Improve your students’ language skills with entertaining holiday-themed activities! Start by reading How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Then, work on sequencing skills by building sentences, practicing counting, and testing your students’ comprehension skills. Whether you’re looking for math activities or craft activities, this list presents the perfect ideas to get in the holiday spirit with your talented students! These fun activities can easily be adapted to suit any Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa story.
1. Reading Comprehension Activity
Gather your students after story time and work together to answer questions about the story! This large anchor chart is perfect for helping your students understand the important parts of a story. Be sure to include a story sequence section to allow them to practice transition words.
Learn More: Carolyn’s Creative Classroom
2. Roll a Story
Roll your own Grinch-themed story! Students roll a die for each column to find their story components. Create a story map to outline the plot. From there, students can continue their stories to practice their creative writing skills.
Learn More: Pinterest
3. Sentence Building
Add some Grinch-themed sentence-building to your class lesson this holiday season. Cut out the cards and discuss the different parts of the sentences. Students then work together or alone to place the cards in the correct sequence.
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4. Cut & Paste Plot Sequencing Activity
Plot sequencing is one of the best reading activities to get real-time student data on comprehension skills. Write out the main points of your student’s favorite book. Then, have them place the events in the correct order!
Learn More: Teachers Pay Teachers
5. Story Mapping
This easy story mapping worksheet is perfect for your 3rd-5th grade reading packets. The simple answer-response format lets your kids understand the main components of a story, builds comprehension skills and is great for practicing penmanship!
Learn More: Mrs. Brinkman’s Blog
6. Story Quiz
End your story hour with some comprehension questions! You can choose to answer the questions together as a group or give your students a few to answer on their own. Feel free to make it multiple-choice questions or add some vocabulary to get them ready for their next spelling test!
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7. Listen and Match Sentence Sequencing
As you read the story of the Grinch aloud, have your students match the sentence halves! Younger students can work together in groups. Read the lists together before you start story time so that every student knows what to listen for.
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8. Math Story Sequencing
Help your kids understand the correct sequence of math actions when solving math problems with fun Grinch-themed math stories! Cut and paste the word problems into a booklet. Then, have your kids work through the math problems step-by-step; showing their work for each step.
Learn More: Pinterest
9. Who Pudding Recipe
Teach your little ones all about sequences by building a super tasty tower of treats! Give your little ones all the ingredients they need to layer their dessert in the correct order: cakes, pudding, sprinkles, and candy are all that’s needed! Have older students bake their own cakes before assembling them.
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10. Number Sequencing
Practice number sequencing with fun number squares! Use short sequences in your K-2nd grade packets. For older students, include longer sequencing pages or have students solve math problems to fill in the squares.
Learn More: Teachers Pay Teachers
11. Counting by 10s
This fun digital activity shows your students how to count by 10s. Counting by multiples helps develop multiplication skills and lets students visualize numbers in sequences. Pause the video and have students say the next number in the sequence!
Learn More: Shooting Stars: Math
12. Cause and Effect Story Chains
Story chains are awesome creative activities that’ll make your classroom extra special over the holiday season. In small groups, have students list Grinch-centric events from the story. They can then make additional chains about other characters to hang off the main Grinch chain!
Learn More: My Teacher Friend
13. Story Boxes
These fun boxes create stories within stories! On each cube, students write and illustrate an event from the story. Help them fold and tape the cube into shape. Repeat with bigger and bigger boxes until they’ve retold the entire story.
Learn More: Education.com
14. Storytelling Pathways
On a long piece of paper, draw a winding path. As your students walk down the path, have them retell the story as you draw what they describe! Let them color it in afterward. This is a fun, interactive way to build comprehension and story sequencing skills.
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15. Paper Plate Sequencing
Divide paper plates into 4 equal sections. Write the story title in one section, followed by the beginning, middle, and end of the story in the others. Illustrate the border with images from the book.
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16. Collaborative Comic Strips
Break your students into small groups for this creative culmination activity! Give them a long piece of paper divided into 4 sections. Working together, they must illustrate and re-write the main events of the story or write about a specific character’s traits.
Learn More: Mrs. Russell’s Room
17. Sequencing Balloons
Write 10 key events from the story on strips of paper. Roll them into balloons before you inflate them. Release them around the room and have your students race to collect and sequence them all. Play some holiday music while they pop the balloons!
Learn More: Cassie Dahl
18. Grinch Cookies
The tastiest of sequencing activities! Following recipes provides kids with a special treat once they’ve successfully completed their tasks. These simple sugar cookies are great for PreK- K students. Give older students challenging decoration instructions to follow.
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