The VizZle shared library has some terrific examples of winter holiday-themed lessons – way too many to highlight all of them here. Besides–it’s impossible to pick the “best” in any case, because the “best” has the content and difficulty level you need for that child, at that moment (not necessarily the prettiest with all the bells and whistles that I am partial to showing off here). So here are 5 tips on finding the best lessons for you and your kids this holiday season.

1) If you don’t have a VizZle license, sign up for a free trial!

You are welcome to sign up for a free trial and explore to find (or edit, or create) exactly what you need. Click on the big orange SHARE to enter the shared lesson library. Try some of the keyword searches. You can send yourself VizZleGrams of lessons you like best (I send myself VizZleGrams to collect the lesson information and playable links I post here in VTips).

2) Use Keyword “Christmas”

When you search the library, try keyword “Christmas” you’ll get lessons for the other winter break holidays along with Christmas lessons. You can run separate searches for “Hanukkah” or “Kwanzaa” to get results specific to those holidays if that’s what you need. “Winter holidays” has a ton of returns, but you’ll get some Valentine’s and Groundhog Day lessons too.

3) Use KeyWORDS, Not Sentences

You can also try two-word searches, like “Christmas counting” or “Christmas vocab”. But don’t use longer phrases or sentences—the shorter the keyword phrase, the more likely you are to get accurate and fruitful returns.

4) Read the Description Before You Open It

It will save you time if you check out the lesson’s description in the Activity Summary before you open it. The description should give you a pretty good idea if the lesson is what you are looking for, so you won’t waste time opening lessons that aren’t even close to what you need.

5) The Same Title Doesn’t Mean It’s a Duplicate!

We try to make sure that there is a lot of variety, but no exact duplicates in the library. If you see titles that are exactly the same, but the lesson type icons are different, those lessons are likely to support each other (like a matching board to quiz comprehension for the book of the same title). If the lesson title and the lesson type are exactly the same, you’ll probably find differentiating features by reading the description (for instance one will have audio and the other won’t, or one is an edit with videos or other features added by a different author).

Holiday-Themed Sample Lessons

May all of your holiday lesson searches be fruitful! Here are two of my favorites with winter holiday themes (a lower level and then a more advanced social skills lesson) but I hope you’ll go search and find exactly what you need!

• Ornaments on my Tree (Book), VizZle ID Number: 23174
  Images and simple text w/ audio about the ornaments being put on the Christmas tree, with popup counting quizzes, 8 pages
  (No access to VizZle? Click here for a browser version—remember to maximize your browser and click play at the bottom.)
• Opening Presents (Book), VizZle ID Number: 8029
  Images and text with audio about why we should say thank you, and how to do so, when receiving a gift during the holidays, with popups and quizzes for reinforcement, 17 pages
  (No access to VizZle? Click here for a browser version—remember to maximize your browser and click play at the bottom.)