Holiday Literacy Activities

Since many tutors and students won't be meeting regularly over the Holiday season, we have put together several literacy activity ideas for students to work on on their own if they have some free time. This way, students have the opportunity to continue developing their reading and writing skills even over a long break. Tying these activities into Christmas makes them all the more enjoyable and relevant to students.

So here is our list of activity ideas, which we will be updating periodically as we come up with more of them. Please feel free to post comments sharing your own ideas for holiday literacy activities with other tutors and students:

• Have your student write in a journal each day throughout the holidays, describing Christmas traditions and activities in which they are participating.
• Give your student a holiday book to read over the break.
  
• Give students a list of holiday vocabulary words and have them look one up each day.
• Have your student watch a holiday movie or play and then write a review about it as if they were a critic.
• Ask your student to look up Christmas jokes to share with you and have them be able to tell you what the jokes mean.
• Find Christmas story starters for your student so they can write a few Christmas stories of their own. http://www.abcteach.com/free/s/storystarters_christmas.pdf has some good story starters.
• Give your student a Christmas Crossword Puzzle or Word Search to do over the Holidays. http://holidays.kaboose.com/xmas-word.html is one website with such games.
• Students can make Christmas cards for their family and friends.
• Have your student look up information about a particular holiday tradition to learn more about it.
  
• Students can write letters to Santa (and practice addressing an envelope).
• Create a Christmas Mad Lib for your student.

Some websites with additional Christmas activities:
http://www.esl-galaxy.com/holiday.html
http://www.kented.org.uk/NGFL/festivals/xmas.htm#act

There are many more possible Christmas activities. Please post a comment with your ideas!

Annual Christmas Party & Award Banquet

We appreciate everyone who attended the Project Read Annual Christmas Party and Award Banquet. The evening was lovely, the food delicious, the entertainment beautiful, and of course it was wonderful to spend the evening with friends and recognize the hard work and contributions of Project Read tutors and students. We appreciate those board members who attended, and we look forward to an even better year in 2009.

We especially appreciate our sponsors, Lon's Cookin' Shack & Outback Steakhouse who provided the pork & potatoes for the meal. In addition, Costa Vida, Bajio, Magleby's, Los 3 Amigos, Macaroni Grill, Chik-Fil-A, Nicolitalia Pizza, Fazoli's, & Honey Baked Ham donated gift certificates for the awards to tutors & students.

Project Read Director Shauna K. Brown recognized Toni Johnson as the Tutor of the Year:

Other outstanding tutors and students were also recognized:

Project Read Program Coordinator Bryan Bennett and some of his friends (Michelle Parker, Anneli Hansen, Julie Chatfield, Mandi Alexander, Charla Aranda, Taylor Ralston, and Scott Richards; Jamie Williams on the piano and Elizabeth Zenger on the violin) provided beautiful entertainment including several choral numbers and a violin/piano duet:

The food (provided by Lon's Cookin' Shack & Outback Steakhouse) was delicious and everyone had an enjoyable evening:

A visit from Santa Claus (with gift bags) was the highlight for the many children in attendance: