Christmas Classroom Ideas
Discover fun, easy Christmas classroom ideas to celebrate the season! Explore festive crafts, decorations, and hands-on learning activities for the early years.
Are you looking for some Christmas classroom ideas to help you celebrate Christmas over these last few weeks of school?
We usually start introducing some Christmas themed activities early in December and the children get so excited.
At this time of year, as soon as you bring out anything red or green, the children are eager to get involved.
I have collated some of my all time favourite Christmas classroom ideas in this blog post. I am sure you will find plenty of festive activities you will be eager to use in your classroom too.
Christmas Classroom Activities
Reindeer Hats
One of the children’s favourite Christmas craft activities involves a lot of measuring and fine motor skills. These cute handprint reindeer hats are always popular as a Christmas classroom activity.
We usually make these reindeer hats to wear to our end of year Christmas concert.
If you would like your children to make these Christmas hats, each child will need a strip of brown card. If you are lucky enough to have a stash of donated strips of white card in your storeroom like we do, the children can paint them brown.
To make the antlers, you will also need some brown card for the children to trace their hands onto. Add some googly eyes (or white sticker dots) and a red pompom to make the cutest little reindeer hats.
Class Christmas Tree
Every year we make a hand Christmas tree. This is a nice class project and a lovely way to finish the year together.
Cut A4 sheets of green paper into quarters. The children trace their hand onto the smaller sheet and then cut them out.
To make your tree, start by gluing a piece of brown paper at the base of a large piece of paper or card. This will be your Christmas tree trunk.
Then glue on a row of hands. Continue gluing on the hands in rows. Make the triangle shaped hand tree by slowly decreasing each overlapped row. Make sure to face the fingers down.
Decorate your class Christmas tree with tinsel, battery operated Christmas lights and the children’s handmade decorations.
At the end of the school year, most of our bulletin boards are empty so we display our tree on one of the bare bulletin boards. This bright project helps to decorate our somewhat empty classroom. Your class Christmas tree could make a wonderful classroom door decoration too.
Christmas Classroom Decorations
Christmas Tree Ornaments
Check out these gorgeous Christmas trees from Fire Flies and Mud Pies Your children can make a little Christmas tree ornament using a stick and scraps of Christmas ribbons or fabrics. Don’t you think they would make a lovely keepsake for parents.😍
🎁 Ready to Bring the Magic of Christmas to Your Classroom?
Make the last weeks of school easier with my Christmas teaching resources
They are engaging, hands-on, and ready to print. You’ll find Christmas maths activities, loose parts provocations, playdough mats, writing prompts, and more.
These resources are designed to save you time while keeping your students focused, calm, and learning right up until the holidays.
Rustic Snowflake Ornaments
To make these Simple Rustic Snowflakes Ornaments you only need some wooden pegs, glue, paint or a water based stain and an assortment of decorative accents like ribbon, bells or beads.
Salt Dough Christmas Decorations
If you have time to make salt dough, these salt dough ornaments from The Best Ideas for Kids will be well worth the trouble.
To make enough salt dough so that each child in your class can make one small Christmas decoration, you will need 1 cup of salt, 2 cups of plain flour and about 3/4 of a cup of water.
First mix the flour and salt together and then add the water gradually.
Stop adding the water when your mixture starts to form a dough.
You will have to knead the dough until it forms a soft ball. It usually takes aroud 5-10 minutes of kneading to get the dough to a good consistency.
Don’t roll the dough out too thin. At least 1cm in thickness will ensure your baked ornaments don’t crack and break. Your children can use Christmas cookie cutters to cut out Christmas shapes.
This dough will dry rock hard and the ornaments will last for many years. Bake them in an oven at 120 degrees C for about 2-2.5 hours.
Christmas Teaching Ideas
Christmas Science Activity
This Science activity can be adapted to suit any theme in your classroom but is perfect for Christmas. Your chldren can grow their very own Christmas tree while they learn about plants and how to look after them.
Growing a Christmas tree sponge is a fun science and fine motor activity your children will love.
Make sure to start this activity early so your children will have time to see their tree growing.
Trace a Christmas tree template onto some kitchen sponges. You can make a durable tree template from an ice-cream container lid.
Cut out the sponge trees and soak them in water before sprinkling some quick sprouting seeds over the top.
Try sprouts or grass seeds - they grow within a few days.
Make sure to place your trees in a sunny classroom spot and don’t let the sponges dry out.
Christmas Math Activity
Teach graphing and consolidate sorting and counting skills with this simple Christmas themed math activity. All you need is a bag of different coloured Christmas bows.
Christmas Tree Play Dough
Loose parts and play dough are all you need for this lovely Christmas learning invitation from Mama.Papa.Bubba.
Christmas STEM Challenge
Children love STEM challenges and this Christmas STEM activity from 123 Homeschool 4 me will have your children totally engaged. Your children will need Lego and craft popsticks to design and build their very own Christmas tree.
If you have liked these Christmas classroom ideas, you might be interested in my Christmas Classroom Pinterest Board. I have collected over 450 Christmas Classroom Ideas to help you celebrate Christmas in your early years classroom.
You will find
Christmas crafts and easy Christmas classroom decorations to make.
Hands-on Christmas centers and investigation areas.
Christmas themed worksheets and lessons.
Classroom Christmas party ideas.
Inspiration to help you decorate your classroom for the holidays.
There is a focus on resources for Prep, Foundation, Preschool, Pre-Primary, Primary, Elementary and Kindergarten students.
I have been using Pinterest for years. There are so many inspirational ideas on there and it is a great visual search engine. You might like to follow some more of my boards over on Pinterest too.
I have boards on Investigations and Provocations for Learning, Early Years Literacy Activities, Early Years Math Ideas and Early Childhood Education.
You will find 30 educational boards and over 17 thousand pins to inspire and help you.
Do you have Pinterest boards I could follow? I am always looking for new ideas. If you do, leave a comment on this post so I can check your Pinterest out.
If you found some useful Christmas classroom ideas on this blog post, make sure you check out my other Christmas blog posts.👇
🎄 More Christmas Inspiration for Your Classroom
Keep your festive classroom ideas flowing with my play-based Christmas posts other teachers are loving:
Loose Parts Christmas Ideas: Discover open-ended festive provocations that build creativity, curiosity, and problem-solving through loose parts play.
Christmas Maths Activities for Kindergarten: Explore fun, hands-on counting, sorting, and patterning activities that link perfectly with your end-of-year curriculum goals.
Christmas Sensory Play: Find calming and engaging sensory tray and playdough ideas that will help your little learners stay focused amid all the Christmas excitement.
9 Fun and Easy Christmas Games for the Classroom: Check out my super low-prep games that add laughter, teamwork, and learning to your Christmas class parties or daily rotations.
Free Christmas Writing Prompts for Kids in Kindergarten - Encourage storytelling and language development with some FREE festive writing prompts your students will love.