Create a "Giving Thanks" Poster with Canva

THINK-PAIR-SHARE: a discussion about things that your students are thankful for.

Share some pictures which represent what you're thankful for. Say, "I'm thankful for..."  You can use any English appropriate for your ESL level.

Pair the students and have them discuss what they are thankful for. Scaffold the activity by presenting sentence starters for those who need it and provide a few written examples using the sentence starters. If internet-connected devices are available, students can find images of the things they talk about on Google. (This will come in handy during the practice stage.)

At the end of the activity, ask pairs to share out what they discussed and collect some of the key words in the answers on a vocabulary list on the board. The students can use these words in their poster project.

Students will be able to create a digital poster depicting what they are thankful for and share it with the class (and possibly the world).

Show the students the poster that you created on Canva if you have one. If not, use the example from this lesson.

Take the students through the process of creating a poster on Canva using the steps in the How-to section of this lesson plan. Be sure to include the steps for logging into the app, using the tools, and adding images. If you'd like to show them how to use the advanced tools like adding their own photos or using the AI apps, you could do that as well.

Include the language (vocabulary and sentence starters) that you used in the warm-up lesson. Some ideas are:

• • For lower-level classes, student can find pictures and label them with singular words or short sentences.
  • For mid-level classes, students can write sentences using the sentence starters in the warm-up and attach pictures to the statements.
  • For higher levels, you can increase the level of language complexity such as writing paragraphs or poems. They can then design around the paragraphs or poems with pictures, borders, etc.

Pro-Tip: If you can, record the modeling process and post it to your LMS or class website for students who forget steps or miss the class.

Students will log onto Canva and create their posters.

There are many choices for this stage:

• • Students can work individually on their posters.
  • Students can work individually and be grouped together to serve as 'IT buddies' for each other if they need help creating the poster.
  • Higher tech-abled students can be paired with lower tech-abled students to help as needed or collaborate on a poster.
  • Students can collaborate on a poster by using the 'share' function:
    • • Individual students can be assigned the Canva poster by using the students' school emails (or personal emails if allowed).
      • There is an option to set the collaboration link (in the 'share' section) to 'Anyone with the link'. The link can then be copied and shared with anyone in the group. 
  • Students can decide if they want to work alone or in a group.
  • In addition, for online or hybrid classes, students with limited access to the app can be paired with a student or a group with access and act as a 'project director' on a collaboration poster.

Once the projects are finished, the students and/or groups share the projects in class (see below) and give feedback to their peers:

• • You can project posters on the board and the creators can read the words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, or poems while the other students raise their hands if they are thankful for the same things.
  • You can print out the posters and have a gallery walk where the other students annotate things that they are also thankful for.
  • Students can create comprehension questions based on their (or their peers') posters, then exchange questions with others to create a reading comprehension activity.
  • Students can present their posters to the class and their classmates ask questions to clarify or expand on ideas in the poster.

Canva has many options for sharing posters:

• • Posters can be downloaded in many different formats, including pdf's, jpegs and pngs.
  • You can copy a 'public view' link and paste it into your LMS or any other website.
  • The poster can be presented within the Canva app. Students can share the poster with the teacher and the teacher can project the posters on the board.
  • There also an option in Canva to record a presentation that can be posted to your LMS or on social media.
  •  Canva can provide an embed code if you wish to embed the poster into an LMS or other site.
  • Many other options are available if you'd like to explore more.

Students can share these posters on their social media. Canva provides links to many popular social media websites.

Canva also has options to email or text links to the posters, so students could send out seasonal greetings to family and friends.

Students can also create additional posters with their family and share the results with the class later.