If you’ve been around the TAH world for a while – you know my students are my babies. When you have students for so many years in a row and get such a close bond with them, you can’t help but become just a bit attached! So just like any great family – we have some traditions in my classrooms around the holiday season. Kids with autism love a good tradition. That routine and sameness takes away the anxiety of the unknown. Traditions are predictable. My students literally have a checklist of everything we have to do in December. But don’t worry – I gotta throw some curve balls in there somewhere 🙂
Christmas Cards: In the past we have done a photo card, but I took the opportunity this year to try something new. I have a student who has been having a rough year. Low self esteem, zero self confidence, and just in general – feeling pretty crappy all the time. My heart breaks for him and I have been thinking of every chance to boost him up. He is a great artist so our class ‘hired’ him to make our Christmas card. He got SO into and LOVED seeing his art work on the computer as we added the text and heading etc. He kept saying, “I can’t stop looking at it!” So sweet!
Parent Presents: This year we made foam ornaments!
Holiday Party: Check out the activities we did last year! This year’s party is sure to bring just as much fun 🙂
Mom Visit: My mom loves visiting my classroom and it’s become a tradition that she brings some special Christmas books to read aloud.
Gingerbread House: How can you not love this activity! We usually do it as part of our holiday party!
Secret Santa: This was a new tradition this year! I’m not gonna lie – it was tricky. Like really tricky. Like I almost regretted doing it but not really. Ugh. The concept was a little hard for some of my guys. When we started – we realized that – dang – some of my kiddos don’t even know what a secret is. So we had to start at square one. Literally. It ended up being pretty good though. This was the first step. I bet this new tradition will work even better next year. That’s the beauty of traditions. You can always try again next year. We bought some goodies and made a pretend store so of course we could trick them into working on some math while we were at it!
- Planning for the Fall: Part 4 and 5 – Visually Structured Tasks and Routines - January 30, 2026
- Using TAH Curriculum for Homeschooling from a Homeschooling Parent - September 10, 2022
- Using The Autism Helper Curriculum for Homeschool - August 8, 2022
