We are getting full swing into the holiday season with these November holiday activities and ideas!
November is a busy month in the United States. Coming off of Halloween on the 31st (which you may have celebrated the first week of November) and then going into your first longer break of the year at Thanksgiving time, November can feel like it flies by!
In addition to the holidays, October and November are typically months when we see our first set of parent-teacher conferences, and it is the first change in the sports seasons as we move from our fall sports into winter sports.
If we aren’t careful and make plans to help slow everything down a bit, November and December turn into months where all we do is think ahead. As we explore the November holiday activities and ideas in this post, we are going to make a concerted effort to slow everything down and focus on November one day at a time.
November Holiday Activities and Ideas (for unexpected holidays)
Day of the Dead (November 2nd)
First on our list of November holiday activities is Day of the Dead.
Day of the Dead offers a unique opportunity to learn more about Mexican history and tradition.
Spend some time learning about the Day of the Dead and consider exploring some traditions and crafts associated with this Mexican and Latin American holiday. You can create colorful papel picado (cut paper) decorations or sugar skull crafts. Learn more about the Day of the Dead by watching a video or asking a classmate who celebrates the holiday to talk about their traditions. You may even be able to create a special space in the classroom where students who have lost loved ones can bring in pictures or mementos.
No matter what you do on this day, make sure that you are taking the time to really learn about why people celebrate the holiday with these traditions.
International Tongue Twister Day (November 8th)
I bet you didn’t even know this holiday existed, but here it is! International Tongue Twister Day!
Obviously, you can have students challenge themselves with various tongue twisters throughout the day, but you could also challenge them to write their own. Once you have some tongue twisters ready to go, have a competition to see who can say the most difficult tongue twisters (most times) without stumbling.
Another fun game to play is “Tongue Twister Telephone,” where students whisper a tongue twister to their neighbor and see if it comes out the same way at the end of the line.
National Origami Day (November 11th)
With computers so easily accessible, sometimes it feels like students don’t have an opportunity to use their hands often enough. On National Origami Day, that is not a problem we are concerned with.
Today is the day when we bring back all those fine motor skills to create art!
To get started, teach students different origami folding techniques and guide them in creating various origami models. When you’re done, organize an origami display in the classroom so the students can show off their creations.
If you want to take this one step further, challenge your students to choose a theme and then use their origami skills to decorate the classroom (or create a mural or large piece of art) to align with their chosen theme.
World Kindness Day (November 13th)
It is one of my favorite days of the year because I love everything it stands for: National Kindness Day!
To ramp up to National Kindness Day, find a selection of quotes about being kind and display them around the room or create coloring pages for students to work on that can be hung up around the school.
Lastly, use this holiday to teach kindness by putting students in situations where they have to choose kindness over competition, frustration, or disagreements. Do this by participating in group activities that promote teamwork.
National Recycling Day (November 15th)
National Recycling Day seems like the best time of the year to do a recycling audit in your school and consider/brainstorm with your students about what you can do as a class to reduce the amount of waste in your classroom.
Consider finding some videos that help talk about recycling and what other schools and communities are doing to reduce the amount of waste that goes into landfills.
Depending on the age of your students, you may consider organizing a recycling drive in the school or local community or creating recycled art projects using materials such as paper, plastic bottles, or cardboard.
Any of these types of activities help show students how materials can have more than one life before being tossed away.
Take a Hike Day (November 17th)
What a great day to get out and take a hike!
Now, depending on where you live, a ‘hike’ in the truest sense of the word may not really be a thing in your geographical location. If ‘hiking’ is not an option, then feel free to take a walk instead, but rather than focusing on the buildings around you or other people, find ways to focus more specifically on nature.
If you can’t leave the school, go outside into your recess space and look around. Maybe even lay on the ground and observe nature, whether that is by looking closely at the ground or gazing up at the sky.
If you’d like a few more focused activities for your ‘hike,’ create a nature scavenger hunt where students search for specific plants, animals, or natural landmarks, or you can engage your students more deeply by leading them in outdoor activities such as nature sketching, bird watching, or tree identification.
