If you’re looking for literacy activities to beat the winter blues, then you’ll love my Winter Resources for reading and writing! Students will be excited for literacy centers and reading group time when they discover the fun and engaging activities waiting for them, so check out the activities below and help your students improve their reading skills this winter.
Winter Word Work
Building a strong foundation in reading is essential to overall reading proficiency. Help your students practice phonics, decoding, fluency, and vocabulary skills with these “print + go” word work resources. All activities can be completed independently, with a partner, or in small groups. With clear directions and answer keys for each task, these word work resources are also perfect for a last minute sub!
Word Work & Literacy Activities
Winter Word Work & Literacy Activities are perfect for independent or small group activities. Students will use word sorts, searches, and “roll & read” games to develop literacy skills that will last far past the winter months!
Christmas Work & Literacy Activities This resource is sure to bring Christmas cheer and joy throughout the season! Keep students engaged with this assortment that enables students to practice parts of speech, mix and match phrases, make words, and enhance vocabulary skills. You’ll have access to the printable or digital versions of this resource to meet your classroom needs.
Valentine’s Day Word Work & Literacy Activities are a sweet way to spread the love of literacy for the month of February. Your class will practice phonics, fluency, and decoding skills with these 13+ pages of fun!
Holiday Word Work & Literacy Activity Bundle is a great choice if you’re looking for activities for literacy centers, morning work, and small groups throughout the year. You’ll find themed activities for Thanksgiving, Winter, Christmas, Valentines, St. Patrick’s Day (and more!) with this bundle at a bargain price.
Daily Phonics Word Work
Daily Phonics Word Work November – December includes activities to help your class identify beginning/ending sounds, short/long vowels, consonant blends, digraphs, vowel teams, and r-controlled vowels. Watch your students’ accuracy and automaticity improve as they practice identifying phonic patterns using this resource.
Daily Phonics Word Work- January – February will help you develop a strong phonics routine through February. The quick and easy phonics activity pages will help your students improve phonics skills and fluency each day. Use them during morning work, literacy centers, or as a warm-up for your small groups.
Daily Phonics Word Work Bundle is perfect for year-long word work practice. The activities will help your students practice identifying phonics and syllable patterns throughout the year.
Winter Fluency Games
Reading fluency is essential to comprehension, and when students struggle with accuracy and fluency, they have a difficult time understanding what they are reading. By practicing reading fluency skills, students will become more proficient with their reading and can shift their focus to understanding the text. The winter fluency and decoding games below will help build more fluent and confident readers in your classroom!
Accuracy Splat Winter Decoding Fluency Game is similar to ZAP! or BOOM! and is designed for students who make a lot of visual errors. Help your class improve visual discrimination skills with this easy to prep card game!
Accuracy Zoom Valentine’s Day Decoding + Fluency Game is the perfect holiday-themed resource that helps students practice reading words that are visually similar.
Accuracy Decoding and Fluency Game Bundle is perfect if you want decoding and fluency games for many different seasons and holidays. This growing bundle offers all the games in the collection for a discounted price.
Winter Writing Resources
Help your students develop a love for writing using these fun winter writing activities! These resources will encourage creativity and help scaffold and guide students in writing.
If I Lived in a Snow Globe This print and digital activity is always a hit with students and a fun display for your hallways or bulletin boards. Students will practice story writing, parts of speech, vocabulary, sentence structure, and visualization with this fun filled winter writing activity. (Read more about engaging students in snow globe writing here!)
Roll-a-Story Writing Activity December The writing templates included in this resource activity will help jumpstart your students’ creativity when they have “winter writing block”! Students will use a graphic organizer to guide their creativity and plan their stories. Each roll of the dice will reveal character, setting, and problems for these silly stories.
Roll-a-Story Writing Activity January This winter-themed writing resource focused on winter related themes, as well as an extra everyday story starter page.
Roll-a-Story Writing Activity February Kids will “love” writing about Valentine’s Day with this activity. They’ll also have am everyday sea life-themed story page to help with everyday writing.
Roll-a- Story Writing Activity Bundle If your class loves rolling the dice to create characters, setting, and problems then they’ll have fun throughout the entire year with the monthly bundle of writing resources. (Read more about how to turn students into storytellers using this resource collection here!)
Partner Poems
Poems for two voices are a proven way to build reading fluency. Each of my poetry resources include back-and-forth poems that focus on character perspective and corresponding comprehension activities. Students will love changing their voices to match the expression of the different characters.
The Winter Escape – Winter Partner Poem + Activities Students will love partnering up to read this “poem for two voices” and completing the follow-up activities. Help your students explore character feelings and build understanding of the character’s perspective with this fun back-and-forth poem!
Where’s Santa? Christmas Poem + Activities This Christmas-themed poetry resource includes a partner poem, activity pages, and questions that are differentiated for student reading levels. Children will have a blast reading like an elf or reindeer in this partner poem!
Snowman Attack – Winter Partner Poem + Activities Students will love practicing fluency with the snowman and puppy characters in this partner poem. They will visualize with poetry mind pictures, explore character feelings, and complete a snowman retelling to build comprehension and fluency with the partner poem and resources.
Carrot Snatcher – Partner Perspective Poem + Activities This partner poem is about a bunny who tries to steal a snowman’s nose. Students will love reading the character parts and exploring each of the characters’ feelings and perspective.
Groundhog Grumbles – Groundhog Day Partner Poem + Activities Encourage your students to put themselves in the shoes of the groundhog. This readers theater style partner poem will have students taking on the character part of a grumpy groundhog and children who are anxiously awaiting his arrival. (Read more about how I use this poem in my classroom as part of a paired poetry activity here!)
Love-Struck Bunny – Valentine’s Day Partner Poem + Activities Who can resist a poem about a bunny in love? Your students will love this silly back-and-forth poem about a bunny who gets struck by a cupid’s arrow. Improve fluency and comprehension with the corresponding activities!
Additional Winter Activities
Penguin and Pinecone – Authors Message Mentor Text Activity This mentor text activity is perfect for teaching theme and author’s message! Students will identify evidence to support the themes of friendship and love using the book Penguin and Pinecone. The messages that “Friendship lasts forever, even if you’re miles apart” and “Love only grows over time” are great for small group discussions, as well. This resource can be completed independently or as a shared lesson. (Read more about how I use this activity with my small groups here!)
Roll-a-Snowman Visualization Activity This visualizing activity will be sure to bring some visualizing fun into your classroom throughout the winter months. Students will roll a dice to mix and match descriptive words and items then record on the graphic organizer. They’ll love using their descriptions to illustrate their snowmen!
Winter Freebies
Free Winter Fluency Task Cards With this resource, you’ll get 24 fluency task cards to help students practice winter-themed phrases and sentences. Use these cards as a quick review of pace, phrasing, expression, and attention to punctuation. The best part? It’s free!
Happy New Year Poem + Activities This freebie is a great way to start the New Year! Students will use comprehension strategies to understand the poem and then create their own resolutions.
Go ahead and grab a cup of hot cocoa and explore the entire growing collection of winter resources that can be found in my website shop and TpT store! When the temperature drops, you’ll be thankful that your literacy toolbox is filled up and ready to go. And just think… instead of stressing over how to keep your kids engaged during those long winter months, you can start planning for the warm months ahead!
