It’s that time of the year again… time for cold weather, maybe even snow, caroling, gifts, family bonding, and Santa.
One way to celebrate this time in your classroom is by incorporating a few delightful Christmas reading activities.
During this time of the year, students often become more restless so it’s important to incorporate activities that keep them focused and engaged.
That’s the aim of these Christmas reading activities which boost a variety of reading skills.
Why not implement these fun Christmas reading activities into your instruction this week?
Related: 21 awesome Christmas writing activities
Christmas Reading Activities
1. Write a Queen of Christmas Book Recommendation.
This heartwarming story about a lady who is obsessed with getting everything on her list completed in time for Christmas is a lovely story to share with students.
They’ll listen to the story and then write a summary about it.
2. Make a Movie Poster.
This really fun Christmas reading activity involves students taking one of their favorite Christmas-themed independent reading books and turning it into a movie advertisement.
The goal is to create a promotional movie poster that would motivate someone to see the movie version of that particular book.
The promotional poster should include a title, author, list of characters and the actors who will play them.
The poster should also include lots of persuasive words and phrases.
Finally, students should summarize the book somewhere on the poster without giving away the ending!
3. Draft Point of View Journal Entries.
If you are looking to integrate reading and writing, this is one of the Christmas reading activities that you definitely want to do with students.
Students will create a series of journal entries from the perspective of either Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus, the elves, or one of the reindeer.
The date of the journal entries should take place approximately 5 to 7 days before Christmas.
So students must think critically about what these particular characters would be thinking or doing during this time before Christmas.
This is a great reading activity that focuses on helping students strengthen their point-of-view reading skills.
4. Answer Reading Response Questions.
This low prep Christmas reading comprehension activity only requires that students respond to a variety of reading comprehension questions after reading or hearing a Christmas-themed book.
5. Create a Mini Test.
For this reading activity, students choose one of their favorite Christmas-themed independent reading books.
They then create a short quiz (with an answer key) about it. The quiz can be multiple-choice, true/false, fill-in-the-blank, etc.
Afterwards, students exchange their quizzes with a classmate.
6. Tackle Reading Passages.
There are a plethora of Christmas reading passages that cover a variety of reading strategies and skills.
Reading passages are always a good resource to have in your literacy toolkit.
7. Practice a Christmas Reader’s Theater.
Reader’s theaters work very well during this time of the year because they are very fun and keep students focused on learning.
With a reader’s theater script, assign students a part, have them practice, and then they’ll perform for their parents or peers.
An alternative is to have partners read a reader’s theater script within literacy centers.
Reader’s theater scripts improve reading comprehension, expression, fluency, and accuracy.
8. Summarize a Book.
Practicing how to write a summary is always a good idea.
After students hear a read-aloud book or after they read a section of their independent reading book, they write a summary of what they just read.
9. Participate In a Text Features Hunt.
For this Christmas reading activity, students will work with nonfiction text features.
As students read a nonfiction book, they remain alert for any nonfiction text features they observe.
They’ll record in their reading response journals the name of the text feature, sketch what it looks like, and then write a description that tells how the text feature supports reading comprehension.
10. Fil