As soon as the first snowflake falls here in Michigan, my students are thinking about winter break. This makes it really hard to hold their concentration and motivate them to do their best on school work for weeks in December! I’m sure my class is not the only one that feels like we are hanging on by a thread! Here are my favorite ways to engage students with popular math topics with a fun holiday twist!
A quick note: In order to include all of my students, I try to focus on general winter themes in my classroom, like snowmen and winter sweaters, instead of specific religious holidays. This way, all students can enjoy and participate in the activities, regardless of their background or experiences.
Winter Themed Digital Mystery Pictures
One awesome, no-prep activity is a winter-themed pixel art assignment! I love pixel art activities to practice a math concept any time of year, but the unique mystery pictures add a festive flair without additional preparation! As students answer questions correctly, parts of a mystery picture are revealed, making these SO easy to incorporate around any holiday – and self-checking. I love this festive corgi for multiplying whole numbers or this adorable sloth for evaluating algebraic expressions – and so do my students!
Focus Their Energy with Escape Rooms
Harness your students’ extra energy through a math-focused escape room! Escape rooms are my favorite activity to focus my students’ attention on an academic task that feels fun and competitive. I love mixing and matching challenges to create a review from a lot of different topics before we leave for winter break. Don’t worry about spending your time creating detailed and intricate escape room challenges for your students – I’ve already done the work for you! Unsure how to use escape rooms in your math class? Check out my blog post with all the tips, tricks, and explanations here!
Lowkey Holiday Math Practice
If you’re a lowkey teacher (like me!) or don’t love going over the top to celebrate holidays in your classroom, ready-to-go themed practice pages are a happy middle ground! For example, use a corny joke math page with a winter theme to bring a festive touch to your independent practice activities – like this long division one, which is perfect for practicing or reviewing long division! It takes the same prep time as any other printable worksheet, but adds a fun touch to your classroom this time of year!
Don’t have time for the copy machine? Use digital task cards with a winter-themed background (like these ones for converting between mixed numbers and improper fractions) that you can assign within minutes. I love them because you can also print, laminate, and hide around the room for a fun scavenger hunt!
Winter Ice Breaker Games
If we have downtime in class or need a brain break, I love using a holiday-themed game set to focus student conversations. This no-prep game set is winter-themed for morning meetings or team building time and includes six games, like corny jokes, “What’s That?” mystery pictures, and Would You Rather games! Every year, my students love it as a way to celebrate all December long, without seeming too baby-ish! Simply project it through Google Slides or as a PDF, and click to navigate each game.
Celebrating the winter holidays in your classroom doesn’t need to take a ton of extra preparation and doesn’t need to compromise on academics! Which of these activities are you going to try?
