?
As you can probably tell, I do like Thanksgiving. This time of year gives me a chance to pause and really count my blessings. I am extremely thankful for my job at TCEA, the wonderful people in my work family, my home, and my good health.
If you are looking for ways to celebrate Thanksgiving at school or around your own dinner table, please check out these freshly minted activities to honor the “underdog” of the holiday season.
This Canva presentation can be played in presentation mode right from your browser. You are also welcome to edit this template of the presentation to customize it for your particular audience. Like all the other Would You Rather games, it can be played in several ways. As the teacher, you can decide, and there are no wrong answers!
I also set up this Canva presentation as a ready-to-go activity for your use, and you can modify the template to suit your needs. Each slide has four options, and the participant decides which doesn’t belong. There isn’t just one correct answer for most, and it’s interesting to hear what object students pick and why. Have your students give their reason, and cheers to lively discussions!
‘Tis the season for gratitude and thankfulness. My colleague Diana Benner writes in her blog, “Gratitude Activities for Your Classroom,”
“Gratitude is defined as the feeling or expression of thankfulness and appreciation toward yourself, others, people, places, or things.”
Make a copy of my Giving Thanks slide deck and use this activity as a simple way to express thankfulness. Just assign each student a slide, and they can add their words of Thanksgiving with text boxes. I would save changing the font until their list of words is complete (because you and I know how choosing fonts is so much FUN!).
I discovered the “old school” PennyPress Variety puzzle books about a year ago. I find that working on puzzles helps me unwind, and on a long airplane ride, it helps pass the time. I discovered my new favorite type of puzzle: the syllacrostic.
If you’re not familiar with this type of puzzle, read on.
Basically, there is a pool of syllables in a box. The puzzle usually has 15 to 20 words to solve. You are given three pieces of information for each word:
Since they have become my favorite type of puzzle, I have tried my hand at developing a Thanksgiving syllacrostic. Drop a note in the comment section, and let me know what you think.
If you are looking for more digital Thanksgiving activities, please check out my other Thanksgiving blog article. These activities might have been created two years ago, but I must say, they have withstood the test of holiday activity time.
Here’s a quick list of what you will find. :
And, as always, if you need answers, need something changed, or have an idea, please email me at preimers@tcea.org. I’ll be thankful to help out.
Happy Thanksgiving,
Peggy
Gratitude Activities for You and Your Students
Gratitude Towers for Social-Emotional Learning
Thanksgiving Digital Resources
Tips, Tricks, and Tech Tidbits: Thanksgiving Resources, Names, Templates, and More
A digital breakout does not require a physical box and locks. Instead, this type of breakout needs a web page on a Google Site. The page contains images, text, and hidden hyperlinks that students can use to solve digital puzzles. A Google Form is used to create the digital locks. In order for a Google Form question to act as a lock, the question needs to have the response validation selected. You can find this option by clicking the Skinny Snowman (three horizontal dots) in the lower right-hand corner of each question. The most common locks are Direction, Color, Number, Word, Letter, and Date.
A digital breakout can be a little confusing at first because directions are not provided or spelled out specifically. It helps for students to work in pairs (two brains process information differently, which really helps in finding answers). Try working out a digital breakout as a class first to model possible strategies.
Won’t you join over 4000 students and teachers who have solved The Boo Breakout? Just like all of my breakouts, you can email me for the answers at preimers@tcea.org.
