Reader’s theater is a great teaching resource to try in your middle school classroom during the holidays. As a 7th grade teacher, I aim to create ELA activities that are both engaging and purposeful to use during the days leading up to Christmas break. Students definitely get restless during this stretch, so tools like these holiday readers theater scripts help capture interest and keep us on track with our reading and writing lessons.
Most language arts teachers are familiar with the concept of read alouds, and reader’s theater is similar except that students are assigned to characters in the script. There are many educational benefits to reading aloud, and reader’s theater provides more participation opportunities, as well as a broad selection of individual and small group activities to use alongside each script.
Most of my reader’s theater scripts are inspired by the students and events I’ve had in the middle school classroom. My holiday scripts are no different in that they feature middle schoolers banding together to work through a challenge they ultimately created for themselves. If you are looking for some engaging ELA holiday activities then check out the scripts I have featured below.
The Show Must Go On – A Christmas Readers Theater
The Show Must Go On is a holiday story about a group of 6th graders who look back at the time they almost had to cancel their holiday musical due to some misbehavior in music class. Fortunately, they were able to work together and offer a unique solution to preserve one their favorite holiday traditions.
This 7-page, 13-character script can be used with all class sizes, either by splitting up the individual parts or by breaking out into small groups. The following comprehension activities are included along with answer keys:
- Context clue worksheet for word work
- Reader response questions
- Related journal prompts
- Summary strategy organizer
- Bonus snowflake craft activity
- See full description on TPT
The Snowball Toss – A Snow Day Reader’s Theater
The Snowball Toss shares the lesson of why rules are important as a single thrown snowball leads to a series of unfortunate events. As always, my middle school characters find a positive lesson in the experience and your students will too! This is a great script to use before or after a school snow day.
This 5-page, 11-character script works well with all class sizes. You can assign multiple students to a single part, or as I often do, break the class up into small groups and return for a full class discussion. The following comprehension activities are included along with answer keys:
- Context clue worksheet for word work
- Reader response questions
- Journal prompt about the importance of rules
- Summary strategy organizer
- Book cover design activity
- See full description on TPT
Holiday Reading Activities
Reader’s theater is an easy win for teachers looking for holiday reading activities. You might be surprised how much your middle school students love performing these scripts! The storylines also inspire great classroom discussions, which is one reason I like to break out into small groups for the reading. It is interesting to hear different perspectives of the story from the different groups.
I hope the post inspires you to experiment with reader’s theater with your big kids. It is a great tool for practicing fluency, comprehension and word work all within the same lesson plans. If you are looking for more December ELA ideas, I shared a few of my favorites in this blog post.
