Christmas Tongue Twisters Lesson

Alliteration and Tongue Twisters Are Educational and Fun

Snowflake Christmas Cookies & Peppermint Candy Cane Holiday Food Background
Funwithfood / Getty Images

Everyone knows the popular tongue twister "She sells seashells on the sea shore." This Christmas, teach your students about alliteration and let them try and create a few fun holiday tongue twisters of their own. Here's how.

Explaining Alliteration

Start your lesson by saying the popular tongue twister mentioned above. Then, ask students if they have ever heard of this saying before. Discuss that this play on words is called alliteration, which is a literary element. Ask them if they can guess from your example what alliteration might mean. Try and get students to work towards a definition like this: Alliteration is defined as the repetition of consonants at the beginning of words in any piece of writing. Make sure that students understand that alliterative words do not have to start with same letter or letters but it can be like ( i.e. chilly and silly). You can give students the example below.

  • The pots and pans were Peter's prized possessions.

Next, have students try and brainstorm some words. Write the letter "H" on the front board and ask students to try and think of names, place, animals, or food that begins with the same sound of that letter. Let them try and come up with at least five words for each category. Then, as a class try and come up with a tongue twister using the words from the categories.

Tongue Twisters

Once they have gotten the hang of what alliteration is and how it works, then you can let them loose to try and create festive tongue twisters on their own. Extend the lesson by asking your students to illustrate a tongue twister or two. Let them use a dictionary and/or thesaurus to kick their twisters up to the next level of complexity. Here are a few Christmas tongue twisters to get you started:

  • Crazy kids clamor for candy canes and Christmas cookies.
  • Toy trains travel and toot along the track.
  • Hal had happy holiday holly.
  • Prancer presents pumpkin pies and presents.
  • Chilly children cheer and chant on chilly nights.
  • Santa sings silly songs about sleighs slipping supper fast in the sun.
  • Tiny Tim trims the tallest tree with tons of terrific tinsel.
  • Red-nosed Rudolph romps readily 'round ruby wreaths.
  • Blitzer bobbles a billion brilliant bells.
  • Santa's super sleigh slips so swiftly through the snow.
  • Shiny stars sparkle on silver sleighs.
  • Ten tiny toy soldiers tinker with twenty toy trains.
  • Santa's stuffed sack sags and slumps.

Edited by: Janelle Cox

Format
mla apa chicago
Your Citation
Lewis, Beth. "Christmas Tongue Twisters Lesson." ThoughtCo, Apr. 5, 2023, thoughtco.com/christmas-tongue-twisters-lesson-2081605. Lewis, Beth. (2023, April 5). Christmas Tongue Twisters Lesson. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/christmas-tongue-twisters-lesson-2081605 Lewis, Beth. "Christmas Tongue Twisters Lesson." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/christmas-tongue-twisters-lesson-2081605 (accessed March 29, 2024).