FREE Classroom Ideas for Christmas

Whether your students celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or just the Winter Holiday off from school, as the break for the holidays approaches student attention diminishes!  

Here are a few quick ideas to use with elementary or middle school students as a warm up at the beginning of class or for that last 5-10 minutes of class to give them something to look forward to.  These require access to a computer (ideally 1:1) but can also be done with partners or on a smartphone.

Try these that final few days (or week) before the holiday break:

• Snow Days - Create a snowflake.
• Reindeer Orchestra - Online music creation site
• Design a Gingerbread House
• Christmas Tree Light Up (game)
• Christmas Trivia Quiz
• Present Stacker (strategy game)
• Decorate the Gingerbread Man
• Virtual Gingerbread Cookie
• 
  

FREE Thanksgiving Ideas for the Classroom

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and whether students have a full week off like my district or just the two days of the holiday, they're ready for something extra fun to keep their interest.

In my classroom, students have a daily warm up that generally takes then about five minutes to complete at the start of class.  This is usually a writing prompt of some kind or a quick review question about a previous lesson.  During the holiday season though, I like to give them something fun to do on the computer instead.  If you are 1:1 computers in your classroom, of course this works great, but you can also do it with partners/teams on computers or even let students do it on their smartphones.

Here are a few fun ideas for Thanksgiving:

• Silly Turkey - dress the turkey
• Catch a Thanksgiving Turkey (game)
• Turkey Survival Mission (game)
• What's Your Thanksgiving IQ (trivia)
• Turkey Shoot (game)
• Turkey Swap (puzzle)

I hope your students enjoy these!