Top 10 Elementary School Christmas Math Activities

It seems every elementary school teacher in December is in need of Christmas activities, ideas, and investigations, so we put our elves to work to find you the 10 best hands-on Christmas math activities suitable for your elementary schoolers at this time of year.

Given the importance of wellbeing for children receiving our 1-to-1 math lessons we’ve also included a couple of brilliant wellbeing activities within this list too, not just for your students but for teachers as well!

So, in no particular order, take a look at our favorite elementary school Christmas Activities and Resources, guaranteed to give your students some fun math lessons in the days before the holidays!

1. Christmas Math Challenge Activities And Christmas Math Worksheets

The Mathematics Shed, run by Graham Andre, is a great place to find engaging and effective activities across elementary school math and the Seasonal Math Shed has fabulous activities for every holiday.

The activities cover multiple strands of Math and are easy to edit, depending on the needs of your students, with addition, subtraction, fractions, and mental math being just a few of the topics covered.

One of our favorite Christmas math activities from the Seasonal Math Shed is the Xmas Hits Through the Decades worksheet. It’s always the right time for a bit of Wham, right?

Link: The Mathematics Shed

Twitter: @grahamandre

2. YoungMinds Wellbeing Advent Calendar

The days leading up to Christmas break can be a very exciting but also exhausting time. It is often easy at this time to get caught up in the busy atmosphere and forget to take care of the children and your wellbeing.

YoungMinds have created a wellbeing advent calendar to encourage you and your class to take some time out and enjoy the spirit of the season. With past activities ranging from sharing jokes to taking a moment to focus on breathing, there is inspiration for every class. 

Link: YoungMinds Wellbeing Advent Calendar 

Twitter: @YoungMinds

3. Printable Christmas Sudoku Puzzles

Even in the last few weeks before break, you’ll need to keep your students learning, and their brains active. But as Christmas approaches, your students’ work ethic might start to lag, and it might be tempting to give into the festive spirit.

Luckily, Math in English has put together 12 holiday themed Sudoku puzzles to use in your math classroom. These math puzzles will challenge your students’ math and number skills. The puzzles include 6 by 6, for your students that are new to this style of puzzle, or 9 by 9 for your Sudoku wizards!

Math in English also houses lots of other holiday themed math and logic puzzles to use in your classroom, or print off and send home to keep student’s challenged throughout their winter break!

Downloadable free resource: Math in English

4. Third Space Learning’s Christmas Math Activities

And there’s more from Third Space… all available to you for free:

• a free Christmas math quiz,
• some Christmas math lessons suitable for Grades 1 – 5 

Try them out and let us know what you think.

5. Christmas Symbol Math Puzzles

As you and your students count down the days to Winter Break, you may be looking for activities to fill those extra 5-10 minutes between subjects or until recess. Math Easily has prepared elementary math Christmas symbol puzzles to use in the days leading up to break.

The symbol puzzles are available in 3 different levels: level 1 is suitable for 1st and 2nd graders, level 2 for 3rd graders, or any student that has started multiplication, and level 3 is for 3rd and 4th graders. These puzzles can be done as a class on an interactive white board or projector, or are provided as pdfs for easy printing to use in class or to send home!

MathEasily also has counting and matching activities and addition Christmas activities that can be printed for elementary students. The countdown until Christmas has become even more exciting with these fab activities from MathEasily.

Link: MathEasily

6. Christmas Math Coloring Activities

There are so many elementary holiday math activities available on the internet, it was difficult to choose just one! One of our favorites has to be the Christmas Math coloring activities that incorporate addition, subtraction, and multiplication. Perfect for struggling lower elementary schoolers, once completed, your students end up with a lovely, colored image that’s perfect to take home to Mom and Dad.

Coloring Home also features other great coloring activities, for every time of the year. If you’re looking for a bunch of elementary math coloring activities, this is the place to head to.

Link: Coloring Home

7. Every Mind Matters Self-Care Tool

Teachers are well renowned for their selfless and caring attitudes but they sometimes forget the importance of their own mental health. We know self-care is always important but as Christmas can be a stressful time for many reasons, now might be a good time to reflect on how you are feeling and what you can do for your own wellbeing.

This tool asks you to complete a short quiz about your wellbeing before suggesting 6 self-care ideas that you could put into action. Make sure to take time for yourself in the lead up to Christmas and during the holiday season.

Link: Every Mind Matters self-care tool

8. Christmas Math Murder Mystery

Mr Barton Math is probably already on your must read list, but the Math Christmas Activities and Resources section is a particular lifesaver during this point in the year. The section includes top Math Christmas resources from the TES Math website (elementary and middle school math).

Our top pick from Mr Barton’s selection is the Christmas Math murder mystery, guaranteed to be a crowdpleaser. Students are given a set of clue cards which define the task – of finding out who killed Santa – and give them all the necessary information to solve the mystery.

This is a tricky but entertaining Christmas math activity to encourage problem solving skills, and it is best suited to upper elementary school.

Link: Mr Barton Maths

Twitter: @mrbartonmaths

9. Putting On A Christmas show?

We couldn’t resist including this one, even if we’ve used it before…

Whether you’re holding a live nativity performance, winter themed performance, Christmas themed concert or not, you’ll find something to laugh at (and cry at after the year we’ve had!) here.

Mr P understands and his video shares the struggles we’ve all experienced when putting on a show.

Remember that Christmas carol you loved before you agreed to organize your school’s nativity? Not anymore after rehearsing it for the thousandth time.

What about props falling midway through? You can handle a snowflake or Christmas ornament tumbling down as long as you’re prepared for it and have accepted it.

Be prepared for the technology to go wrong, half of your cast to be off sick and your holiday production to be one of your proudest moments this year.

If you like classroom laughs and learning about technology and you don’t already follow ICT with Mr P on Facebook you’re missing out.

Link: Mr P’s ICT Blog

Twitter: @ICT_MrP

10. Christmaths Website Of Elementary Christmas Math Activities

Christmaths Competition website is a great resource to use with your 5th grade class. We love just how many Christmas math games there are to choose from, including A Cartoon Christmaths, The Braindeer Christmaths and our personal favorite, Christmaths Crackers.

If you’re on the hunt for exciting math ideas, this website is full of them – almost fuller than Santa’s sleigh on Christmas Eve! Thank you to the Twinkl Elementary Teaching Group on Facebook for this winner.

Link: The Christmaths Competition

Here’s to a very merry and relaxing Christmas for all of you from everyone at Third Space Learning!

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The content in this article was originally written by a member of the content team Anantha Anilkumar and has since been revised and adapted for US schools by elementary math teacher Katie Keeton.