Cozy Season

I hope all my U.S.-based readers had a restful and enjoyable Thanksgiving break last week. And now suddenly, here we are in December!

At this time of the year, I find myself wanting to snuggle in and embrace the coziness of the colder weather. Depending on where you live and the changes in temperature from season to season, this feeling may be more or less pronounced. But at least here in the Midwest where I live, late fall and winter are definitely peak cozy season!

If your students come from countries where it is warm year-round, the concept of “cozy” could be a bit challenging to explain! So I decided to put together a simple presentation you can use to introduce the idea and start a conversation with your learners about what defines “cozy” and what things and activities feel cozy.

To introduce this topic, you could bring in a few items that represent coziness to you. Maybe a warm sweater, a candle, fuzzy socks or slippers, a throw blanket, a package of tea or hot chocolate, etc.

As you pass them around, ask your students, “What could these things have in common?” To get them on the right track, you might prompt, “What time of year would we use these things? What would the weather be like? How do you feel when you are wearing/using/drinking this?”

Go through the Cozy Season presentation to explain the concept of coziness. Here is some of the key vocabulary you might want to highlight:

• warm

• comfortable

• snuggle

• fuzzy

• hot chocolate/cocoa

• slippers

Use the prompts on the last slide to help students describe what would feel cozy to them. You can use these sentence starters for a pair conversation activity, or as a writing assignment:

• It feels cozy to. . .

• I feel cozy when I. . .

• My favorite cozy winter activity is. . .

You might even ask students to bring an item (or a photo of the item) that feels cozy to them to the next class session.

For an additional activity, you might show your class a series of photos depicting cozy scenes along with other scenes we would not consider cozy (perhaps standing outside in the rain, sitting on the beach, taking a hike in the woods, etc.) Ask, “Does this look cozy? Why or why not?”

Is my presentation missing any essential cozy items or activities? I would love to add your ideas to the slides if you have more coziness to share!

Thank you for reading and I would love to hear if you use this presentation or some of these ideas with your class!

Wishing you a very cozy winter season,

Bethany