December is here, which means the holiday season is in full swing—bring some Yuletide cheer to your classroom with these Christmas classroom activities! An indisputable fact of this month is that your students are distracted by the festivities, especially as the winter break draws nearer and nearer, but no need to fret—we’re here to help!
Avoid the holiday brain drain and play into your students’ distraction by bringing the holiday celebrations into the classroom with themed activities. As a result, your students will be entertained by holiday assignments and learning! We’ve collected the following Christmas resources, including activity packets, reading assignments, and worksheets, all to brighten your classrooms with cheer and help your students practice key skills as the end of the semester comes near.
We’ve also curated a collection of Hanukkah activities, sure to bring even more joy into your classroom!
Christmas Reading Activities
1. Roll-a-Christmas-Story
Your students will love practicing their narrative writing skills with the help of this prompt tool! The only prep required is printing the included worksheets and sourcing dice for your students to use.
Students will roll their dice four times to determine four aspects of their stories: a character, the time of the setting, the place of the setting, and the conflict. Once they have their story elements, they can describe their ideas and develop their story in the organizer worksheet before writing the full story on the included writing paper. This activity is perfect for elementary classrooms, and can even be modified into a group activity!
Created and made available for free download by Create Teach Share.
2. What My Teacher Wants for Christmas Writing Activity
This next resource is another writing activity fit for elementary students, where you can see what they think you want for christmas! This activity is packed with different versions of prewriting sheets and writing paper, accessible to all levels of learning in your class. Students will be tasked with listing what they think their teacher (you!) wants for christmas, then consolidating their ideas into a letter to Santa on your behalf or a short opinion essay, depending on what you’d like your class to do.
Not only will you enjoy seeing what your students think you’ll be wishing for this Christmas, but your students will have fun practicing empathy and seeing if they nailed what you desire!
Created and made available for free download by I’ll Take Seconds.
3. Holiday Figurative Language Task Cards
This next resource will have your students working as diligently as Santa’s elves, having them practice their knowledge of figurative language! A fun break between writing exercises or other assignments, this activity includes 32 printable (and digitally available) flashcards of similes or metaphors. Students will evaluate each numbered flashcard and determine whether its Christmas-themed statement is a simile or a metaphor!
Laminating the flashcards, cutting them out, then printing one of each worksheet for each student is all the prep work required. To reduce that even more, project the flashcards in a slideshow and have your students answer on their own or in groups!
Created and made available for free download by Teaching With a Mountain View.
4. Christmas Reading Comprehension Activity
Our final ELA resource from TeachersPayTeachers is a reading comprehension exercise. Provided is a passage about the history of the Christmas holiday, paired with five multiple-choice reading comprehension questions and a free response activity. The free response exercise asks students to draw conclusions based on the nonfiction text by describing the two facts they believe to be most important.
Great for upper elementary/lower middle school students, this free, printable Christmas activity pack is easy to assign and an effective way for students to practice critical thinking this time of year.
Created and made available for free download by Rick’s Resources.
Christmas Reading Comprehension Passage from Piqosity
Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is one of the best Christmas books, a story your students probably know and love. We’ve included an embedded passage from our 6th grade English course’s unit on A Christmas Carol, paired with 10 reading comprehension questions, so your students can practice their ELA capabilities with a Yuletide spirit.
Christmas Math Activities
1. Christmas Multiplication Color-By-Numbers
Middle-upper elementary students can have the opportunity to color in fun, Christmas-themed pictures while practicing their multiplication skills with this color-by-number Christmas classroom activity!
In terms of prep work, all you need to do is print out these free worksheets and distribute them to your students. Students will be tasked with answering the multiplication question in each section of the artwork, then coloring it according to the provided key. Perfect for early finishers or for independent work, this will help your students practice their times tables before the holiday break!
Created and made available for free download by Glitter in Third.
2. 12 Days of Christmas Word Problems
Being comfortable working through word problems is crucial for all students, and this next activity is a great way to help your classroom practice!
This resource provides students with a chart of the presents from all the 12 days of Christmas, paired with 10 word problems about the various gifts. Your students will love how this assignment immerses them in a Christmassy world, especially if you encourage them to color the decorations on the sheets once they’re finished with the problems!
Created and made available for free download by Rachel Lynette.
3. Ugly Christmas Sweater Logic Puzzle
Logic puzzles are great warm-up or end-of-day exercises, and this one is no exception! The holiday twist makes it extra interesting to students, even your hard-to-please middle schoolers.
This free, printable activity will keep your students thinking in the midst of all the holiday cheer, as they try to figure out which holiday party attendee wore which ugly christmas sweater based on several provided clues. What would make this activity even more immersive is allowing your class to wear their own Christmas sweaters to class this day!
Created and made available for free download by Lindsay Perro.
4. Christmas Activity Sheets: Algebra
Teaching middle school math or Pre-Algebra? This activity will provide your students fun, holiday-themed practice in solving one-step algebraic equations.
These 30 algebra task cards, including all basic operations, will enrich your classroom all month long. Use them as exit tickets or warm-ups, in a scavenger hunt activity, in stations that groups can rotate through… the possibilities are endless! This resource even comes with a list of 20 game ideas for the task cards, so don’t feel pressured to come up with the perfect lesson plan. Plus, included are a student response worksheet and an answer sheet, all to help your classroom this busy holiday season.
Created and made available for free download by Promoting Success.
Christmas Math Problems from Piqosity
Christmas elves are sure to have a great grasp on math—they use it all the time in their jobs! We’ve created the following Christmas-themed math questions to quiz your students’ understanding of some key math concepts used this time of year.
Find More ELA and Math Resources at Piqosity!
We’re sorry that we couldn’t send you 23 birds, 5 golden rings, and 50 people of various professions, but we hope you’ve enjoyed these Christmas classroom activities! In thinking ahead for the next semester: you can find more (non-Christmas-themed) English, reading comprehension, and math lessons in our ELA and math courses! These are full-length courses available online through our app and can be purchased separately or received for free when bundled with our ISEE test prep courses.
Full-Length Math Courses:
- 5th Grade Math Course
- 6th Grade Math Course
- Pre-Algebra Course
- Algebra I Course
- Geometry Course (New!)
- Algebra II Course
Full-Length ELA Courses:
- 5th Grade English Course
- 6th Grade English Course
- 7th Grade English Course
- 8th Grade English Course
- 9th Grade English Course (New!)
- 11th Grade English Course
Don’t forget to explore our collection of Hanukkah activities, a perfect companion to these resources for any classroom.
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