When we think about our students and wonder how we can better prepare them to be good, valuable citizens in the future, the idea of character education comes to my mind. Of course, we want our students to be proficient in math and reading, but we also want them to be proficient in being a productive and beneficial member of society. What better way to do that than introducing character education in the classroom! Character education is the act of instilling the values of kindness, generosity, and integrity in students. It consists of teaching the key components of moral excellence through one’s actions.

What is moral excellence? Moral excellence is centered on one thing, and that is doing the right thing. It includes having integrity or doing what is right when no one is looking. It is showing care for others or having empathy when our friends are going through a hard time. Moral excellence is demonstrating kindness to those around you. It is being responsible and taking ownership of one’s actions.

As we enter the holiday season, we can find several ways to easily integrate character education into the classroom. The holidays are an excellent time to teach students the value of kindness, charity, empathy, and putting the needs of others above their own. Below are some ways to help develop those invaluable characteristics in your students during the most wonderful time of the year!

Character Education Activities for the Holidays

Organize a Food, Toy, or Clothing Drive

The holidays present a lot of fun, but they also present a lot of needs. There are always needs within every community, but it is especially important to reach out to those less fortunate during the holidays. Many are without family or lack the means necessary to attain items on their own due to financial circumstances or other personal situations. Students can organize food, toy, and/or clothing drives to help families continue to celebrate the holidays despite those unfortunate circumstances.

Any drive of this nature requires community involvement and a large amount of responsibility from students in order to be successful. Students must learn to communicate with those in their communities to get the word out and better help those in need. Students learn to be responsible for collected materials and understand their importance.

Fundraisers for an Important Cause

During the holidays, students can raise money for important causes either locally or nationally. For instance, students may be encouraged to raise funds for cancer research, a local homeless shelter, or animal shelter. As a class, students can learn about the intended recipient of the funds before beginning the fundraising process. In doing so, students gain a better understanding of why it is important to raise money for their chosen organization.

This understanding also helps to create a bigger desire in students to make a difference, too! Since students will be collecting money, students will learn to do the right thing even when no one is looking. They must collect money and show integrity to ensure that the money goes to its intended recipient only.

One way to extend this idea within your classroom is to research two or three different organizations. Then, students can vote on which organization they would like to raise money for and why.

Embracing Charity and Giving

In continuing with the idea of drives and fundraisers, another excellent activity for character education is to embrace charity and giving. The central ideas of the holidays that echo all throughout the season are thankfulness and giving. Charity is the act of giving to others in need. Charity helps to develop empathy in students. In school, students could place themselves in another person’s shoes. For example, students could volunteer in the cafeteria or help clean the school building in order to better grasp all that cafeteria workers and custodians do on a daily basis.

Outside of school, students could imagine what it must be like to be homeless or without basic needs and decide to do something about it. This may inspire them to volunteer at a local soup kitchen or shelter. Regardless of the location, acts of charity teach students to be sensitive to those around them, and they also remind students to be thankful for all they have.

Random Acts of Kindness

This is probably my favorite way to instill the values of character in students! It is fun and rewarding. It’s simple. Ask students to participate in random acts of kindness. These “acts” can be performed anonymously or not, but they are sure to put a smile on someone’s face.

There are several ways to give acts of kindness while in school. Students could write thank you notes to public service workers, be directed to help a friend when they are having a bad day, clean up a mess that’s not their own, share words of encouragement with one another, or even make gifts for school staff members. Students can even spread kindness outside of school by delivering treats to local businesses, buying someone else’s meal, picking up trash, or surprising a neighbor with a meal.

Clearly, providing others with an act of kindness can be as simple or complex as you desire. The main idea is to teach students to be kind to others and realize how it makes them feel in the process!

Creatively Encourage Others

One of the best aspects of the holiday season is how joyful it is! Students can spread cheer to others in a large number of ways, and in the process, they reinforce the need to care about others and their feelings. Students could go caroling, make holiday cards to share within the school or local nursing home, decorate holiday scenes to share with those in the hospital, etc. All of these activities are both fun and exciting for students, but when they realize the activity serves an additional purpose of providing joy to someone else, it makes it even more rewarding and enjoyable.

