Bring some holiday spirit to your classroom with these fun tech lessons!
Google’s Santa Tracker
Google’s Santa Tracker has a game for every day till Christmas. Students can choose the clothing colors for Santa’s elves, share a texting conversation between Santa and his reindeer, prepare and send a phone message from Santa to a friend, play games of skill, and explore Santa’s village. On Christmas Eve, Santa will unveil the dashboard of Santa’s sleigh.
This is a super fun center for your classroom computer, and it gives practice with basic keyboard and mouse use. Most activities do not require reading, and there are no Santa spoilers, so you can enjoy this with kids of all ages. Santa lets “big kids” create mp3 greetings for friends, and offers a nice collection of things to celebrate, from la Navidad and Kwanzaa to Winter and the Season.
Journey North
On the way to the solstice (that’s a holiday, too!), track seasonal changes with Journey North. There are ideas and activities that won’t require every student to have a computer, which is nice if you don’t have the ideal level of access, but students can still see how data can be collected, organized, and shared through the use of modern technology. You can communicate with other observers of seasonal signs, add information to the sum of knowledge, and use live cams to observe a number of different animals.
Joining the Citizen Scientists who support Journey North, whether you make a class project of it with a Seasonal Showcase or just set up a computer center and let kids explore on their own, can provide deeper understanding of the seasons as well as real world opportunities to use technology for science.
Interactive Reindeer Orchestra
Care2’s Reindeer Orchestra is pretty silly, but it offers some intensive keyboard and mouse practice, number recognition, and a bit of musical fun, too. Set it up as a center at your classroom computer. Challenge students to make their own tunes. Have students write them out on paper as a series of numbers and leave them for others to play.
If you teach music, let students use the reindeer with sheet music. Ask them which key works best!