Although we all live in different environments, we can still enjoy a little ‘hike’ on this November holiday!
World Hello Day (November 21st)
One of my favorite ideas on the November Activities and Ideas list has to do with this simple holiday.
I love the idea of teaching students how to greet people throughout the world, and World Hello Day seems like a great day to do just that.
Pick 10 different countries from around the world and explore how they greet each other there. Spend time talking about the cultural differences that they consider respectful or disrespectful, and then practice that greeting as a class.
Another idea that takes a little more time to set up but would pay off in the long run, is to start your pen pal messages on this day.
If you have time and connections, you could create and exchange “Hello” cards or messages with students from different cultures or schools. This would be a fun way to establish a pen pal that students could write to throughout the year.
Lastly, you could also focus on greeting people in your own community. Collaborate with students to make greeting cards and little ‘welcome’ baskets that can be given to new students or families who join your community throughout the year.
Celebrate Your Unique Talents Day (November 24th)
I love any day that celebrates what makes people unique, and Celebrate Your Unique Talents Day is the perfect day to focus on exactly that!
On this fun holiday, provide students with the opportunity to showcase their unique talents or hobbies in a talent show or exhibition.
If you don’t have the time or energy to do a whole talent show or exhibition, you can do this as a show and tell time within the classroom or do an activity where students can interview and learn about each other’s talents.
Any day you can make students feel special or learn more about them is a great day in my book!
Red Planet Day (November 28th)
If you aren’t sure why Mars is called the Red Planet, this is the day to find out!
Learn about the planet Mars and its features, such as its red color and exploration missions.
Since this may not be a topic that you are familiar with, this is a great day to explore with your students by watching educational videos or documentaries about Mars and engaging in discussions about space exploration.
You may even create a timeline of Mars-related missions to see how far we’ve gotten in exploring Mars up to this date!
November Writing Activities
With so much going on in November, it can be really nice to have some firm, focused procedures in place. I love starting the day with the Holiday of the Day Writing Prompts. Each day in November, students will be introduced to a holiday and, through a short prompt, will learn a little bit about that day and be asked to write on a related topic.
These Holiday of the Day Writing Prompts can be used in a variety of ways, so if this is something you’re interested in, make sure to take a look at this linked blog post to learn more about how they can be used in the classroom!
November Reading Activities and Resources
For our November holiday activities, we have two different sets of Close Reads with Mystery Pictures that you can use to help your students work on their reading comprehension skills.
The first is the November set of Close Reads, which includes a fictional story about a girl who helps organize the children of a tribe to collect food for winter. The November set also includes two informational passages. The first is all about facts related to Pumpkin Pie, and the second is the history of the cornucopia.
The second set of Close Reads is focused on Thanksgiving.
Just like the November set, the Thanksgiving set of Close Reads with Mystery Pictures includes one fictional passage and two nonfiction/informational passages.
The fiction passage in this set is written as a paired passage with two different ways two families celebrate Thanksgiving and spend time with their families.
The nonfiction passages include a closer look at the differences between how Americans and Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving and an informational passage about the history of Thanksgiving.
Hopefully, with all of these November Activities and Ideas, you’ll be able to find a way to make this November focused and intentional.
Other Fun Seasonal Posts
- Planning for the Holiday Season in your Elementary Class Made Easy
- Thanksgiving Activities Before Break
- Holiday School Resources: Celebrate the Holidays without the Party
For even more monthly ideas, check out the full-year list of monthly blog posts below!
- January Holiday Activities and Ideas
- February Holiday Activities and Ideas
- March Holiday Activities and Ideas (Coming Soon)
- April Holiday Activities and Idea
- May Holiday Activities and Ideas
- June Holiday Activities and Ideas
- July Holiday Activities and Ideas
- August Holiday Activities and Ideas
- September Holiday Activities and Ideas
- October Holiday Activities and Ideas
- November Holiday Activities and Ideas
- December Holiday Activities and Ideas
