Christmas Activities for Kids

The Christmas season is one of my absolute favorite times in the classroom. The excitement, the crafts, the sparkle, it’s such a joyful time to be working with kids. But let’s be honest… it’s also a very busy time of year, and we all need simple, meaningful Christmas activities that keep our students engaged (and maybe even a little bit calm!) during the holiday build-up.

That’s exactly why I’ve pulled together this list of Christmas activities for kids that are tried-and-tested favourites. These ideas are easy to prep, flexible for different age and ability levels, and packed with learning opportunities even when it feels like attention spans are flying out the window with Santa’s sleigh!

Christmas Crafts

Crafting is such a staple in December. Not only does it bring the holiday cheer, but it’s also full of fine motor practice, creative expression, and following directions.

Here are a few classroom-friendly ideas:

Paper Plate Christmas Trees – Cut, decorate, and glue with stickers, pompoms, or glitter.
Fingerprint Christmas Lights – Use finger paints to create strings of lights with names or words.
Santa’s Beard Cutting Craft – My favourite for fine motor skills! Kids love trimming Santa’s beard and practising scissor control.
Pine Cone Ornaments – Add a bit of nature with painted or glittery pinecones.
Christmas Name Crafts – Turn students’ names into snowmen, trees, or reindeer!

Pair any craft with calming music or a Christmas story, and you’ve got a lovely quiet session that still ticks the learning box.

Letters to Santa

My students aren’t quite ready for writing lists to Santa. So, we mixed it up a little this year. I printed out Santa with a frame on him. Then, we worked with our students to look through Google, and catalogues to see what they wanted for Christmas. We cut out the items and put them onto the list for Santa. My kids had so much fun and it was interesting to see what they wanted to have on their Christmas lists.

Christmas Tree

This craft turned out so adorable! It was great watching my kids working on their fine motor skills and choosing different buttons to use to decorate the tree.

Sock Olaf

Olaf is a huge hit with my kids – they all love the movie! So, we made these Olaf socks – and my kids had so much fun! We stuffed them with cotton wool inside and then used string to tie them to make a snowman. My kids loved decorating them to turn them into Olaf too.

Reindeer Paper Plate

We love making crafts with paper plates too. They’re really affordable to buy in bulk and you can do so many things with them! This year we decided to turn them into reindeer – although almost everyone decided to make Rudolph! It was a lot of fun and they looked great up on display around the classroom.

Snowman Paper Plate

We even used paper plates to make snowmen. If you follow me, you’ll know that we have a colour co-ordinated classroom. So each of my students coloured the snowman’s hat in their colour.

Cupcake Calendar

Every year, I love to make a calendar. We have those little calendar flip books that we buy from Amazon or a local craft store. Then we stick them onto the bottom of a picture or craft we create. This year we made this adorable cupcake.

Santa Paper Plate

We used our paper plates to make a glittery Santa too! So many of our kids parents commented about how they put this on their tree or by their fireplace and how festive it looked up on display. And my kids loved throwing snow and glitter over the craft.

Cookery

In our cookery sessions, we made these adorable reindeers and puddings. The puddings are chocolate marshmallow teacakes with decorations on top. The reindeer is a marshmallow on a stick, dipped in melted chocolate and decorated. My kids love to bake – and these were so much fun to make together.

We had spare time one afternoon, and we decided to make these Christmas pudding biscuits. For this, we used digestive biscuits, and then melted chocolate to spread on them. We made some icing and decorated it with biscuits and sweets. They turned out so great!

As a bit of a Christmas tradition, each year we love to make chocolate logs with our kids too. And we made these star biscuits as part of our baking slot one week.

Nativity Craft

We also do a lot of Nativity work around this time of year. And this craft was a great way for us to use after we talked about the Nativity story.

Christmas Card

Every year, I like to make a Christmas card with my students and then send it home with my students to give to their families. We dipped our fingers into paint to make these baubles. My kids love painting with their fingers, and it makes the crafts more personal too!

Christmas Dinner Hats

Every year, we have Christmas dinner together as a school. And we love to make hats for us to wear. This year, we decided to go with a snowman theme. And these hats turned out perfect!

Christmas Dinner

This is how our table looked for Christmas dinner. You can see our snowman hats and placemats for each student by their chairs. And then we decorated a snowman to go in the middle of the table.

