We have always based a lot of our curriculum around the seasons and holidays and Christmas has always been a month long unit for our family. This year I took a bit of a different approach. While the little ones still did the group binder with its worksheets, drawings and colouring pages the twins were in charge of their OWN notebook. Surprisingly enough, with some whining and complaining we still managed a project that we ALL feel proud of. Lots of independent mini reports were written up and even ideas of things to paste in their books on their own were brought forth!
Of course I have a long list of resources and I am going to share them for my benefit as well as others… Movies first!
- the Muppet Christmas Carol, I found a great worksheet set thanks to IPA Productions that deals with the original story for the twins that tied in nicely with the movie. We used the movie as an accessible medium to introduce the story and then they read the condensed version in these worksheets HERE. There is a cute colouring page for the movie HERE from Coloring Wallpapers.
- Veggie Tales – Saint Nicholas, A Story of Joyful Giving
- Veggie Tales – It’s a Meaningful Life
- Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Books! (sorry no links… but hopefully with name and author you can stumble upon them… this post is simply too late as is!)
- The Legend of Saint Nicholas by Demi. This was a great introduction the origins of Santa without ruining the magic for anyone as the book ends with the tradition being continued on after Saint Nicholas’ passing by a boy in the village who was chosen to continue his work.
- Christmas by Trudi Strain Trueit
- Christmas Around the World by Emily Kelley. We love this book, each of the twins chose THREE countries and summarized the traditions they have into on brief paragraph that I spell checked and then they copied into their notebooks.
- Christmas by Natalie M. Rosinsky
- O Christmas Tree by Jacqueline Farmer
- Christmas by Alice K. Flanagan
- Celebrate Christmas by Deborah Heiligman
- A Short History of Christmas by Sally Lee
- Merry Christmas Everywhere! by Arlene Erlbach and Herb Erlbach
- Twelve Days of Christmas in Minnesota by Constance Van Hoven
- Christmas Traditions Around the World by Ann Ingalls
- Christmas Trolls by Jan Brett… this was a random mid unit find at the library. The art is AMAZING!
- How the Grinch Stole Christmas! by Dr. Seuss
- The Legend of the Candy Cane by Lori Walburg
- What Star is This? by Joseph Slate
- City of Snow, The Great Blizzard of 1888 by Linda Oatman High
- The Berenstain Bears Meet Santa Bear by Stan and Jan Berenstain
- A Child Was Born by Grace Maccarone
- The Heron Christmas Carol by Frances Tyrrell
- My Penguin Osbert by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel
- What is Christmas? by Michelle Medlock Adams
- The Christmas Story by Jane Werner
- A Very Shiny Christmas by Debbie Guy-Christiansen
- A Pussycat’s Christmas by Margaret Wise Brown
- Santa’s Snow Cat by Sue Stainton
- Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer by Barbara Shook Hazen
- Santa is Coming to Texas by Steve Smallman
- A Porcupine in a Pine Tree by Helaine Becker
- Christmas Is… by Gail Gibbon
- A Kenyan Christmas by Tony Johnston
- The Nutcracker by Bethany Snyder
- The Gingerbread Man by Dawn Bentley
- Recordable storybooks read by Gammie – Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and The Night Before Christmas
- And a lovely British book mailed by a friend of Favourite Christmas Stories from Brown Watson publishers
Hanukkah, while not the most important Jewish holiday IS the one closest to Christmas and the best known generally so we did cover it briefly. Here are our books.
- Hanukkah by Rebecca Pettiford
- Hanukkah Around the World by Tami Lehman-Wilzig
- Hanukkah by Lisa M. Herrington
- Chanukah Lights Everywhere by Michael J. Rosen
You can find some terrific printables on Teacher Vision HERE and a Hanukkah mini book thanks to Family Education HERE.
Of course we covered Polar Express, both the book and the movie. The little ones did parts of a lapbook I had purchased years previous but we supplemented with worksheets… pages from a party kit by Houghton Mifflin Books HERE, Scholastic.com had some resources HERE, and activities and lessons by Busy Teachers Cafe HERE.
- The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg
We covered a lovely range of topics from symbols to world traditions and including Santa Claus and reindeer. A supplementary fact page about reindeer HERE thanks to Kids Play and Create. I also have some resources I have acquired from Currclick:
- The History of Candy Canes HERE. We also watched how candy canes were made on The Kid Should See This HERE
- Christmas Symbols Lapbook HERE
Want a little info about Boxing Day? We got ours from Ducksters HERE.
I hope these links are helpful… late as they are posted!! 
