Tag: Christmas

Yes, Virginia There is a Santa Claus Christmas Activity

Looking for a Christmas Activity with “Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus”? This  reading activity on the famous editorial from The Sun Newspaper, has students read and discuss the editorial. It’s a great way to introduce Santa Claus and the idea of the spirit of Christmas. Students discuss belief in Santa Claus and what Santa Claus symbolizes. Although focused on American views of Christmas, the activity  definitely crosses cultural boundaries as every culture has imaginary characters, people who like to believe in magic, and others who think we should be more simplified.

Materials

• The original text of the “Yes Virginia” letter for more advanced students
• The simplified text of the “Yes Virginia” letter for beginners or lower level learners.

Warm Up

Ask students if they believe in Santa Claus. Chances are they will say no. Ask they why not and if they ever believed in Santa Claus. See if you can elicit any good stories about how they came to not believe. Did they see their parents putting the presents out? Did their friends tell them? Or an older brother?

Now ask why little children believe? Follow up by asking if it is important for children to believe in Santa Claus or is it better to tell them the truth, that Santa Claus is not real?

Now, ask about the symbol of Santa Claus and the Christmas/holiday spirit. What does Santa Claus stand for? Try to elicit the spirit of giving, kindness to others, happiness, childlike qualities, magic. Ask if they believe in those qualities?

Introducing the Editorial

Now introduce the article. Wikipedia actually has a nice introduction that you can adapt:

In 1897, Dr. Philip O’Hanlon, a coroner’s assistant on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, was asked by his then eight-year-old daughter, Virginia (1889–1971), whether Santa Claus really existed. Virginia O’Hanlon had begun to doubt there was a Santa Claus, because her friends had told her that he did not exist. Dr. O’Hanlon suggested she write to The Sun, a prominent New York City newspaper at the time, assuring her that “If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.” While he may have been buck passing, he unwittingly gave one of the paper’s editors, Francis Pharcellus Church, an opportunity to rise above the simple question, and address the philosophical issues behind it. Church was a war correspondent during the American Civil War, a time which saw great suffering and a corresponding lack of hope and faith in much of society. Although the paper ran the editorial in the seventh place on the editorial page, below even an editorial on the newly invented “chainless bicycle”, its message was very moving to many people who read it. More than a century later it remains the most reprinted editorial ever to run in any newspaper in the English language.

You might tell them the first part, that this little girl wrote to a famous newspaper (The Sun) to ask if Santa Claus was real or not. Ask what they think the newspaper did with the letter. Then tell them that the editor decided to answer the letter. Ask what they think he said.

The Text

Give them the original text or simplified text. Have the students read it over and use the following comprehension questions to guide students and ensure they understood.

• Does the editor believes in the person of Santa Claus?
• What exactly does he mean by saying that Santa Claus is real?
• Why does he talk about hiring men to watch chimneys?
• What does he say about a baby rattle (or in the simplified version, a car)?

You might at this point mention the fact that Church, the author had been a war correspondent and that he felt the country had become very depressed and cynical.

Discuss what the students think about this article.

• Do they agree with it?
• Was it a good answer?
• Would it have been better to tell Virginia the truth?

Follow-Up

Now ask if they have changed their minds about any of the questions you discussed in the warm up. Have some of your students become less cynical?

I hope you enjoyed this Christmas activity with “Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus”. Looking for more Christmas-themed reading lessons? Check out our Gift of the Magi Packet, a comprehensive packet of activities to teach the famous O. Henry story from every angle.

The Gift of the Magi Packet

This 100+ page “Gift of the Magi” lesson and activity plan packet has taken me years to compile! I’m pretty proud of it!

“The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry is without a doubt one of my favorite short stories, especially for the Christmas season. I’ve been teaching it to my students for years, and now I’ve compiled 15 different “The Gift of the Magi” lesson plans, activities, and resources for you. It’s 108 pages of activities, handouts and worksheets that cover vocabulary, irony, the moral of the story, character analysis, close reading, critical reading skills, and a lot more. Many activities are differentiated so you can use them with different classes or multi-level classes!

The packet even includes assessment materials. Each resource comes with comprehensive teacher notes and answer keys.

Isn’t “The Gift of the Magi” Too Difficult for ESL Students?

Now when I tell teachers I love to teach “The Gift of the Magi” to my ESL students, I hear one thing over and over. Isn’t that story really hard?

No, actually! The story itself is pretty simple:

A husband and wife are very much in love with each other. The wife has very beautiful hair that she loves very much. The husband has a pocket watch that he loves very much. They want to buy very nice Christmas presents for each other, but they don’t have much money. So, the wife sells her hair to get money. and buys a chain for the watch. Unfortunately, the husband sells his watch to buy the woman beautiful combs for her hair. Each one gives up the thing they love for the other one. While tragic, the story proves that the couple love each more than anything.

It’s a beautiful and touching story, a perfect example of how situational irony can work. But we don’t often do it in class, because it’s a difficult story. But it’s difficult for only two reasons, both of which I’ve addressed in my packet.:

1. The references: There are references to things that may be unfamiliar to a modern-day student, especially one from another country. There are also allusions to the Bible and other sources in the story that students may not be familiar with. That’s why I’ve provided a lightly graded text with footnotes to explain the more obscure references and early 20th century items. This lesson pack also includes warm-up activities to get at the main theme and explain the references to the magi.
2. The vocabulary: Let’s face it. O. Henry was a wordsmith and this story has a lot of words that are off the 200 most frequently used lists and the AWL. That’s why I’ve included:

What Does This Packet Include?

