The 12 Days of Christmas
Elementary ... for all ages, but this is marked for Year 4 (Lesson 35)
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Teacher’s notes and lesson plan
The aim of the lesson is to teach the 12 Days of Christmas. I like it because it’s genuinely traditional, but can be used for kids of all ages because the vocab is both difficult (“a partridge in a pear tree”) and easy (if you can count backwards) and mimics the hymn-singing of Christmas without doing anything overtly religious.
Pre-teach any difficult words using the flashcards, which you’ve printed out individually and laminated, right?
If it’s really young kids or a pretty low-level group, just focus on the counting to 12 and back again to 1.
Worksheet (get students to write their answers to the questions that you’ve already gone over orally)
Give one flash card to every kid (print duplicates if necessary) or divide the 12 cards into equal numbers for smaller groups
Play any number of 12 Days of Christmas songs (We Sing for Christmas is the version I use, but I’m sure you could find other good ones online) with the kids waving (and eventually singing their part) every time their number comes up. Relatively wholesome, non-religious, Christmassy fun for all ages.
Worksheet
Flashcards
This lesson was adapted with permission from the textbook Tower Talk Primary 4 available here.
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45 lessons good for one year of study
Each lesson features a page of exercises to help the student grasp new language
Includes special Christmas, Halloween, birthday, speech day, treasure hunt and review lessons
Comprehensive phonics workbook to give students practice in the 42 sounds of English
A vocabulary list of 569 words used in the book
Quirky child-friendly artwork
A lined notebook for children to work on their writing
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