The Ultimate Winter Resource For Teachers is an old website that collected a mass of resources, created by teachers. The site provides: craft ideas, lesson plans, worksheets and much, much more for teachers to use during winter and the festive season!
The teacher who collected these resources and made the page (Colleen Gallagher) declares: “Well the weather outside may be frightful, but I am sure the learning inside your classroom is delightful. This page will help you teach during the winter months. Ideas of all kinds can be found here! You may want to bookmark this page now and use it during the winter months. We have three categories that are loaded with many topics: themes, literature units, and free gifts. Enjoy exploring them all. Many of the ideas are my ideas, some come from other thoughtful teachers (as stated next to idea), and many are ideas I have collected through the years from various sources.”
Sadly, the site – called Teaching Heart – is no longer being updated, it seems to have stayed the same since 2013; but, if you have not seen it before, have a look as it is somewhat of a treasure trove! The winter and Christmas ideas have many, free to download, worksheets; however, more valuable are the ideas, which may be new and inspirational.
There is a whole Polar Express Book Project which is full of imaginative ideas. I downloaded a polar express ticket and just by putting that up on the whiteboard, I can imagine children thinking about adventures on the Polar Express! The children have a tiny bell for the story reading and a cardboard bell to decorate at the end – great fun!
Sadly, some of the links mentioned in the Ultimate Winter Resource For Teachers site are already dead – I went to the Chinese new Year section and all of the web links offered were broken – so the site is a bit of a mixed blessing. Nevertheless, it provides many ideas and free resources but the shop that was started to sell some of the items mentioned, along with some of the web links, have unfortunately gone. Colleen has however now set up a Facebook page which does seem to be updated regularly.
