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November 20, 1999

Christmas is a magical time of year for children. The excitement and anticipation are unparalleled in the course of the year. No matter what our age, it is a time of cultural and family tradition. This makes it a fruitful topic for integration in the classroom. This week’s edition provides a variety of ways to use the Christmas theme to integrate with technology across your curriculum.

It was great meeting folks in Long Beach! Thanks for stopping in and introducing yourselves! Classroom Connect is doing its big east coast conference next Spring in Philadelphia. Plan on attending – you won’t regret it!

Celebrating December Around the World - http://www.education-world.com/a_special/december.shtml

Education World offering on ways to incorporate the holidays into your classroom; includes ideas from articles and websites to help you plan effectively

Clip Art - http://www.kidsdomain.com/holiday/xmas/clip.html

Got the unit in motion but looking for free images you can use on your web pages, newsletters, activity sheets and letterhead? Check this out!

Christmas Around the World - http://www.santas.net/aroundtheworld.htm

Extensive listing of traditions from various countries to aid your students in their research; scattered banner advertising can be distracting but it doesn’t discount the wealth of information this site has to offer.

Christmas Around the World - http://www.bonus.com/bonus/card/christawor.html

Bonus.com’s Netscooter site keeps students in a protective environment as they research various nation’s traditions and even post their own articles on what they have researched to add to the collection; just up and running, but the collection is sure to grow as December approaches.

Christmas on the Net - http://www.holidays.net/christmas/

Excellent overview of the history and traditions of Christmas; includes an animated calendar, music files, a message board, free mailing list, and a searchable WWW holidays directory.

Christmas Sheet Music - http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Acres/6955/music.htm

Downloadable files of many of your favorites, useful whether you want to play them on the piano or simply have the lyrics handy; there is supposed to be a new site for 1999 with quadruple titles <http://www.econnlink.com/cstreet>, but as of today it is not up yet.

Christmas Traditions in France and Canada - http://www.culture.fr/culture/noel/angl/noel.htm

Available in French and English, a joint effort from Canada and France to present the traditions of these nations in consort: family traditions, religious traditions, community celebrations, and coverage of the Middle Ages, the 15^th through 18^th centuries, and the 19^th and 20^th centuries.

Creative Christmas Ornaments - http://craftsforkids.about.com/kidsteens/craftsforkids/library/weekly/mcurrent.htm

Sharon Osborn at about.com has put together this interactive tree which takes you to different Christmas craft sites you can share with your children; she’s putting out another issue on Christmas crafts this coming week so stay tuned!

Elves in Black - http://christmas.com/html/eib.html

OK so your kids still don’t buy the whole Santa tradition, but they can have fun with this site; kind of a Men in Black take-off on the Santa myth by “protecting the Spirit of Christmas”; great potential here for creative writing and multimedia projects!

Guess the Carols - http://www.users.sccoast.net/tecteach/carol/

Fun game of matching picture clues to Christmas Carol titles; not interactive, but a separate answer key is provided and the pics are easy on the eyes.

Homepage for the Holidays - http://www.merry-christmas.com/

“There’s no place like homepage for the holidays….” All kinds of links on recipes, movies, music, art work, games, kid’s activities and even the opportunity to e-mail Santa Caus.

Mimi’s Christmas Cookie Archive - http://www.christmas-cookies.com/

Dozens of downloadable recipes you can use with your students; links to lots more resources.

Pageant of Peace - http://www.nps.gov/htdocs4/whho/pageant/index.htm

Celebrates the lighting of the National Christmas Tree (scheduled to take place December 8^th) and offers some background on the pageant concept plus photographs of past National Trees – from the National Park Service.

Party Games and Ideas - http://hometown.aol.com/SantiKlaus/KidsPartiesXmas/HolidayFunPg6.html

Puzzles and games you can use in your classroom this December for Elementary and Middle School aged students.

Santa Claus.com - http://www.claus.com/

Games, activities and links for kids all surrounding the coming of Christmas; presented like the Christmas village at the North Pole ,there is a never=ending array of kid-safe activities here…..many with an educational bent.

Santa Tracker - http://www.santatracker.com/

Give this site your e-mail address and receive regular updates on what is going on at the North Pole; as the holidays get closer, you can visit the site to see preparations and even watch Santa launch the sleigh on Christmas eve!

Santa’s Secret Village - http://northpole.com/main.html

Another version of a clickable graphics-based online village with lots of activities for Christmas; this one you have to be a little more careful of because there are some links to commercial products included.

Trees and More - http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/hort/trees.html

From the University of Illinois Extension, a highly comprehensive guide to all kinds of December greenery: varieties, facts, traditions, care, events, flowers, recipes and so much more (thus, the title!).

Trivia Quiz - http://www.familygames.com/features/quizzes/xmasquiz.html

Thirty questions on Christmas traditions presented in an interactive multiple choice format which allows the participant to click on any and all of the choices to test their knowledge and gain information on the history of this holiday.

The Twelve Books of Christmas - http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/wwr/christmas/index.html

Recommended reading from the American Library Association for Christmas season in your classroom; great Children’s literature to enrich your unit of study

Virtual Christmas Tree Farm - http://www.christmastrees.on.ca/vtfsite/vtfmain.html

The Christmas Tree Farmers of Ontario have put together this virtual field trip to a farm to learn how trees are grown, cared for, harvested and sold for the holidays; includes a history of trees and kids activities too.

Wordlwide Christmas Calendar - http://www.algonet.se/~bernadot/christmas/calendar.html

An interactive Advent calendar on which students click on the numbered gifts counting down the days til Christmas; each gift is a link to a description of Christmas traditions in a different country, written by children.

X-mas Files - http://christmas.com/fun/xmas-files/index.html

Take-off of the X Files dedicated to proving to all that Santa does exist; super format for the upper grades with lots of opportunities for extensions into critical thinking, creative writing and online projects.

Next Week’s Topic: "Webquests"

Please send in URL's of high quality sites which may be
of interest to our readers to mrmck@...!
Also, I'm always looking for new topic ideas and input!

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