Not-a-Holiday Lessons

I am not sure I can pick a favorite holiday lesson, or type of lesson so I'll summarize it as such. I try not to do literal "holiday lessons." Partly, this is because I teach at a school where all of my students are mostly Mexican and are already familiar with American holidays. So, unlike in the past, I can't have them present on a holiday from their culture and share it with the class.

I have also taught in America where, in some cases, there are students whose families don{t want them to have holiday lessons. As a result what I do like to do is letting my lessons be influenced by the seasons and holidays.

Winter
I like to do things with snow.
After the horrible Sandy Hook shooting I encouraged my students to make snowflakes to send to the school. I love origami lessons so even with Sandy Hook having students teach one another to make different snowflakes, or practice their listening skills by following your directions is great!
With little ones I change my normal "Poor Joe" lesson into a "Poor Snow" lesson.
When teaching clothing I focus on wintery items Scarves, Hats, Earmuffs, etc.

Spring

For the Spring you can still do things with eggs and Easter related concepts without jumping into Easter directly.


Summer
Admitedly I don't usually teach in the Summer, but when I do talking about vacations and parties works better than a history lesson on the fourth of July (for me anyways).

Fall 
As Halloweeny as I get is my family of pumpkins song. Normally, I just select a slightly spooky story to read.
My poetry unit centers around, "Thank you Ma'm" by Langston Hughes. So it is easy to also talk about what we are thankful for and what changes we would like to make to the world to make others feel thankful. A reference to Thanksgiving of course. When I do this in the Spring we focus on Black History Month.