How to Bring the "Spirit of Christmas" Into Your Classroom

As teachers, we often discuss decorating the classroom, what crafts to incorporate, or quite literally, how to SURVIVE the season, but what about teaching our students the real spirit of the season? In this blog, I want to walk you through some ideas on how to bring the true “Spirit of Christmas” into your classroom. Let’s make this year the year that we make a conscious effort to focus on the spirit of thankfulness, kindness, and togetherness in our classroom! So, how exactly can we do that? Let’s get started….

December has exactly three weeks leading up to the week of Christmas, so I’ve broken down the weeks into three “focuses,” if you will:

• Week One: Thankfulness

• Week Two: Kindness

• Week Three: Togetherness

Week One: Thankfulness

This, of course, overlaps a bit with the spirit of Thanksgiving, but keep in mind that celebrating the spirit of Christmas is a lot about being thankful for the many blessings in our lives. Even as adults, we fail to take a moment each day and think about all of the people and things that we are blessed with in our lives. Focusing on our blessings lifts our spirits and can have huge impacts on our moods and perceptions of life and situations. What a great lesson to teach the little people in our class. What a great tool that they can take with them into their future!

So, for week one, take a few minutes each day and have your students write out 2-3 things that they are thankful for in their lives. It may be a person, a situation, a toy, or maybe even you, their teacher! Maybe let them share one or two with you during the week, if they want. Keep the list going on one piece of paper and send it home with them at the end of the week for parent review. It may be something that blesses their family too. We can never be too thankful for our blessings and teaching children to focus on their blessings instead of their challenges is a great life tool as well!

Week Two: Kindness

There is a quote by Tayyaba Saleem that says, “kindness is a gift everyone can afford to give.” So much of Christmas is focused on shopping, wish lists, presents, Santa, more presents, etc. Kindness is a beautiful gift that you can give during the holiday season, and every season. Further, teaching children how to be mindful when it comes to kindness is another tool that they can take with them into adulthood.

I propose that we spend week two of December focusing on how to be mindful of ways to be kind. Again, let’s start a piece of paper and every day, ask your students to list 2-3 things that they could do that day that would be a kind gesture to someone. They may need help at first. Can you offer to put the dishes away for your mom? Can you open a door for someone at school? Can you leave a note for a friend that just says how much they mean to you? Can you thank someone that has made a difference in your life? Being mindful of ways that you can be kind is a great way to celebrate the “Spirit of Christmas” If you have older students, maybe you can follow up with them and ask if they were able to act on any of their ideas and what effect it had on the person. And remember, “kindness is a gift everyone can afford” and the world could always use more of it!

Week Three: Togetherness

The definition of togetherness includes the words, “warm fellowship.” We would like to think that family and home bring a warm sense of togetherness for each of our students, but we know that’s not always true. Your classroom, however, is a place where you can encourage that sense of togetherness, and warm fellowship for your students. Week three is more of a challenge for you, the teacher, to find ways to bring your students together. Because we work with teachers from Kindergarten to 5th grade, this is going to vary greatly based on the age that you teach, but think about setting aside some time each day of week three for a fun activity. Divide your students up into teams. You designate the teams and change them up each day so that different students work together. For small children, maybe it’s building a tower out of blocks and seeing who can build the tallest, weirdest, longest, silliest. Make it an activity that involves laughter and fun, because this project is all about togetherness and learning about each other. Maybe they can write a silly story together, or come up with the funniest game to play in the class that afternoon. Whatever it is, make it light-hearted and fun and mix up the teams so that there is an environment of inclusiveness. On the last day of week three, you can just have cookies and hot chocolate, sit in a circle, and everyone can tell a fun fact about themselves. And then, somewhere in there, when you see the laughter and the fun and the “warm fellowship” that you are aiming for, tell your students about togetherness and encourage them to be there for their classmates in the classroom and outside of it as well. Because everyone needs to know that they belong somewhere.

I really hope that you were able to walk away from this read with something of value and I hope that you have a wonderful holiday season, filled with many blessings. Thank you for helping us find the “Spirit of Christmas” and bringing it into our classrooms! Well wishes to you for the New Year!

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