November and December bring a lot of craziness to the classroom! There is so much to fit into two very quick, short months. Teachers want to keep students engaged and help bring magic to this time of year. Here are some fun and easy holiday activities you just have to try in your elementary classroom!
Love watching videos? Check out my holiday activities you just have to try on my YouTube Channel!
Holiday Activities #1
Holidays around the world is not a brand-new concept. There are tons of holidays around the world activities and resources out there you could try. But just learning about the amazing holidays isn’t enough. We are still teaching in December and need to ensure that the activities we provide our students are still focused on skills and standards. My Holidays Around the World unit does just that!
In this resource, there are 10 different countries included, each with a nonfiction passage, reading skill/strategy graphic organizer, and comprehension questions!
OR you can choose to assign the digital version! In the digital version, students will read the same passages as in the print version, but broken up into different slides. There are 5 slides per country and on each slide is a fun question or activity for students to complete. 
Countries included are:
- Australia – Christmas
- United States – Kwanzaa
- China – Chinese New Year
- India – Diwali
- Isreal – Hanukkah
- Italy – Christmas/St. Nicholas Day
- Mexico – Las Posadas
- Norway – The Feast of St. Lucia
- Russia – Russian New Year/Christmas
- The Philippines – Christmas/Sinulog Festival
✅ Answer keys provided. Check out the preview and preview video for an up-close look! Digital versions are designed for Google Slides, Google Drive, and PowerPoint (if downloaded from the drive, in that format)
Click here to grab the Holidays Around the World activities!
Holiday Activities #2
The holidays provide us with rich history and vocabulary, it would be a waste not to learn about where all of our amazing traditions come from! These holiday text feature printables are a perfect way to put an academic spin on some holiday fun! These are provided in both print AND digital format!
Students will love reading through unique history and information based on different holiday elements. While reading, students get to use a given text feature key and color code the text to identify each text feature. Not only that, but afterward, students then get to answer questions based on the text and its text features!
There are 8 passages included in the resource:
- How Candy Canes are Made
- History of Gingerbread
- Science Behind Snowflakes
- Symbols of the Season
- Holiday Baked Goods
- Christmas Lights
- Holiday Plants and their Meanings
- Traditional Christmas Ornaments
Each comes with its own color coding page to allow students to find and color code the specific text features in the passage as well as a few comprehension questions that specifically focus on the WHY behind the text features. Go deeper with your nonfiction this holiday!
Looking for more picture books to read to your classroom this December? Check out my Christmas or Winter mentor text recommendations!
Click here to grab the Holiday Text Features activities
Holiday Activities #3
December is a crazy month! Need to save some sanity? I’ve got you covered with 21 ready-to-print holiday activities PERFECT for the month of December! Each activity in my December Santity Savers is short, sweet, and FUN for students to practice important skills before they leave for break! 
Each activity is very low prep and perfect for your students to squeeze in some fun December activity work to let you get done what you need! And since some are winter themed, you could even save them for after your holiday break! Let me know if you have any questions!
- Abominable Snowman close reading passage w/ comprehension questions
- Christmas & Winter word acrostic poem templates
- Subtraction with regrouping holiday mystery picture
- Christmas Fact & Opinion Mystery phrase activity
- How to Wrap a Christmas Present writing activity with a brainstorm page
- What’s inside the present making inferences page
- Christmas parts of speech sorting activity
- Character traits elf-themed memory game
- Ugly Christmas Sweater contest pages
The great thing about these activities is that they are random and include all subjects! If you need engaging homework, centers, morning work, or more – this is a great find to fill in those times with fun activities your students will love!
Click here to grab the December Sanity Savers
Holiday Activities #4
Practice context clues by learning new Christmas words and learning how to ‘Talk Like an Elf!” Since my Talk Like a Pilgrim activity was such a big hit, I decided to make another – Talk Like an Elf!
This activity includes 10 cards, each with sentences and an ‘unknown’ word where students must use their context clues to figure out what the Christmas word means. All of the cards are Christmas/Elf themed. Answer key and anchor charts are both provided as well as a recording sheet. My kids LOVE these activities and I hope yours do too!
Click here to grab the Talk Like an Elf activity!
I hope you’ve found a holiday activity you’d like to try! I have a few more holiday activities you can check out if you need them! Want to save this post for later? Pin the image below!
