Advent Calendar: Super Size Me!

Monique Moloney

OBJECTIVES:

• To practice writing and reading customary and original Christmas greeting phrases, with emphasis on phrase order and content
• To provide an interactive, alternative activity to Christmas card making/giving
• To introduce and demonstrate the use and purpose of the ‘Advent Calendar'

PROCEDURE:

1. In team-teaching mode, introduce the new words and grammar focus on pages 70 and 71 of the text. Model Christmas-specific phrases such as ‘Merry Christmas’, ‘Season’s Greetings!’, ‘Have a happy and safe festive season’, ‘Peace to you at Christmas time’, etc, discussing meaning and appropriate usage, before directing students to copy them into their notebooks.

2. Using a bought example of a chocolate filled Advent Calendar and with some translation help from your JTE, explain the purpose of the Advent Calendar in early Christian traditions, and the joy of using contemporary ‘chocolate-filled’ calendars today+. Focus students’ attention on the numbered doors and their correspondence to the days in December leading to Christmas Day on December 25. Present the idea of a ‘class size’ advent calendar and explain how, in lieu of chocolate, a personal Christmas message from each class member will be found behind each door.

3. Ask students to write a Christmas message (referring to the format for Christmas card writing on p. 70), omitting the ‘Dear’ line so as to create an open address. Encourage originality and check students’ compositions for spelling and grammar errors - messages should read something like: “Merry Christmas! Don’t forget to send your greeting cards. From Miyuki.”

4. Distribute white message cards, one for each student. Show students an example of a finished card, one you’d prepared a little earlier, modeling the desired end result. Direct students to write their drafted message onto the white card and allow students the remaining lesson time to decorate and beautify their messages. Collect all cards.

5. Constructing the calendar: glue the enlarged colour copies of Christmas cards onto one large sheet of construction paper (creating a front side to the calendar). On the under side, rule and mark squares/rectangles of a size slightly smaller than the size of the students white message cards. Using a cutting knife and board, cut along three sides of each rectangle and turn back over, making sure that the doors open (in the right direction) smoothly. Lay the second large sheet under the first and glue the two sheets together, aligning and fixing message cards to appear within the opening of each door.

6. Make numbered seals for the doors by downloading a Christmas image (Christmas bells) from the Internet and add a number to each. Copy and cut out two copies of each seal, one for each door and one to be drawn by each member of the class.

7. Present the constructed calendar to the class before December 1st. Have students take a numbered seal from a hat or sack, explaining that the number drawn corresponds to the date in December and the door they will open to receive a Christmas message++. To reaffirm the date/door connection, ask each student to raise their hand as the whole class chants through the days of December, starting with “December 1st!” Affix the calendar in a prominent place and encourage students to open a new door at homeroom time (on a day without English class) or at the start of each English lesson. All class members observe the opening of the door, and should be encouraged to listen carefully to the Christmas message, read aloud by the receiving student.

NOTES:

+ For helpful information on the history of the Advent Calendar, visit http://www.sellmer-verlag.de/history.htm

++ Most students taped their seal to the top of their desk to serve as a reminder.

Many thanks to my predecessor Christine Parkinson for the super sizing idea!