1. The original version of the story, untouched and unabridged. (From the Gutenberg Project-text in the public domain)
2. The graded version, with some of the tougher vocabulary and turns of phrase simplified as well as explanatory footnotes for the more antiquated or obscure references.
3. A brief one-paragraph summary and a scene-by-scene guide to the text that students could read as a simplified easy-to-read version.
4. A word association warm-up where students brainstorm on the word “Gift”
5. A quick vocab pre-teach activity to teach gift, pocket watch, watch chain, and hair comb. If students don’t picture the right kind of comb, the story can fall flat.
6. Predicting vocabulary words meaning from context lesson plan.
7. An extensive set of vocabulary activities to pre-teach 24 key words from the text.
8. A thematic warm up on the moral of the story and the meaning of the magi. Students read the last paragraph closely and discuss the moral of the story. I love to start the lesson this way so that students can see the broader picture as they read.
9. An alternate warm-up where students discuss what a wise gift is and compare wise things to valuable things. This gets at the heart of the theme of the story.
10. A lesson on modelling critical reading skills, including ways of getting the gist of a story without knowing every word, lessons on forming questions and predicting as you read, and an unknown vocabulary prediction worksheet.
11. Extensive comprehension questions to guide reading. There’s also a “Find the Phrase” activity to help students find examples of common themes in the story.
12. Worksheet on the Scene to highlight the way the author sets the scene and establishes that Jim and Della are poor, but love each other very much.
13. Character Study Sheets for Jim and Della, plus a fun creative activity to retell the story through another character’s eyes.
14.  A complete lesson on situational irony including what it is, how it works, and how it differs from coincidence or bad luck.
15. Discussion Questions for students to dig deeper into the meaning of the text.
16. Practice doing exegesis or deep passage analysis on selected quotations from the story.
17. A set of essay and Creative Writing Topics
18. Assessment tools in the form of various quizzes and tests, all in open-answer and multiple choice form.

This packet is designed for maximum flexibility and adaptability. Go through the whole packet and spend a week on this text alone. Or pick and choose the activities you like best. Follow the order of the packet for a great unit on this classic story. Or put together your own The Gift of the Magi lesson plan from the variety of activities included.

For a long preview, go to the Teachers Pay Teachers page and check it out for yourself.

New Holiday Activity

I am having way too much fun uploading worksheets out of 60 Positive Activities for Kids on to our Teachers Pay Teachers Store (Click on Build Positivity to find all the worksheets!)

One of the things I’m really enjoying is that it gives me a chance to think deeply about how to use the resources in the classroom. As I was uploading this awesome New Holiday Activity I realized that this could be a one-off creative worksheet as the authors intended.

But it could also spark a discussion comparing holiday traditions. You could even use it as the beginning of a project to design a fully-fleshed out celebration. And then use some of the ideas from everyone’s holiday for your end-of-class or end-of-year party!

Expanding the Project

In the activity as written, students pick a name of a holiday, the date, the reason for it, the activities, any traditions, and the food. However, you can follow-up this up by having students draw costumes or decorations on the back. They might even want to draw out parade routes or traditional dance steps.

Now you can have students share their holidays with each other in pairs or small groups. Be sure that the partners are asking each other questions about their holidays. Students can be asking questions in order to improve their partners’ clarity or to help them include more detail.

Questions that help improve clarity might be, “When do the fireworks happen? Why do people put lights on their houses?”

Questions that help the writer add detail include, “Do the dancers wear special costumes? What kind of food do people have? Can the parade happen any time?”

After talking to a partner, students can revise their holiday ideas. Then they can redo the worksheet or even turn their work into a short essay. If possible, you can even have them do presentations on their holidays. Encourage them to include some “traditions” and activities, within reasonable limits.

Comparing Traditions

Another variation is to use this activity to discuss different ways of celebrating an existing holiday. This works well with one students love to celebrate. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Eid al-Fitr , Hanukkah, Easter, and Sukkot, and New Years, Spring Festival come to mind when I think of my students!

In this case, students would write the name of the real holiday, but then think about how their family celebrates it. They may be surprised to discover the many different ways people celebrate the same holiday. It’s also worth having students compare what they think the meaning of the holiday is. Again, there may be more diversity there than you’d think.

The above activity assumes students are all from the same culture or are in homogeneous groups. Alternatively, you can put students in mixed groups and have them compare events that are usually celebrated, such as weddings, birthdays, or retirements. Or they can talk about a type of holiday such as new years or one where we give thanks. What’s the big holiday where kids get presents? Which holiday involves family sharing a big meal? What similarities and differences exist? I’m always amazed when I do things like this with my students how every culture has special rules for the elderly, for example. Grandpa’s chair or the good chair seems to have a parallel worldwide!

If you use the New Holiday Activity from 60 Positive Activities for Kids, be sure to let us know how it goes. What did you do? Did the students like it? You can leave a comment here or email us.