Christmas Countdown Activities

Hi everyone,

For the 3rd year, I have prepared a day-to-day activity calendar/ countdown up to the Christmas break. There are loads of shorter and longer tasks you can try with your learners. If you do not like all the tasks, I have added some extras at the end of this post. I hope you like my suggestions!!

Possible preparation before the tasks start:

Depending on your budget, you may need to ask students to contribute.

You may need to order blank Christmas stockings. You can find a 6 pack on Amazon here.
Ask your students to bring in small stocking fillers/ pressies, so you can use them in the pass the parcel game. You can set a price limit.
Buy chocolates for various activities (if you have the budget)

Thursday 1

Decorate the classroom part 1

Ideas:

Decorate the Christmas tree.

Print Holiday Season colouring pages and hang on the wall

Friday 2

Decorate the classroom part 2

Gingerbread Streamers

Christmas gingerbread men streamers. Get a string of paper and get each student to draw a gingerbread man. Then cut out the men and make a hole on the top of the paper and hang it in the class.

Picture from http://www.enchantedlearning.com. Found here

Educational twist: teach your students the parts of the body while making the streamers.

Monday 5

Set up the secret Santa game/ activity.Explain what secret Santa is. Put all your students’ names in a bag and then each student pulls a name. Make sure there is a money limit or that everyone is making a gift instead of buying something (that’s up to you to decide).Also specify that the presents need to be gender neutral! Tell them they must bring in their presents on X of December (give yourself time to make or purchase something if a student has forgotten to bring a purchase).

Tuesday 6

Christmas/holidays around the world project: Get your students to find information about how Christmas is celebrated around the world. It may be a good idea to do some research on how people in Australia celebrate cause it is summer over there :). Give your students about ten days to finish their projects. Inform them that they will be presenting to the rest of the class. Depending on class size, you can do this as individual/pair or group work. You can also send your learners to this website and ask them to find information. Presentation date: Friday the 16th

Wednesday 7

Holiday ABCs

Make teams and give students pieces of paper with different letters of the ABC. Each team must come up with words that have to do with the holiday season and that of curse start with the letter they have on their card.

Thursday 8

Time for some Christmas songs/ carols. Find a Christmas song you like, search for the lyrics and start singing with your students. My suggestion: Santa Claus is coming to town

You better watch out

You better not cry

Better not pout

I’m telling you why

Santa Claus is coming to town

Yu could also do a Christmas karaoke. This video has 15 songs without words just the lyrics and the music.

Friday 9

Online Christmas trivia: Get your learners to answer questions about the holidays.This can be done online in pairs or groups. You can find the quiz here.

Monday 12

Describe the object/picture:Depending on the class size make groups of 3 or more.. Give one student a Holiday related picture. The other group members cannot see the picture. The student with the picture describes the object and the other group members draw what the student is describing. Once the description is finished the students see how close to the drawing they are. This can also be done with a Holiday ornament where the student describes the ornament and the other learners draw it.

Tuesday 13

Time to watch some movies.

Christmas movies for kids

The Polar Express

Home Alone

Frosty the Snowman

Miracle on 34th Street

The Muppet Christmas Carol

It is a wonderful life

For teenagers/ adult learners that like romance ❤ ❤

You can watch Hallmark Christmas movies. A lot are available online. Just press Hallmark Christmas movies on YouTube and you will find lots of full movies online.

If you do not want to watch something for a full lesson, you can watch the Charlie Brown clip below (7 minutes long)

Educational twist: Get your students to write a film review or summarise the main points of the story.

Wednesday 14

Make a Christmas Stocking. Ask your students to bring in a blank Christmas stocking. Use different materials to cut out ornaments/ designs that they will stick on their stockings

Thursday 15

Pass the parcel Holiday edition. You wrap chocolates or little gifts in lots of layers of paper. You make a few ‘parcels’.You give the parcel to the learners who are sitting in a circle. While the music is playing they need to be handing each other the parcel’. You, the teacher, stop the music suddenly and the student who is holding the parcel needs to take off the wrap.

Educational twist:

When the music stops in order for the student to unwrap the parcel, you can ask a grammar/ vocabulary question. If they get it right, the take the wrap off, if they get it wrong, they don’t take it off..

Friday 16

Present the ‘Holidays around the world’ project set on the 6th of December.

Monday 19

Sock Snowman: Get your students to make a snowman out of a sock. You can watch the video with your learners and make a sock.

Educational twist: Get them to write down the instructions on how to make this. Half the class watches the video and then they have to tell their classmates (the other half) what to do. If you are interested in grammar, get them to practice countable and uncountable nouns.

Tuesday 20

Stocking filler exercise. I have written a blog post about this task. You can find it here.

Wednesday 21

Pin Rudolph’s red nose. How do you play? Find a picture of Rudolph online, blindfold your students, turn them round in circles for a bit, and then ask them to pin Rudolph’s nose. This activity is loads of fun and young learners really like it.

Thursday 22

Christmas Scavengers Hunt/ Treasure hunt.

Place clues around the class/ school that will lead to a ‘treasure’ (maybe a chocolate/ cake, so that it can be shared). Depending on your class size you can organise more than one treasure hunts.

Friday 23

Party time/ Secret Santa.

Need more ideas? Try these extras.

Go to audible.com and use the free trial option to listen to Charles Dickens audiobook (it is 2hrs 54 mins long). This is appropriate for higher-level learners.
More Christmas DIY ideas video (it’s got some Itlian words, but you get the idea from watching the video 🙂 )

Play Christmas word snake. How is this played? Each student takes turns to write a word connected to holiday season on the board. The final letter of student A’s word is the first letter of student B’s word.

Christmas

Santa

Angel

Lantern

Time to make a card for the Holidays! You can find templates here or improvise!!
Play Holiday season Bingo (make word or picture Bingo cards). You can find templates here.