Celebrating holidays in the classroom is important because it meets standards and incorporates customs and traditions. However, we also need to be aware of the cultures and traditions of students. Here’s how we handle holidays in the classroom and keep doing our fun Kindergarten Christmas activities:
The key is COMMUNICATE! Communicate with the families. I’m always surprised at how easily we can come up with a great plan to include everyone! And guess what…if we can’t do kindergarten Christmas activities in December, that’s perfectly OK! We can do gingerbread, snow, and holidays around the world! But remember, COMMUNICATE COMMUNICATE COMMUNICATE!
Kindergarten Christmas Activities: Art Projects
Santa windsocks! Students choose their skin color. The paper is rolled into a cylinder. The hat is a triangle with a rectangle and a circle. Add eyes, a red nose, and a mustache. The beard is white strips of paper that are crinkled.
I love these elf legs! And they’re so easy! Strips of paper, glitter, and elf shoes. I model how to draw the shoes, and the kids do their own!
Stocking-directed drawing! This was created by my friend and co-worker so I don’t have directions.
Reindeer-directed drawing. Click here for the directions.
These cutter paintings have become one of my go-to art projects because they’re so easy. Put some paint on plates, add cookie cutters, and turn them loose!
Ornaments! These are made from bulletin board paper! Simple and cute! Kids choose the color they want, draw the circle, cut out the ornament, and add details! Then we use them to decorate the hallway!
Kindergarten ChristmasActivities: Math Ideas
Adding and subtracting ornaments! Cut out a Christmas tree from bulletin board paper. I found giant foam ornaments at Michaels but you can easily cut out ornaments from paper. You can add and remove ornaments to solve equations!
Paper plate counting! Find cute Christmas plates and add numbers using dot stickers. Use mini-erasers or other manipulatives to count and make ten frames on a recording sheet.
Make giant ten frames from 12×18 construction paper. Use bows for counting objects!
Grab your FREE number cards by clicking on the image!
This measurement activity is something we do each month! We estimate our height and measure ourselves with Christmas trees and gingerbread cookies!
Kindergarten Christmas Activities: Literacy And Phonics
Of course, read The Polar Express and have hot chocolate!
We also use our green screen to put the kids on the Polar Express!
Grab clear plastic ornaments and fill them with fake snow and letters. Students can say the sound and color the picture!
Click the image for your freebie!
Make a decoding Christmas tree! We drew a Christmas tree on chart paper. Write decodable words on the tree and ornaments. They decode the words on the ornament and match them to those on the tree!
We found these plastic Santa trays at Wal-Mart. These make great dry erase boards. We use these in small groups for word mapping, CVC words and more!
Christmas Phonics Project
December is wild. It’s stressful. It’s fun. So you need some activities for kids that save your stress, meet standards and look cute. This Christmas Phonics Project is what you want! You can assess kids on any skill since this resource is editable. They make strings of lights (it keeps them BUSY!!!!!) and then you have an assessment and a cute display!
Kindergarten Christmas Activities: Science And STEM
Kids love learning about reindeer so some reindeer research is a great way to meet science standards and keep kids engaged in December!
Stacking peppermints! Students work in pairs or groups to see how many peppermints they can stack!
Slime! We make slime using baking soda, glue, and contact solution. Add food coloring and Christmas confetti!
Peppermint science! Place a peppermint into some water and watch it dissolve into a fun design!
Kindergarten Christmas Activities: Snack Idea
Click here for the free labels!
Kindergarten Christmas Activities: Door Decorating Ideas
Each year, my school does a door decorating contest. Here is our door from last year. I love it because the ornaments were made by the kids! I added the words but this is a student made door!
The glitter letters can be found here:
Did you know that research says kids should see their name in at least 5 different places in the classroom? So each month we display their names using cute name signs!
Kindergarten Christmas Activities: Sensory Bins
For the math sensory bin, we used silver garland that we cut into little pieces. We added styrofoam presents from Walmart and Santa numbers. For the phonics bin, we colored chick peas red and green and added bows and Christmas tree letters.
Kindergarten Christmas Activities: Student Gifts
For student gifts, we have a tradition of making personalized blankets and clipboards for the students using our Silhouette Cameo!
The other gift we do in the classroom is pancakes! For the last 15 years I have made my students pancakes on the last day before break!
December and Christmas resources, grab our resources:
For more ideas and resources, check out these posts:
