Looking for a fun, creative December project for your students? December can be a stressful time for both teachers and students. This month is often a time for “filler activities” that can keep students busy until they go on the long-awaited holiday break. But December doesn’t have to be awash! Check out these 5 December project ideas for upper elementary students!
Are you an elementary ELA teacher? Click here to download the Beginner’s Guide to Project-Based Learning! This free resource includes a guide to get you started with PBL plus a 2-week project on growth mindset that is perfect for upper elementary students! Download it now!
December Project Ideas on Multiculturalism
December is obviously a time for celebrating! But do your students know how people in other places of the world celebrate the holidays in December? This time of year is the perfect opportunity to teach students about different cultures by exploring how they celebrate during the holiday season.
As a project-based learning project, students may wish to explore the following questions/topics:
- How can card stores be more representative of different cultures?
- How do different African/Asian/European/South American countries celebrate the holidays?
- Are Christmas traditions consistent throughout the world?
- How is our community representing different cultural holidays during December?
As a project, students can research their driving questions in pairs or small groups. Afterwards, they can create a campaign to spread awareness about different holidays. I like the idea of students researching which holidays are represented at a card store, such as Hallmark. Students could write to a card company seeking more representation in their cards. Furthermore, students could create a few card designs or research local small businesses that make holiday cards for different holidays.
Click here to download The Beginner’s Guide to Project-Based Learning!
Idea #2-The Spirit of Giving
Students need to learn about the giving aspect of the Holidays, rather than just the receiving of gifts. The holidays are a great way to introduce or teach students more about the spirit of giving.
Possible questions to explore with students include:
- What does “the spirit of giving” at Christmas mean?
- Why is it important to give/help others?
- How can I be more giving to others?
- Is there a way I can use my skills/talents to help others?
- As a class, students could think of ways they could be more giving this holiday season. Maybe they would like to hold a fundraiser. Or, perhaps they would like to volunteer somewhere as a class. It is important to involve students in the decision-making process.
- Students could even learn about alliteration while coming up with clever fundraiser names, such as:
- Ball for Big Brother (hold a charity basketball game, with the funds going to the Big Brother charity)
- Read-a-thon for Retirees (run a school-wide read-a-thon and raise money for the local retirement home)
- Giving n Gaming (hold a one-hour gaming event at school where students can play any game they wish, however, they must pay 5$ to participate. Proceeds could go to the charity of your students’ choice)
Which project-based learning model is right for your students? Click here to read the post to find out!
December Project Ideas-#3 Holiday bucket list
What do your students want to do this month? Which activities come to mind when they think of December? Is your local area hosting any fun festive events? Does your family have any December traditions they like to do during December?
These are all questions students can explore while creating their own December bucket list.
To make this a project, students could research local events, write a list and present this list to the class, giving reasons why they included each item on the list. To include grammar lessons in the project, a special focus could be made on the verbs that are used. Challenge students to develop fun, creative verbs in their list. For example:
- Glide down a hill on a toboggan
- Pelt snowballs in a snowball fight
- Swig a hot chocolate
- Accessorize a Christmas tree
- Forge a snow angel
Click here to check out my daily grammar practise resource!
December Project Idea #4 Year in Review
It’s fun to look back on your year. For young students, a year seems like such a long amount of time. This month is a great time to review the past 12 months with your peers. Some questions to explore:
- What memories stand out when you think about this year?
- Are there any memories you’d like to forget?
- What did you read?
- Was there anything you did well?
- Did you make new friends?
- Was there a new skill you learned?
- Did you improve at something this year?
As a project, students could explore one of these questions each day. This could be done as a class discussion, and then as a journal entry. If students share that they didn’t have a good year, it is important to honour these feelings as well.
Idea #5 New Year Resolutions
I find elementary students too young to be forming new years resolutions. I’m not entirely sure anyone should be making new years resolutions since I’ve never met anyone to keep one longer than a month. However, as a society, we seem to be obsessed with them. There’s something so satisfying about a new start, am I right?
So instead of having students create a new years resolution, you could explore the concept of them. Who created new years resolutions? When did they start? Why are we obsessed with them? How often do they work?
Students could create a whole research project on the topic of new years resolutions. Perhaps, if students find that new years resolutions don’t work, they could come up with an alternative, such as a monthly goal or weekly goal.
Final Thoughts
Have any other awesome December project ideas? Comment down below!
I hope you, your students and your loved ones have a wonderful holiday season!
All the best!
1 thought on “5 Awesome December Project Ideas for Upper Elementary Students”