Wishing you all the joys of the Christmas season and a happy and safe holiday.
Best wishes, Norah
Category: Christmas
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Happy Christmas 2024
I have been silent on my blog for an entire year. It both surprises me and doesn’t surprise me at the same time. I knew I had done very little writing this year, but I didn’t realise I had done none!
I have struggled this year to find any head or heart space for writing. I just felt empty. Sadly, I couldn’t rally the energy to sustain any meaningful reading either. So, as well as neglecting my own blog, I have neglected yours too. It’s not that I didn’t think of you or didn’t have the wish (I did). I just didn’t have the will. I apologise and hope that you will forgive me. I hope to slowly make my way back to some writing and reading next year. In the meantime, I wish you
A Very Happy Christmas
and
Health and Happiness throughout 2025.
Best wishes,
Norah x
Here is a Christmas story for the children.
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Happy Christmas 2023!
I wish you and your loved ones a very happy and safe holiday season.
May the joys of Christmas be with you, and remain with you, throughout 2024.
Best wishes,
Norah
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Getting ready for Christmas with Lessons and Activities for P-2 – #readilearn
As the countdown to the end of the school year and the Christmas holidays gets underway, here at readilearn, we ensure that learning continues when the Christmas fun begins.
Who celebrates Christmas?
Do you know which children in your class celebrate Christmas with their families? Conduct a survey to find out. While you may already know, the survey can be an interesting way to begin discussions of different cultural traditions celebrated by children in your class.
These discussions should always be respectful and inclusive. It is essential for children, and all of us, to see that what we have in common is more important than any differences.
How many school days until Christmas?
This calendar helps to count down the last fifteen days of term and provides an opportunity for children to present information about their family’s traditions. The Countdown Calendar can be used to countdown to Christmas or, for inclusivity, to the holidays.
Inclusive friendship trees
Build self-esteem and confidence as well as friendship skills with Friendship trees. They are easy to make and are a great way to ensure the children keep thinking friendly thoughts about each other.
Children make their own friendship tree and, every day, they write anonymous positive messages of friendship and affirmation to place in each other’s trees. At the end of the term, children take their trees home to read and enjoy over the holidays.
A template for the trees, examples of friendship messages, and editable message strips for distribution to the children are also available.
Another fun way to encourage the children to work together on a joint project of which they can be proud is to create a 3D classroom tree display. While children are proud of their individual contribution, they recognise the importance of everyone working together. The tree becomes a visible reminder of the importance of team work. It can be the focus of a beautiful classroom display.
Christmas Activity Book
The Christmas Activity Book has 30-pages and 22 different activities, and is perfect for use at home or in the classroom.
It includes:
- games to play alone
- games to play with others
- literacy activities
- maths activities
- word puzzles
- number puzzles
- logic puzzles
- poems to write
- and much more.
Advent Activity Calendar
The December Advent Activity Calendar 2022 suggests an activity a day for each December day in the lead up to Christmas. Twenty-four easy, fun activities for children and families.
Literacy
Continue reading: Getting ready for Christmas with Lessons and Activities for P-2 – readilearn
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Happy Christmas 2021 from readilearn – #readilearn
I take this opportunity to wish you and your loved ones a happy and safe holiday season. May the magic of Christmas brighten your days and fill your heart and home with joy — now and always.
For some light Christmas entertainment for the children, Norah reads Who’s Hiding at Christmas?
Continue reading: Happy Christmas 2021 from readilearn – readilearn
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A New Activity Book Just in Time for Christmas – #readilearn
In this post, I am sharing information about a new Christmas Activity Book I have recently complied and uploaded to the readilearn collection. It is a 30-page booklet with 20 different activities and is perfect for 5 ̶ 7 year-old children to use at home or in the classroom.
The book includes:
- games to play alone
- games to play with others
- literacy activities
- maths activities
- word puzzles
- number puzzles
- logic puzzles
- poems to write
- and much more.
Some of the activities are already available as separate items in the readilearn collection, but not available together. More than half the activities are new. I decided to put them together in one book for ease of printing and distributing. You still have the option to print pages separately if you prefer, but you have access to all 20 activities in one document.
Continue reading: A New Activity Book Just in Time for Christmas – readilearn
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Ready-to-teach Christmas-themed Lessons and Activities for P-2 – #readilearn
While Christmas might be still eight weeks away, for some of you, the school year will finish well before that, and I know many are already planning your Christmas and holiday-themed lessons and activities.
Here at readilearn, we ensure that learning continues when the Christmas fun begins.
Who celebrates Christmas?
Before you begin Christmas-related activities, it is a good idea to conduct a survey to find out which children do and do not celebrate Christmas with their families. While you may already know this, the survey can be an interesting way to begin discussions of different cultural traditions celebrated by children in your class.
These discussions should always be respectful and inclusive. It is essential for children, and all of us, to see that what we have in common is more important than any differences.
How many school days until Christmas?
This calendar helps to count down the last fifteen days of term and provides an opportunity for children to present information about their family’s traditions. The Countdown Calendar can be used to countdown to Christmas or, for inclusivity, to the holidays.
Inclusive friendship trees
Continue reading: Ready-to-teach Christmas-themed Lessons and Activities for P-2 – readilearn
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Wishing you a happy and safe Christmas 2020 — #readilearn
Wishing you and your loved ones a happy and safe Christmas season.
For some light Christmas entertainment, Norah reads Who’s Hiding at Christmas?
Since this this the last post for this year, I take the opportunity of thanking you for your support throughout the year and look forward to sharing more lessons and teaching ideas in 2021.
Best wishes,
Norah
Continue reading: Wishing you a happy and safe Christmas 2020 — readilearn
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An A–Z of Holiday Activities for Families at Home – #readilearn
In this post, I share suggestions for easy, fun and inexpensive activities you can do with family and friends of all ages over the holiday period. Most of the suggestions aren’t new but are simply reminders of easy ways to have fun together that are often forgotten during hectic preparations and celebrations. They are great for the lull times and the ‘What can we do?’ times. Enjoy!
A — Acrostic
Write an acrostic poem for yourself. Each person writes their name vertically and writes a word or phrase about what Christmas means to them for each letter.
For example, here’s one for me:
Naughty or nice? Why, nice of course.
Opening gifts — loving the look on recipient’s faces
Recipes for celebrating — pavlova, everyone’s favourite
All the family together playing games and having fun
Home is the place to be.
B — Book
Everyone choses a favourite book, perhaps one received for Christmas, and reads uninterrupted for half an hour (or more!).
C — Charades
Continue reading: An A–Z of Holiday Activities for Families at Home – readilearn
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2020 — A Year of Books – #readilearn
Books make wonderful gifts at any time and Christmas is no exception. As a child, I loved nothing more than receiving a new book of my own for birthdays and Christmas. While I borrowed and read many books from the school and local library, there was something very special about having a book of my own to enjoy and treasure.
I loved breathing in the smell of a fresh, new book and feeling the smoothness of its fresh, new covers. But even more than that, I loved its promise of escape and adventure. In a book, I could escape the ordinariness of the everyday and participate in adventures at locations and with friends that I would never meet outside its pages.
If you are looking for a book to gift a special child this year, then I’d love to help you choose. In this post, I list all the lovely books I have reviewed or whose authors I have interviewed for the readilearn blog this year. These are only a small selection of wonderful books that are available.
A year of books on readilearn
In this list, I provide you with a short description of each book and a link to the post where you can find further information, including where to purchase the book.
Picture books
Continue reading: 2020 — A Year of Books – readilearn
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Norah Colvin 