Subject: Arts & Humanities: Language Arts
Grades: 3-5

Brief Description

Use a variety of holiday cards representing the multicultural makeup of your students or the world to teach the parts of speech. Students follow up by writing new greetings for the cards.

Objectives

Students

• recognize and write basic parts of speech.
• rewrite the greetings inside holiday cards.

Keywords

Chanukkah, Christmas, December, grammar, Hannukah, holidays, Kwanzaa, parts of speech

Materials Needed

• Collection of holiday cards
• Printed chart divided into four columns; label columns nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs.

Lesson Plan

This activity serves as a good review of students' understanding of the parts of speech while it livens up language arts class during the holiday season.

• Before the lesson, create a small chart -- half a sheet of paper should do -- divided into four columns headed Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, and Adverbs.
• Briefly review the four parts of speech.
• Display a large assortment of holiday cards, preferably those with lots of activity in the scenes, and invite students to select three to five cards. They will need one chart for each card.
• Students study the illustration on each card. What do they see? Which noun, verb, adjective, and adverb words?
• Students list as many words as possible in the appropriate columns -- two or more words for each category, if possible. For example, a card that shows a kitten sitting near a burning fireplace decorated with hanging Christmas stockings might yield the following list:
  • Nouns: kitten, stocking, mantle
  • Verbs: burning, sitting, hanging
  • Adjectives: furry (kitten), warm (fire)
  • Adverbs: quietly (sitting)

• Encourage students to write new greetings for the cards on the backs of their charts. For example, for the card described above, the student's new greeting might read "Here's wishing you a warm, fuzzy holiday season!""

Extension Activity: Cut the holiday cards in half, and give the students the halves with the greetings. Students draw illustrations to match the greetings.

Assessment

Score the charts for accuracy.

Submitted By

Submitted by Kristi Collins, West Liberty Elementary School, West Liberty, Kentucky