The Christmas Wish Book and Craft

The Christmas Wish is a beautiful book. It’s perfect for your classroom in the month of December. December can be an exciting time of year for children that celebrate Christmas. I found this book and it was the perfect read aloud for my 2nd and 3rd graders.

She also meets a musk ox who helps her to go under the glacier to the tundra where there was a waiting polar bear.  They travel a while and then they rest.  Anja reads the polar bear a story as he naps.  I love how this little girl becomes to connected to the animals that are helping her.

Finally, Anja hears sleigh bells.  It’s a reindeer! She offers the reindeer an apple she has in her pocket.  Anja spends a great deal of time in the book skiing. Now the reindeer is too fast so she ends up skiing in the air pulled by the reindeer!

Finally, in a clearing in the snow covered trees, Anja meets Santa! Santa appreciates the kindness and joy she spreads where ever she goes so he thinks she will make a great elf.

Then, he does something so exciting – he asks Anja to drive his sleigh!  Anja does and then she drives it back to her home just before Christmas morning.  Before he leaves, Santa gives her a very special gift. It’s a magical bell.  He tells her to ring it three times if she ever needs help.

Then she wakes up.

Was it all a dream?    The last sentence says, “What do you think?”

So of course this is a great writing prompt!  I had my students tell me whether they thought it was a true story or not. We wrote in our Mindful Journals: Do you think Santa would let YOU drive the sleigh?  Why or why not?

Then, we created this craft as a cute way for students to “ride” on Santa’s sleigh like Anja.  You can have your students write specific gifts for family members or like my students, we followed Anja’s lead and wrote positive things we could DO on the gift.  We attached the gifts with gift ribbon and tucked them into the sleigh.  You can also add a picture of the student inside the sleigh made to look like they were flying the sleigh if you wish.  You can print it on red construction paper or on tag board and decorate it.  I printed it on red construction paper and the gifts on tag board.  Students used glitter for the sleigh and colored the gifts with pencil crayons.  They printed the words on with a thin Sharpie.

They sure had fun with this!

Here is a free copy of the printable.  I have included one sheet with all for tag board and 2 separate ones if you want to print one on red construction paper and one for the gifts on tag or white. Click on the picture to download.

To further promote the idea of kindness and giving, my students will be using my popular Thoughtful Christmas Writing Prompts for Caring Kids writing activities.  Now it is their turn to show how they can be grateful and giving over the holidays.  Teachers love how students are given the opportunity to write about something other than gifts at Christmas time.  Students love the feel of writing about giving. Topics include: favorite Christmas family memories, what it means to give the “gift of time”, what you could give someone that doesn’t cost money and more.

You can check it out here:

For even more Christmas ideas:  check out my bundle of Christmas Literacy Ideas! (There’s even some Math in there!).