• The Christmas holidays can inspire writing projects in children.christmas presents under christmas tree image by Maria Brzostowska from Fotolia.com
  
  It is vital that children learn good language skills while in elementary school to enable them to express themselves in written form in and out of school. There are creative ways to inspire third graders to write about Christmas if you choose one of their favorite subjects, such as Christmas decorations, winter activities or Santa Claus.
  
  

Christmas Around the World

• Assign each child a different country in the world or have them choose their own. Help them research the different Christmas traditions, foods and activities that other cultures enjoy during the holiday season. This will teach the children that although we are different in many ways from other countries, there are also many things we have in common.
  
  

Acrostic Poem about Christmas

• Acrostic poems are an interesting way to teach children to use a thesaurus or dictionary, because they have to think of descriptive words beginning with particular letters. Have them write a Christmas word down the left side of their paper, for instance, "reindeer," "Santa," "blessings," "Christmas" or "holiday." Tell them to make sure these words are in capitals and larger than the other words they will add so they can see the word that the acrostic letters form. If they choose the word "Santa," they will start with the S line on their page and write a sentence about Santa such as "Special gifts he gives to others." The children can just use adjectives to describe Santa, such as "sweet," "smiling" and "sincere." The children will go down each line and continue in the same format to create their own individual acrostic.
  
  

Alliteration About the Christmas Holidays

• Children enjoy writing in the alliterative style because it becomes a tongue twister that is sure to bring laughter. Have them think of a Christmas theme for an alliterative poem. In alliteration, each line contains a few words that start with the same letter, such as "Santa sneaks down the chimney slowly." This exercise will soon teach them how handy a thesaurus can be when composing a written project and help them not to rely on common, everyday words when trying to compose a report or other written project.