As Christmas gets closer, I love to teach my students about holidays around the world. I like to use folktales and other books that teach different traditions students may not be familiar with. This is a great way to integrate social studies and language arts. This week we are spotlighting a German Christmas story, Cobweb Christmas. Whether you are teaching about different holiday traditions or just looking for a good read aloud this book is a great choice! - Jodi and the Starts With a Story Team
SUMMARY
Cobweb Christmas is a German folktale that explains why people decorate their Christmas tree with Tinsel. It tells the story of an old woman called Tante by those in her village. Each year, Tante gets her home ready for Christmas by cleaning and going out to get a Christmas tree. Tante would make her own decorations from the tree, covering it in treats for the animals. Once everything was ready, she would share her tree with the children and animals. When Tante finally fell asleep, Christkindel was off delivering presents. He saw hundreds of spiders outside Tante’s house, hoping to view the tree. Christkindel let them in and discovered they’d woven webs all over the tree. Not wanting to upset Tante he turned the webs into tinsel. Tante was awoke to the marvelous tree and continued to decorate her tree that way year after year.
USE THIS BOOK TO TEACH:
Cobweb Christmas is a read aloud that lends itself to so many different lessons. While our list of ideas could go on and on, we’ve provided 8 great skills to teach below.
- There are SO many great vocabulary words in this book. Use it as a way to expose students to new words.
- As you read, don’t show students the pictures. Have them practice their visualization skills,
- Encourage students to use their summarizing and retelling strategies.
- Tie the read aloud into your narrative or informational writing unit.
- Get students writing by making lists with topics from the story.
- Introduce or review adjectives and adverbs with your students.
- Teach students a new suffix and give examples from the book.
- Discuss the importance of empathy and kindness.
NO-PREP PRINTABLE ACTIVITIES:
If you are looking for “ready to go” activities for the first day of school, be sure to check out the book companion. With it you’ll receive all of the following resources to align with this specific book:
- comprehension questions
- 30 writing prompts with themed paper
- vocabulary activities
- word study print & go activities
- ideas for grammar lessons with focus sentence printables
- social emotional learning discussion topics
- graphic organizers to target specific comprehension skills and strategies
Starts With a Story provides teachers with everything they need to use the read aloud Cobweb Christmas in their classroom. Just how easy is it? Download and print the resource, read the summary, select the topics you want to teach, and make copies of student worksheets. That’s it! The only challenge you’ll have is deciding which great ideas you want to use.
GET THE PRINTABLE ACTIVITIES
ADDITIONAL BOOK SUGGESTIONS
You and your students will also love these similar books:
- The Legend of Old Befana by Tomie dePaola
- The Legend of the Poinsettia by Tomie dePaola
- The Tomten by Astrid Lindgren
- The Night Tree by Eve Bunting
TRY OUT A SAMPLE COMPANION
It's hard to explain how amazing the Starts with a Story book companions are because there is just so much goodness included in each one. It's best if you experience using one for yourself. Sign up below & we'll send you an entire book companion to try out for FREE!
