It’s that time of year when there’s a nip in the air and a palpable sense of anticipation for all that winter brings. Not only are your students getting antsy, but so are you. Y’all just can’t wait for all those winter holidays and events. In the meantime (and after you return from celebrating them), here are 10 fabulous ideas for reading and writing during this chilly yet wonderful season in English language arts.

1) Winter Haiku: According to poets.org, “A traditional Japanese haiku is a three-line poem with seventeen syllables, written in a 5/7/5 syllable count. Often focusing on images from nature, haiku emphasizes simplicity, intensity, and directness of expression.” Haiku poetry is PERFECT for the winter season. First, have a brainstorming session with your students, making a list of possible topics together, to get them thinking what they’ll focus on (the haiku should focus intensely on one thing, usually having to do with nature). Then, give them some quick instructions (and perhaps samples) of how to write them: they consist of 3 lines with 5 syllables in the first line, 7 syllables in the second line, and 5 syllables in the third line, using concrete imagery (vivid sensory descriptions that make readers get clear images in their heads).  You may even want to have students make artistic posters out of their poems to display, like the one shown here:

2. Winter Similes and/or Metaphors: Have students write symbolically about the winter. Similes use “like or as.” Metaphors simply say that something is something else that it is not. In upper elementary, it’s easier for kids to write similes. In high school, students should be challenged to write metaphors. First, brainstorm with students everything they can think of that has to do with the winter season. Then, have them write 5 similes and/or metaphors. For example, “The snow glistened pure white on the branches of the pine trees like the powdered sugar we sprinkle on our green Christmas tree cookies.”

3. Read, Write, Research All About Sled Dog Racing: Using my FREE ELA/Social Studies printables (also digital), have students read, write, research, all about sled dog racing: a winter sport most popular in the Arctic regions of the United States, Canada, Russia, Greenland, and some European countries. The sport involves the timed competition of teams of  sled dogs that pull a sled with the musher standing on the runners.

A sled dog race was a demonstration sport at the 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, and again in Oslo, and again in the 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer. However, it is not currently an official event in the Olympics.

4. Delve Into Winter Poetry & Literature: Winter poetry and storytelling can be just as cozy, warm, and soothing as snuggling up indoors by the fireplace. Of course, it can convey much more. Have students each find a winter poem (or excerpt from literature) to analyze, and perhaps share with the class. Analysis can be as simple as identifying 1) the poet speaker 2) the setting 3) the feeling tone 4) figurative language. Here are some ideas:

• “…It snowed and snowed, the whole world over,
  Snow swept the world from end to end.
  A candle burned on the table;
  A candle burned…” – from Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

• “When all aloud the wind doth blow,
  And coughing drowns the parson’s saw,
  And birds sit brooding in the snow,
  And Marian’s nose looks red and raw,
  When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl.” – from Love’s Labour Lost by William Shakespeare

• “Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen.” – from My Antonia by Willa Cather

• “Whose woods these are I think I know.
  His house is in the village though;
  He will not see me stopping here
  To watch his woods fill up with snow.” – from “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost

• “In the bleak midwinter
  Frosty wind made moan,
  Earth stood hard as iron,
  Water like a stone;
  Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
  Snow on snow,
  In the bleak midwinter,
  Long ago.” – from “A Christmas Carol” by Christina Rosetti

• “In winter I get up at night
  And dress by yellow candlelight.” – from “Bed in Summer” by Robert Louis Stevenson

• “There’s a certain Slant of light,
  Winter Afternoons,
  That oppresses, like the Heft
  Of Cathedral Tunes.” – from “No. 258” by Emily Dickinson

• “Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
  Arrives the snow.” – from “The Snowstorm” by Ralph Waldo Emerson

5. Read About the Winter Games: Have students read an interesting FREE 1-page informational text passage (with writing extensions) that explains when the Winter Games debuted, when they are held and why, how host cities are chosen, which sports compete, and the ideals of this international sporting event.

Just in time for the February 2022 games.