Celebrating Winter at TheHolidayZone.com

The Holiday Zone offers free educational resources for use in early childhood and elementary educational settings. Holiday and seasonal materials include learning games, whole language activities, writing prompts, songs, action rhymes, printable worksheets, printable and interactive puzzles, coloring pages, and children's literature recommendations. This site is child-friendly and does contain some content geared specifically toward children, but is targeted primarily toward educators, child care providers, and parents. The intended audience includes preschool teachers, kindergarten teachers, elementary classroom teachers, homeschoolers, parents, grandparents, and others who work with children

The Holiday Zone also offers resources created especially for use in the ESL/EFL classroom. ESL teachers and EFL teachers alike will find information and reproducible materials to help their ELL students gain a better understanding of traditional western holidays. ESL/EFL resources include reading comprehension activities, holiday vocabulary guides, printable illustrated word wall cards, puzzles, worksheets, and discussion topics geared specifically toward English language learners (ELLs). Interactive reading comprehension tasks, interactive quizzes, and interactive puzzles are also being added for the benefit of English language learners who visit this site.

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Last updated 2.6.2023

		Winter Celebrations	Officially begins December 21, 2023
		Visit this page to find a variety of songs, action rhymes, coloring pages, puzzles, crafts, games, worksheets and other activities to celebrate the season of winter.
		Hanukkah	Begins at sundown on December 7, 2023
		Hanukkah (also spelled Chanukah) is an eight-day celebration that begins on the 25th day of the month of Kislev. A Jewish holiday, Hanukkah commemorates the miraculous victory of the Jews, led by the Maccabees, over the Greeks and Antiochus Ephipanes. Hanukkah marks the end of religious persecution and oppression. Hanukkah reminds the Jewish people of God's faithfulness to them as well.
		Christmas	December 25, 2023
		Christmas is the annual Christian commeration of the birth of Jesus Christ, generally celebrated on December 25. It is also a legal holiday in many countries including the United States and Canada.
		New Year's Day	January 1, 2023
		The oldest of all holidays, New Year's Day was first celebrated in Babylon about 4,000 years ago.Later civilizations continued the tradition, but the early Roman Catholic Church banned all celebration of the day due to its pagan history. Not until the seventeenth century did the western world once more begin to celebrate on the first day of each year.
		Martin Luther King Jr. Day	January 16, 2023
		Few men have influenced contemporary U.S. history as much as Martin Luther King Jr. An African-American minister, King called for an end to racial discrimination and led civil protests against discrimination throughout the United States. His life is now commemorated on the first Monday after his birthday (January 15) each year.
		Black History Month	Observed throughout the month of February
		This page offers crafts, songs, printable resources, games, discussion topics and other activities for celebrating Black History Month.
		Valentine's Day	February 14, 2023
		Stories about the origin of Valentine's Day abound. One popular legend traces the holiday back almost 2000 years. The Roman emperor Claudius made it illegal for young men to get married without his permission. One priest, St. Valentine, defied the emperor's command and secretly performed marriages. When Claudius found out, he had Valentine thrown in jail. Then, on February 14, Valentine was executed. About two centuries later, the church named February 14 Valentine's Day in his honor. Today, people give flowers, candy, cards, and gifts to the people they love on this special day.
		Presidents Day	February 20, 2023
		Celebrated the third Monday of February, Presidents Day began as a tribute to America's First President, George Washington and is still officially titled "Washington's Birthday." In recent years, the holiday has evolved into a day to honor all of America's past presidents.