The study of language arts includes reading, writing, speaking, listening and viewing or visual literacy. Developing language arts activities for students related to Christmas offers a special incentive and increases student motivation. Christmas writing activities can meet multi-age language development by tweaking the specific skill being addressed. Some ideas for Christmas writing theme activities are: The Night I Rode the Polar Express, the Horrible Christmas Gift Thank You Letter and the Christmas Traditions Book.

I Rode the Polar Express
The purpose of this writing activity is to have students pretend they were on the Polar Express and to write a letter to their best friend describing how the ride felt to them. They can write about the book as if they were one of the characters in the book or they can become a new character in the book. Depending on the age of the children, the teacher may have to read the book. If the students are proficient readers, they can read the book and then write their letters. The letters must include the parts of a friendly letter, including a heading, salutation, body, closing and signature.

Horrible Christmas Gift Thank You Letter
It is not uncommon to receive a Christmas gift that seems useless or is something you do not like or want. There are two purposes for this activity: to teach students how to write thank you letters and to teach about the spirit of giving. There are four steps to this activity.

Put all student names in a bag and have each student draw the name of a student who will receive their horrible gift.

Students are asked to find a horrible gift at home they can re-gift. They can make it even less desirable before wrapping it beautifully and adding a name tag. No disrespectful or inappropriate gifts can be given.

Plan and hold a Horrible Gift Christmas exchange party complete with holiday music, treats and unwrapping of gifts.

Following the party, students are to write a friendly letter to the person who gave them their gift. They must mention the gift, talk about how they will use it and how they appreciate the kindness and generosity of the giver. They must also include all of the parts of a friendly letter.

Christmas Traditions Book
Although the season of Christmas has defined traditions such as Christmas trees and Santa Claus, every family has its own traditions that make Christmas special to them. The purpose of this activity is to learn how families are different in their traditions and to learn about writing paragraphs with illustrations. The assignment is for students to write one to two paragraphs about a special family Christmas tradition and to draw a picture that depicts this tradition. The paragraphs must have correct punctuation and spelling and address one specific tradition. The teacher puts these into a Christmas Traditions Book and each child reads their page to the class.