Plays for the Holidays

This book of plays helps students understand, explore, and take part in American Holidays. There are 13 holiday plays in the book with pre-play activities to enrich the experience. Holidays include Independence Day, New Year’s Day, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Halloween and seven others. Each unit follows the same format:

• An Introduction to the contemporary practices of the holiday

• A Dictation (students listen and write as they prepare for the play)

• An Introduction to the contemporary practices of the holiday

• A Background Reading that provides more information about the play and an opportunity for students to practice reading comprehension skills

• A Pronunciation section that prepares students for words and phrases which will appear in the play and may be new to them

• A Matching exercise which helps students understand the meaning and use of the words they have pronounced and some of the words they will encounter in the play

• An Illustrated Poster that helps the students anticipate the play and be better prepared to deal with it as they go through the script for the first time

• The Playbill (students use it to decide who will have which parts in the play)

• The Play (students read through it several times until they are familiar enough to do the presentation of the actual play)