Inside: Use this Christmas Elf Writing for Kindness to connect Christmas with social emotional learning and writing skills.
When it’s the most wonderful time of the year, we can lean into the excitement of the Christmas and winter break spirit with our kids and students by connecting anything we need them to learn to the upcoming holiday.
So December writing activities are met with less resistance from kids when they’re excited about what they’re writing about.
We don’t need an Elf on the Shelf, but we can create our own elves as we write for the social emotional learning skill: self-management.
Kids can reflect: How can we be our best selves? when they do the writing to be their “best elf.”
They can ask themselves how they can be a good friend, or a better student, or a better sibling. They can think about ways they can show more kindness and be more helpful and be more friendly. They can write about how they can treat other people the way they want to be treated and how they can follow the rules more often and be more respectful.
Self-reflection is a great tool for social emotional learning and when you can connect it to a Christmas craft and Christmas writing, it will become even more fun.
Use this Christmas elf Kindness Writing free printable to help connect social emotional learning, writing, and the Christmas season together.
More Christmas Kindness Activities:
To connect Christmas to social emotional learning, we can read this Christmas Kindness Emergent Reader and spread Christmas Random Acts of Kindness.
We can countdown to Christmas with a Kind Act each day with this paperchain Christmas Kindness Countdown.
We can practice being kind with this Christmas Role Playing Cards and sort kind and unkind actions with this Christmas Kind or Unkind Sort.
You can also use this Christmas Kindness Bundle that includes a bunch of Christmas Kindness Activities.
We can also read these Christmas Kindness books:
Two Lists for Christmas: The Christmas Kindness-List
Secret Santas And The Twelve Days of Christmas Giving
And we connect writing and Christmas to social emotional learning with this Christmas Elf Writing.
How to Use the Christmas Elf Writing to Connect with Kindness
1. Download and print out the elf you wish to use (color or black and white) on cardstock and write students’ names on back of the elf head. Print out the version of writing paper that best suits your students. You can download it below.
2. If kids use the black and white version, give them skin color crayons to color in the elf’s face and hands to match their own skin color.
2. Brainstorm ways kids can be kind during the holiday season and ways they can be their best elf/self.
Who can they help?
Who can they use their manners with?
Who can they show compassion towards?
Who can they give to?
Who can they include?
How can they follow the rules more often?
How can they be more respectful?
How can they be a better sibling, a better teammate, a better student, a better friend?
When can they speak and act with kindness more often?
3. Encourage kids to write (or dictate) how they will choose to be kind during the holiday season and how they can be their best elf/self.
Remind them to focus on whatever writing skills you are reinforcing (capitals/punctuation, strong adjectives, spelling sight words correctly, etc.)
Encourage kids to revise and/or proofread what they wrote to catch any mistakes they may have made.
4. Cut out the pieces of the elf and if you chose the black and white version, encourage kids to use skin color crayon to color the elf.
5. Glue or tape the elf head to the top of the paper and the boots to the bottom of the paper so it looks like the elf is behind the paper.
6. Glue the elf’s hands/mittens to the sides of the paper so it looks like he’s holding the paper.
7. To connect this to listening and speaking skills, encourage students to share their elf writing with the class about how they will show kindness to others this holiday season.
8. Hang up the elves in your classroom or hallway to display all the ways your kids want to be the best version of themselves.
Download the Christmas Elf Writing here.
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