1. Run a Charity Event
‘Tis the season for giving! Emphasize community and goodwill by sponsoring drives for food, toys or coats, volunteering at shelters and kitchens, or organizing fundraisers to support a cause you care deeply about. Teach organizational and leadership skills by allowing students of all ages to be involved in the process from planning to implementation.
2. Make your own Advent Calendar
Instead of getting a chocolate each day you receive a random act of kindness task. Let’s encourage Christmas cheer this holiday season in your classroom.
3. Play a Christmas Quiz
Luckily for you, here at Quizalize we have already made one! Just type “Christmas Quiz by Margot Prince” into the resource finder.
4. Draw an Elf Self-Portrait
After students create a self-portrait of themselves as an elf (angel/ Wiseman/ donkey), assign them to write all the things that make them happy around the edge. This will create positive spirit within the classroom and they can be shared with others or displayed on the wall.
5. Make Santa Masks
Using a template, students can make Santa and reindeer masks. Cotton wool can be used for the beards and twigs for reindeer antlers. This activity is more suitable for younger students.
6. Create a Song, Dance or Rap
Being creative is always great, but especially when there is so much holiday cheer to spread. Let the students create their own pieces which can be either performed or taught to the rest of the class. I would always suggest doing this in small groups as some students are nervous about performing in front of others.
7. Play a Christmas Word Search or Crossword
So many of these can be found prepared online, just simply click and print. Which teacher doesn’t need a break around Christmas? This activity can be made more challenging for older students by creating it in a world language they are studying.
8. Music Quiz with Christmas Songs
Get students to identify, song, languages and movie clips using audio clips. This is easy to do on Quizalize with the “audio” feature when creating a quiz.
9. Create Christmas Cards
Let’s get students creating Christmas cards for loved ones around us. All parents, guardians, grandparents and aunts (me in particular) love receiving handmade cards from our little ones. You could also look for charitable organizations that coordinate Christmas card drives for hospitals, shelters, and soldiers overseas.
10. Make and Decorate Christmas Cookies.
As we have previously mentioned on our social media, we love cookies and so what better way to celebrate the holidays than decorating Christmas cookies? Find out how to make the cookies here, cut them into festive shapes such as trees and angels and decorate away. My personal favorite is the star ⭐️.
11. Notes of kindness
Truly this should happen the entire year round, but the holiday season is not automatically a happy time for everyone. For some individuals, it is a reminder of lost friends and family members and for many families, it is a financially stressful time of the year which can adversely affect their children. By writing a kind thought and putting it in the jar to be read at the end of the day, you can spread kindness throughout the school.
12. Make Christmas Wreaths for the Classroom Door
My family has always made our own wreaths at Christmas to get our creative juices flowing in addition to kicking off the holiday season. We can be quite competitive with our neighbors and so have a friendly competition along our street. This would be well replicated in a school with a competition for which class can create the best wreath for their door. Here is my sister in action at Plantforce with our wreath this year:
