The holiday season is a magical time in the kindergarten classroom, filled with excitement, wonder, and the joy of learning. To help you create a festive and educational atmosphere, I’ve put together your ultimate guide to kindergarten Christmas resources. From activities that promote cultural awareness to fun literacy and math centers, I’ve got you covered. Let’s make this holiday season one to remember!
Kindergarten Christmas Resources
Christmas Around the World
One of the most delightful aspects of the holiday season is discovering how it’s celebrated around the world. “Christmas Around the World” resources can open up a world of cultural learning for your kindergarten students. Here are some ideas:
- Country Spotlight: Choose a different country each day or week and explore its unique Christmas traditions, customs, and stories. This can be a fantastic geography and social studies lesson.
- Crafts and Decorations: Have your students create traditional holiday crafts and decorations from various countries, such as Mexican poinsettias or Swedish straw ornaments.
- Storytime: Read or share stories from different cultures about how Christmas is celebrated. Discuss the similarities and differences. Here are a couple of my favorite Christmas Around the World read-aloud books:
- Santa’s Secret (Australia)
- The Legend of the Poinsettia (Mexico)
- The Legend of Old Befana (Italy)
- Madeline’s Christmas (France)
- The Tale of Baboushka (Russia)
Christmas Fine Motor Literacy Centers
Engage your kindergarten students in literacy activities that also help develop their fine motor skills. Here are some of the centers you’ll find in the Christmas-themed sensory bin literacy centers:
- Medial Vowel Sound Search: Students use fine motor tools to find a vowel card. On their recording page, they color the picture that has the same medial vowel sound.
- Rhyming Word Match: After finding a picture card, students color the picture that rhymes with the one they selected.
- Sound it Out: As students are learning to segment letter sounds in words this center allows them the opportunity to sound out simple CVC words after finding each picture.
Christmas Fine Motor Math Centers
Math can be festive too! The fine motor math centers have 6 different centers included in the resource. Here are a couple of the activities you’ll get:
- Present Count and Write: Students find a card in their sensory bin materials, count the number of presents in Santa’s sleigh, and write the number on their recording sheet.
- Picture Addition: Counting between candy canes and gingerbreads students answer each addition problem on the recording sheet.
- Number Comparison: Students look at the number each reindeer is holding on the card and decide if it’s less or more than 50.
Kindergarten Math and Literacy Boom Card Center for December
Providing students with interactive digital resources during the holidays keeps them interested and excited. They don’t even remember they are doing work with these engaging game-like decks. This resource contains 5 literacy decks and 5 math decks. Here are a couple of the activities included:
- Number Order Stocking – Students find the numbers that come before and after the number on the middle stocking.
- Sight Word Ornaments – Students listen to the sight word from the recording and choose the ornament that has the correct sight word on it.
- Gingerbread Beginning and Ending Sounds – Students are given a picture and need to isolate and type the beginning and ending letter sounds they hear.
Free Kindergarten Christmas Resources
I’ve created a couple of freebies over the years to help celebrate the holiday season that you can find below.
- Gift Guide Persuasive Writing: Use those free gift guides you get from places like Amazon and Target to get your students motivated with persuasive writing.
- Gingerbread Man Sequencing: My gingerbread man unit is one of my absolute favorite things to teach during the year. Grab this sequencing freebie that fits perfectly with the classic Gingerbread Man book!
Kindergarten Christmas Classroom Ideas
- Hosting a Christmas Book Exchange: This is something that I always loved doing with my class! It takes a bit of organization and help from parents, but my students always loved it!
- 5 Easy and Inexpensive Christmas Crafts: Check out this round-up of easy Christmas crafts you can send home. This time of year is always so crazy so I found some cute projects for you that won’t take too much time or break the bank!
Embrace the joy of learning and the magic of the holidays with these kindergarten Christmas resources. Your classroom will be filled with festive cheer, and your students will create lasting memories. Wishing you and your kindergarten class a wonderful and educational holiday season!