Add some holiday sparkle to your literacy lessons with our ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas activities! Creatively crafted activities will captivate young minds and support literacy skills during this most wonderful time of year. Make your read-alouds merrier and memories brighter with this pack of read-aloud fun!

Our ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas activities are specially designed to enchant and engage young readers. Whether they match rhyming pairs or alphabetize reindeer names, they’ll have fun and sharpen their organizational skills. To enhance their understanding and enjoyment of the story, they will also explore story vocabulary. Stimulate imagination and understanding of character development with activities that focus on character traits. Additionally, the included discussion questions encourage young readers to think critically about narrative structure and improve their comprehension.

Alternatively, our writing-focused activities offer young authors a creative playground! Tracing lines and letters lays the foundation for clear and confident writing. Through acrostic poems, encourage creative expression. Children can apply their writing skills in a meaningful and enjoyable context by crafting letters to Santa or writing about Christmas traditions. Writing templates and prompts provide students with a canvas on which to express themselves and foster narrative skills.

As a result of the included activities, students will be able to:

• Trace lines and letters.
• Label Santa Claus.
• Write acrostic poems.
• Write character traits that describe Santa.
• Write about Christmas traditions.
• Match rhyming pairs.
• Alphabetize reindeer names.
• Define story vocabulary.
• Practice using nouns, verbs, adjectives, and prepositions. 
• Complete a crossword or word search.
• Apply Writing Skills with included writing templates and prompts.
• Practice Reading Comprehension with included discussion questions for the beginning, middle, and end of the book.
• Engage in Social Skills with the included whole group prompts and activities.
• Develop Fine Motor Skills with the included coloring, tracing, cutting, and gluing activities.
• Work collaboratively with others to craft a poem. 
• Use digital tools to write a letter to Santa. 
• Craft a memory book. 

These activities can be used by the whole group, at stations or centers, or provide student choice. They’re perfect for differentiation and focusing on specific learning goals and skills. 

💙 Searching for more enchanting activities to pair with your read-alouds? Make every storytime a festive event with these novel ideas!

💙After downloading the ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas activities to your digital sleigh, cozy up and read along with our in-app book and soundscape in your Novel Effect app!

About the Book

As the little old driver summons thunder and lightning, gather all your children together to hear. This poem of reindeer and sugar plums dancing is full of sounds only described as entrancing. So turn up the volume and spread cheer through your house; all in earshot will love it, yes even a mouse.