How the Grinch SAVED Christmas

A few days before break, the K/1 grade team did a Holiday rotation. Each teacher took on one aspect of the Winter holidays and in 25 minutes did a lesson teaching that holiday. These were the rotations, Hanakkah, Kwanza, Las Posadas, Mala Kelikimaka, Traditional Christmas, and Secular Christmas. I teamed up with a 1stgrade teacher and took on Secular Christmas. We decided that the Grinch was the best way to tackle this topic, and still teach the students that Christmas is not all about gifts.

Our lesson began with a quick reading of the Grinch. Most of the students had already read and seen the movie, so this was more of a review for them.

Next, we had the first graders, color and cut out an ornament for our tree.  Explaining that we were sharing our time with our friends and that was a gift in itself.


The Kindergarteners were in charge of making the gifts. These could be a picture of anything ranging from something they could make to spending time with someone they loved. We tried to stress not giving material gifts, but spending time with someone.


It was topped off with the quote, from the book, saying...


It turned out MUCH cuter than we imagined.