Christmas Classroom Activities
Great Fun For Everyone!!

Preparing Christmas classroom activities makes for an extremely hectic December!

Even though report cards and parent teacher interviews are done (whew), you are now busy planning your Christmas party themes, classroom party games, and getting your students ready for the Christmas holidays (yeah)!

Having numerous and varied Christmas classroom activities available for students to have fun with after their daily assignments can be great student motivation in the classroom.

In December, I would put the various Christmas classroom activities in 8 1/2 x 11 envelopes or folders and glue one copy of the activity onto the front of the envelope or folder.

During class I would then explain all the activities to my class. They had to complete one activity and show it to me before starting another. I would place these activities on my window sill or an extra table in the classroom.

I always taught in multicultural area an so in December there are other religious holidays to celebrate, for example Chanukah.

Have the students explain their traditions and celebrations. It can be very interesting and informative for you and your students as well as building communication and understanding between children of different cultures, races and religions.

And of course, the second to last day of school before the holidays is P-A-R-T-A-Y time! Keep the last day to clean up and for last minute odds and ends.

One of my most successful Christmas party ideas was "Secret Santa". About 2 weeks before the party, each student picked another student's name out of a hat. (They showed me the name so I could keep a record of it.)

Within the next 2 weeks before the party, they would go out to the dollar store and spend no more than $2.00 on a secret Santa gift for the person they had chosen. They would wrap their gift and indicate who it was to but not who it was from. It would then go under our artificial Christmas tree (one of my students always had an extra tree at home).

There were always gifts for me from the students who chose to buy one and I also bought a candy cane for each student. All the presents were opened during the party. (Make sure you have lots of garbage bags for the clean up.)

The Food

According to my students, the best of the classroom party ideas (believe it or not) is ... the Food !!!

A few days before the party, I asked for volunteers to bring food, music and games. My Teaching Assistant, i.e. the Student of the Week recorded who was bringing what to the party.

Now the standard food is usually junk food - chips, pop(soda), popcorn, cupcakes, etc. But one of my colleagues did something different which turned out to be a great hit, so I followed suit at certain parties. She organized a pot lunch.

She sent a letter home with her students to all the parents asking for salads, main course items, desserts and drinks. Be sure to ask parents of any allergies or religious limitations their child might have. All dishes were labeled so everyone knew what they were eating.

The students ate during lunch time and had a ball. Depending on your area, this can be a wonderful multicultural experience!

Let the Games Begin

There are so many Christmas party games that you can organize. Read about some of my favourite classroom party games .

What a terrific way to end the year - presents for everyone, food, games, laughter and great fun.

Use whichever of these Christmas classroom activities and classroom party ideas and games and have a fabulous time with your students.

Happy New Year everyone!