Poetry Coding for Christmas

by Hillary Kiser

I love Christmas in the classroom! It is a wonderful time of the year. Even for those students and teachers that don’t celebrate Christmas, it still feels magical in some way.

Today, we did a Poetry Coding activity using ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. Most students didn’t even know it was a poem that was later turned into a picture book. We talked about how it was written in the 1800’s. They also couldn’t believe it was “that old” as they said.

I put the students into groups of three people. Each group had the poem and a coding card.

I read the poem to the students first. During this time (I teach 4th grade) we talked about examples of figurative language, some of the “older” words in the poem that might not make sense to them, and the overall tone and mood of the poem. I found this very beneficial for the students when they began working in their groups.

The students then took the coding card and began “coding” their poem. The color of the bulbs on the coding card went with a specific characteristic for poetry (example: orange is figurative language.)

The students did a great job on the coding. Of course, some parts were harder than others. At first, we did not see any repetition but a student pointed out that “Dash away, Dash away, Dash away all” is an example of repetition. I was excited they were able to find it (since I had missed it.)

After they were done coding, I had each group get up and share some of the different characteristics they found in the poem. It was interesting to see the different things each group noticed.

Finally, I took up the poems and posted them outside our classroom on the wall. I placed on coding card up too so other students could see their work.

Here are a few end results:

Here is one classroom’s set in the hallway!

I am very proud of our students! They are doing a great job (and we are still learning during the week before Christmas break!) lol.

If you want this for your students, it can be found HERE.

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xoxo,

Hillary

62 thoughts on “Poetry Coding for Christmas”

  1. What a fun way to bring holiday fun to the classroom! Kids love coding and this activity suits all learners.

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  2. Poetry does not get enough exposure in most curriculums. This is a student-friendly way to highlight the genre during a season of giving.

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      1. How exciting! What an engaging way to keep the kiddos interested and engaged through the day. Fingers crossed 🤞 I’d love to be a winner!!!

  10. Wow, what an amazing way to get kids involved in figurative language this time of year! Thank you, thank you, as always

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  11. I love this! This would make color coding that much more engaging for the students. I’m so bummed we now do our poetry unit in February. There are so many fun Christmas ideas to use with poetry!

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  12. This is such a wonderful activity for students to really delve into the different aspects of poetry! I love how colorful and fun it is! My students would be so engaged with this activity!

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  13. We just finished a small poetry study that explored these skills during the Thanksgiving holiday time period. This would be a great time to come back to this for a review. It is a non-intimidating way to let the students help one another while brushing up on this again. Thank you for taking the time for creating this.

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  15. What a fun way to get students interested and excited about poetry but bringing in the holiday spirit! I’m needing to reteach poetry so I’m definitely using this resource!!

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  17. I love this fun way to incorporate poetry into one of my favorite Christmas books. Much like the children I tend to only think of it as a book. Can’t wait to do this with my children.

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  18. This is such a great idea for Christmas poetry. I also don’t tend to think of it as a poem, but it definitely is. I can’t wait to do activity with my children since reading this is one of their favorite Christmas traditions.

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  21. Love how engaging this activity is! I’m sure it really helps students understand the different parts of poetry.

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  23. I love how accessible this makes poetry for 4th grade students! I would love to try this coding activity!

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  28. I love that you displayed these in the hall! We have been doing so many digital activities lately, so I know my students (HS 2nd year ESL) will be excited about some hands-on learning. I just posted my reviews for both the holiday and non-holiday versions. Yay! Thank you so much! 🙂

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