Fine Motor and Sensory Fun

December is a great time to sneak in sensory-based fine motor activities that feel more like play than work. Try:

Christmas Play Dough Mats – Let students decorate trees, snowmen, or presents.
Pom Pom Transfer – Use tweezers to move mini red and green pom poms into shaped outlines.
Tinsel Cutting Bins – Fill a tray with tinsel, ribbon, and festive materials for scissor practice.
Hole Punch Christmas Cards – Students punch along lines or shapes for decoration and coordination.
Christmas Sensory Bottles – Fill with glitter, beads, water, and small holiday trinkets.

These work beautifully for morning tubs, station rotations, or early finishers.

Christmas Literacy Activities

It’s so easy to keep your literacy routines festive in December without sacrificing learning. Try these:

Christmas Vocabulary Matching – Picture/word matching or file folder games.
Christmas Sentence Builders – Use themed visuals for students to create silly or structured sentences.
Letter to Santa – Even pre-verbal students can use visuals or symbols to “write” their wishlist!
Christmas Book Advent – Wrap up a book each day and unwrap together as a class.
Christmas Word Hunts – Hide words or symbols around the classroom for a fun movement break.

Christmas Games and Group Fun

Classroom games are a MUST in December, especially for those high-energy days right before the holidays. Whether it’s circle time, reward time, or your class party, these always go down a treat:

Pin the Nose on Rudolph
Christmas Bingo (visual or word-based)
Santa Says (a festive version of Simon Says)
Christmas Charades
Build a Snowman Relay using toilet paper, scarves, and hats

And if you’re looking for a fun, low-prep game that gets everyone giggling, you’ll love this Christmas Guess Who game. It’s a festive twist on a classic favorite, and perfect for classroom parties, small groups, or even quiet-time play. My students absolutely love it!

Christmas Learning Centers

Even when you’re full-on into holiday excitement, your centers and workstations can still support meaningful learning. Just give them a festive twist!

Math Centers:

Count the Christmas objects (ornaments, gifts, snowflakes)
Christmas pattern strips
Number puzzles with holiday themes

Literacy Centers:

Build holiday-themed CVC words
Initial sound matching with Christmas images
Christmas Wh- Questions adapted books (a big hit in my classroom!)

Life Skills Centers:

Sorting Christmas items (food vs. toys, decorations vs. clothing)
Wrapping pretend presents with recycled paper
Writing cards or gift tags for friends and family

Holiday Displays and Photo Props

Don’t forget the power of a great festive display! Not only do your students feel proud seeing their work up on the wall, but families love it too.

Ideas:

Classroom Christmas Tree Wall – Each student decorates their own paper ornament.
Snow Globe Photos – Take student photos, add snowflakes, and frame them in cut-out snow globes.
Elf Yourself – Let students create paper elves with their faces and display them “sneaking” around the room.

Christmas Math Activities

Christmas is the perfect time to sneak in some fun and festive math practice without it feeling like “work.” Whether you’re in the classroom or at home, there are so many ways to bring holiday cheer to counting, number recognition, and basic operations.

Here are a few easy and engaging ideas to try:

Christmas Tree Counting: Use a printable Christmas tree and small decorations (like mini pompoms or stickers) for students to count and place on the tree. You can create number cards and have them match the quantity to each tree.
Santa’s Sleigh Addition: Draw or print out sleighs and have students solve simple addition problems to figure out how many presents go in each one.
Bauble Number Match: Cut out paper baubles with numbers on one side and matching quantities of dots, ten frames, or math problems on the other. Students can match pairs or play memory-style games.
Festive Number Tracing: Use Christmas-themed number tracing mats with dry-erase markers or play dough for a sensory approach to number formation.

If you’re looking for ready-to-go resources that are fun, educational, and easy to prep, check out these brilliant math Christmas games. They’re packed with festive-themed math ideas that are perfect for keeping kids engaged while practising key skills.

Bonus: Christmas Kindness Ideas

One of the best ways to embrace the season is with a focus on kindness. Here are a few simple activities:

Kindness Countdown Chain – Each link includes a small act of kindness to do each day.
Thank You Cards – Write cards for staff around the school.
Secret Santa Acts – Randomly assign classmates to do something kind for without revealing themselves.

Helpful Links

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Nikki