This week I taught half of a lesson introducing Christmas vocabulary. The rest of the lesson will be taught later in the week by the class teacher.
I read ‘The Night Before Christmas’ by Clement C. Moore. This book is THE Christmas book and is what a lot of our current Christmas mythology is based on. The version I used was the Golden Book version – but any version with beautiful illustrations would do.
I began by talking about the ‘time’ when this book is set. It was written in a time before electricity, cars, tv and radio. People used gas lights and candles at night. I then read the book, stopping and explaining the many ‘unusual’ words. The students really enjoyed listening and while they didn’t fully understand every small detail presented in the words, my description of things and the illustrations went a long way to aiding their understanding.
After the lesson we filled in a sheet that asked the students to think about different aspects of Christmas that were presented in the text – Santa’s suit, the sleigh, family’s clothes, weather, decorations, food, unusual words.
We recorded down dot point answers in the chart on the sheet.
That was the end of part 1 of the Christmas lesson.
Part 2 – The classroom teacher will be completing the exact same lesson but this time they will be reading ‘The Aussie Night Before Christmas’ by Yvonne Morrison. They will fill in the other half of the comparison chart and get a whole other variety of Christmas vocabulary.
The students loved this lesson and were really engaged. I was surprised by how many students (non-EAL/D students) did not know what a ‘bauble’ was or a ‘stocking’. It was just a reminder that explicit teaching of vocabulary is important for EVERYONE – not only EAL/D students.
Link to the worksheet below.
the_night_before_christmas_and_the_aussie_night_before_christmas_comparison_chart.docx |