Creating easy classroom Christmas crafts is one of my favorite activities to do with my students when the holidays roll around each year! The ones on this list have an educational component that will keep the learning going through the holiday season and beyond.
Easy Classroom Christmas Crafts for December
I’m always looking for fun, simple, and educational ways to keep my students engaged during the holiday season. What better way to make things fun than with a craft? I compiled this list of my favorite easy classroom Christmas crafts that will keep your students engaged and still learning all the way until break. Try out your favorite picks and watch the fun unfold for yourself!
The Gingerbread Cowboy Candy Cane Cactus Ornaments
This handmade ornament is a perfect craft to go along with the story The Gingerbread Cowboy. Students can create their own candy cane cactus using colored paper and pipe cleaners. Then punch a hole in the top, tie some string onto the craft, and it becomes a Christmas ornament for students to hang on their trees!
I read The Gingerbread Cowboy as part of my Gingerbread Reading unit. I love using different versions of The Gingerbread Man story to practice comparing and contrasting skills in my classroom. It’s even more fun when add in easy classroom Christmas crafts like this one!
The Gingerbread Cowboy takes place in the desert, and it’s a really fun contrast to traditional versions of the story. My students always love reading about how the Gingerbread Cowboy tries to outsmart the ranchers and how he is chased by all kinds of desert animals. We compare all the different chants the gingerbread characters sing and how authors use repetition to add excitement to a story.
Gingerbread House Lunch Sack
This adorable Gingerbread House craft made with simple lunch sacks is one of the simplest easy classroom Christmas crafts on my list, without sacrificing cuteness! It’s the perfect addition to any gingerbread man, holidays around the world, or winter activities. You can even use it to make a class gingerbread village! Keep the learning going by tying in some writing with your gingerbread houses.
You can grab my resource for the gingerbread house lunch sack craft. It includes two different template styles to fit the needs of younger and older students. Students will have so much fun designing their own gingerbread house!
Gingerbread Man Central Message
Teaching about central message and lessons in stories to young readers can be tricky since they don’t have a ton of life experience to pull from. That’s why I love teaching it during the month of December by using the story The Gingerbread Man. I’ve turned it into one of my easy classroom Christmas crafts to add to the fun of this unit!
You can teach central message using The Gingerbread Man, then have students write their ideas about the story’s message on a cute gingerbread craft. The Gingerbread Man is great to use when teaching this standard since it has so many easily identifiable and relatable messages for young readers. Most school-aged children have encountered things like bragging, teasing, thinking it’s fun to be chased, or the frustration of chasing someone else.
The Gingerbread Man has simple central messages and lessons like “Be careful what you wish for” and “Bragging, teasing, and taunting will not make you friends”. Read more about how I teach central message using The Gingerbread Man books in this post!
I teach this lesson as part of my Gingerbread Man reading unit. It has nine in-depth comprehension lessons in a teaching PowerPoint, activities, centers, and crafts to use with your favorite gingerbread man books.
One Sentence Summary Challenge
This is one of the easiest Christmas crafts that keeps students engaged and challenged! Students can choose their favorite book, then they have to choose their words carefully to construct a summary in just one sentence.
This activity can be easily transformed into any simple craft, but I love using it with my Gingerbread unit so I created this gingerbread template freebie! It’s perfect for bulletin board and door displays during the holiday season.
Holiday Math Pop-Up Cards
Pop-up cards may not sound like one of those easy classroom Christmas crafts, but it’s a lot simpler than it sounds! Pop-up cards can be used in a lot of different ways and all you need is a sheet of copy paper to get started!
Students can make their own pop-up cards by folding a sheet of paper in half and making two cuts about an inch apart in the middle of the fold. Then open the paper and push the cut section to the front. Anything can be glued onto that section of the paper to make it pop out of the card! Check out this Gingerbread math ideas post to see how it’s done.
These pop-up cards can be used as parent gifts or gifts for other teachers and staff. However, if you really want to keep the learning going, you can use pop-up cards in your math lessons to represent word problems! So many options!
Secret Santa: A Kind Words Christmas Craft
Secret Santa of Kind Words is one of those easy classroom Christmas crafts that you’ll want to keep doing year after year! It’s so sweet and heartwarming to see how the simple act of kind words can make children’s (and adults’) faces light up.
Here’s how it works: Students pick names out of a hat, just like with any other Secret Santa exchange. Instead of giving physical gifts, students make cards for the person they chose with kind and encouraging words and drawings inside.
I love that this activity can really work with any age group—being kind never gets old! If you’re looking for a resource with templates and crafts check out these Secret Santa of Kind Words poem cards.
It includes 4 original poems in holiday and non-holiday versions for reading buddies, school staff, and classmates, writing inserts to make kindness cards, graphic organizers to brainstorm acts of kindness, a craft and bulletin board display, and writing templates!
Holidays Around the World Postcard Crafts
This easy classroom Christmas craft idea is perfect for anyone doing a Holidays Around the World unit! Just create a postcard template and have students decorate a postcard from each country. To keep the learning going, have students write home to tell about the country’s holiday traditions.
I have postcard templates included in my Holidays Around the World unit that you can grab if you’re low on prep time! My postcard templates include flags for each country that students can color. I also have special crafts to represent traditions from each country that students can put together on the front of their cards. Then, students can write about the country’s holiday celebrations on the back of the postcard.
This activity always helps my students connect their learning to the real world while still having tons of holiday fun! If you’re planning a Holidays Around the World unit, check out this post to make teaching holidays around the world even more magical for students!
New Year’s Resolution Craft
When December’s over, you’re back in school, and you’ve finished all your easy classroom Christmas crafts, celebrate the start of the new year by writing new year’s resolutions with your students. it’s the perfect time to set new learning goals.
Create your own resource, or use these New Year’s Resolution Activities. Students set new goals and learn the history of New Year’s celebrations and traditions. They don’t just learn to make resolutions, they also learn about why making resolutions can be an important and significant start to each year.
New Year’s Resolution Writing Minilessons & Craft
This resource has a 5-day lesson plan and lots of opportunities for student engagement, so it’s the perfect activity to use to help students refocus during your first week back from winter break. The whole resource includes a teaching PowerPoint, lessons, reading passages with comprehension questions, a resolution writing craft, a New Year’s quiz, and engaging videos. If you’re looking for a no-prep resource for the week after winter break, definitely check it out here!
I hope this post has given you some inspiration for some educational and easy Christmas crafts to try this holiday season! Don’t forget to Pin this post for next year!
For more holiday activities and teaching ideas visit these posts!
10 Magical Ways to Teach Holidays Around the World
Christmas Reading Comprehension Activities
Happy teaching!
