Winter break is ending. The Sunday scaries are descending. And for me, the night before school after a long break was always the WORST for my anxiety because WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH THE KIDS ON MONDAY??
The weeks leading up to winter break are a frenetic, chaotic mess of celebratory energy, but the month of January has a tendency to lie flat. What’s there to look forward to aside from MLK Jr. Day and maybe a staff development or snow day?
The days are cold and short. The month is long. And the celebratory energy has departed for the holiday season.
Now, that I’ve fully depressed you, what can we do to make January not suck?
I have three tried and true ways to make your welcome back to the classroom one that’s fun, engaging, and rewarding. You’ll be looking forward to Monday morning! (Well, maybe not looking forward to, but definitely not dreading. : ))
#1. Halfway to Last Day Activity
If you’re looking for an activity to ease you and your students back into learning, this is a great one. It’s a review activity that has students reflecting on what they’ve read or learned the first half of the year.
I concocted this lesson plan because I wasn’t ready to jump right into a new book with my students after winter break, but I wanted something that had them dusting off the skills we’d learned in the first half of the year, using their opinions to make answering questions accessible, and engaging their critical thinking skills.
The Lesson
You can adapt this for any course. However, because I was an English teacher, I am going to use that experience to write out directions for the lesson when giving examples.
Step 1: Create Questions
- Think back on the books, concepts, eras, etc. that you worked through with your students from September to December. (Ex. I would have read Oedipus Rex, The Alchemist, and The Crucible with them by this point along with assorted short stories.)
- Create opinion-based questions and statements and/or trivia questions about those works, concepts, eras, etc. (Ex. Who was the most villainous villain? Who was the best hero? Who was the most tragic hero? Best poem award goes to…)
- You can write the questions on scraps of paper that the students take out of a paper bag OR you can write your questions into a wheel like this one.
Step 2: Divide Your Students into Teams or Pairs
- This part you can do in one of two ways:
- Speed Date: Put the students in pairs sitting across from one another. When the question is chosen, give the students a few minutes to discuss. Have them write down notes about the discussion. Then, at the end of the time have one side of the pairs move down a seat so that they are talking to a new partner about the next question chosen.
- Trivia Teams: Divide students into teams (up to you how many students you want on a team.)
- You can have students discuss their answers with one another and have a team representative give their team’s response OR…
- You can have buzzers and one team buzzes in with a response and then the other teams can give a rebuttal.
Step 3: Tying It All Together
- At the end of the class period, give students a reflection sheet with questions that synthesize their experience.
- Ex. What response from your classmates did you agree with most? What response from your classmates did you agree with least? What response from your classmates most surprised you? Etc.
The Goal of the Lesson
Not to be a Debbie Downer again but coming back from a long winter break is hard. You get a collection of experiences upon returning that range from students who had the best break ever and don’t want it to end all the way to students who were abused, neglected, and/or didn’t receive gifts. How can you put all those feelings and experiences into a classroom and expect those students to be their best, brightest, and most refreshed selves ready to learn?
I’m all about the easing in.
A new year for me means reflecting, planning, and setting up systems for success. How do we do that? By giving our students time, space, and skills to work out what’s going on in those brains of theirs. But that doesn’t mean that we have to sacrifice learning.
Honorable Mentions
I didn’t realize I was going to end up going all in on this one particular lesson. However, when I originally set out to write this blog, I had a few other lessons in mind. So, I’d like to give them space here.
HM #1: Open the Year with Your Favorite Novel
Usually in this December/January period I’d teach some back-to-back combo of The Great Gatsby and A Streetcar Named Desire because I had the best time teaching them. These works lend themselves to juicy analysis questions, engaging discussions, and personal reflection.
If you’d like to check out these units, you can find them below in my TpT store, The Bookish Classroom.
HM #2: Six Word Memoirs
I would use this as a combination reflection/creative writing activity and had success with even my most challenging classes. This gives students space to give voice to their feelings while also building their creative writing skills.
To learn more about six-word memoirs and how to implement them in your classroom, click here.
Happy New Year!
I hope you had a restorative winter break and are ready to start the year off fresh and excited for what’s to come. I also hope you take time for yourself to ease into this second half of the school year.
You’ve done great work. You’re doing great work. You will do great work. There’s so much ahead to look forward to.
How are you opening 2026 with your students? Let me know in the comments! I’d love to hear from you!
If you want more unit plans, assessments, daily lesson plans, and more, check out my TpT store, The Bookish Classroom, where my goal is to always make your life in the classroom easier by giving you thoughtful, engaging lessons.
Cheers to a happy, healthy 2026.
Robyn Neilsen 