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Ways to Celebrate

Thankfully, the advances in technology make it possible to celebrate the holidays with those we cannot see in person. So, whether your students are hybrid or completely remote, they will still be able to be part of the classroom festivities. Here are a few ways to celebrate.

Hanukkah

Hanukkah is the first holiday observed in the month of December and is a Jewish holiday that is celebrated for eight days with a nightly menorah lighting, special prayers, and food. While every household may not observe this holiday, it’s important to teach children a variety of different ways their peers celebrate the holidays.

The most classic Hanukkah game is called the spinning of the dreidel. Challenge students to learn how to play with this dreidel printable where students can watch a video as well as printout directions on how to make their own dreidel. Challenge older students to take this activity a step further and research what the four dreidel letters in Hebrew on the sides of the dreidel stand for and what they have to do with Hanukkah.

Winter Solstice

For hundreds of years many people believed that the changing of the seasons was controlled by divinities known as sun Gods. The Winter Solstice – the day winter begins — was another day people would honor their Gods with rituals and festivals. Today, students can learn that the first day of winter is more than just the shortest day and longest night of the year, they can learn about how the celebration began and if the traditions are still followed today. They can learn how animals adapt to the changing weather or study the almanac of solstices. Students can study how the earth moves around the sun, then make a graph using local weather predications. Lastly, students can learn the scientific explanation of the Winter Solstice from the Windows to the Universe website.

Christmas

Christmas is celebrated every year on December 25^th in remembrance of the birth of Jesus Christ. However, today we associate more than just remembering Jesus, we think of Santa Claus, presents, spending time with family, trimming the tree, reindeer, baking cookies, and so much more.

Whether you’re celebrating Christmas virtually or having a socially distant holiday with your students, there are still so many ways you can celebrate. For example, you can have a holiday scavenger hunt either in person or virtually. Students can search for Christmas-related items in the classroom or in their homes.

Another fun activity is to have students play Pictionary. For students who are virtual, have them take turns holding up a whiteboard or piece of paper and their classmates try and guess holiday-related drawings.

Lastly, have students explore their own Christmas history and traditions by researching what their families have done for generations (as well as how they’ve changed over time) and create an online presentation to share with their classmates.

Kwanzaa

Kwanzaa is an African-American celebration of life that celebrates African heritage and culture and was developed in the 1960s so African-Americans can have their own special day in December. Kwanzaa is a Swahili word that means “first” and signifies the first fruits of the harvest. Kwanzaa’s seven days of celebration last from December 26^th to January 1^st and focuses on seven principles: unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith.

To help students develop a deeper understanding of Kwanzaa as well as African-American culture, use these seven days to teach students about the seven principles and the history of the holiday. Each day choose a new principle to teach students about. At the end of the seven days, have students create their own list of seven personal goals for the upcoming year.

New Year’s

New Year’s has been celebrated since the ancient times, and while your students will be home for the New Year, it doesn’t mean that you can’t celebrate it with them in school before or after the day.

Take your students on a worldwide tour of traditional New Year’s customs by having them research how different countries celebrate the occasion. For example, the Japanese ring a bell 108 times on New Year’s Eve because they believe people have 108 problems; while people from the Bahamas dress up in colorful costumes and march in a parade called the “Junkanoo”.

Use this list of New Years traditions from cultures around the world to assign students a specific country to research. Younger students can create a flap book, while older students can create an infographic – a display of information in an easy-to-understand format — of the information learned. Venngage is a great site to use for that. What’s great about this New Year’s activity is that it can be modified for any age or grade as well as for students in the classroom, hybrid, or remotely learning.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed during the holidays, and the last thing that you want to do is to project those feelings onto your students. Try and savior the season and have your students partake in fun holiday activities that educate them on a variety of traditions that are celebrated across the globe.

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