Create a Christmas display in the classroom that will encourage students to continue to learn and enjoy the holiday at the same time.
Christmas Trees
Christmas trees are a common symbol of the holidays and can be used in numerous ways in the classroom for educational displays. In young classes, small cut-out Christmas trees can be used to reinforce a variety of math concepts including skip counting, counting by 5s and counting by 10s. They can be used in older classrooms to provide visual examples of more complex math problems.
Christmas trees can be a great way to teach following directions. Here are a few sample directions that students can follow by using crayons, markers or colored pencils:
- Put 3 red Christmas ornaments on the tree.
- Put a star on top of the Christmas tree.
- Add 1 blue ball on the Christmas tree.
Once the teacher has given about 8-10 directions, the completed Christmas trees can be turned in for a grade and then displayed on the classroom bulletin board.
'Twas the Night Before Christmas
After reading ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas by Clement Moore [Houghton Mifflin, 1912], use the following bulletin board as a follow up activityCut out a large outline of a house and use it for the outline for the bulletin board. Each student should have a small pillow or bed cut out where they will write what they hope to get for Christmas. The display title should read: All the children went to bed with visions of ____ dancing in their heads.
Twelve Days of Christmas
To celebrate Christmas as a class and teach some of the traditions that surround the holiday, teachers can have their students help them create a Twelve Days of Christmas Bulletin Board. Using the lyrics to the 12 Days of Christmas, teachers can spend just over two weeks discussing gifts and gift giving with this song about Christmas, while adding a new picture to the display. Students should be encouraged to come up with comparable gifts that could be given today. The twelve days are:
- A partridge in a pear tree
- Two turtle doves
- Three French hens
- Four calling birds
- Five golden rings
- Six geese
- Seven swans
- Eight maid
- Nine ladies
- Ten lords
- Eleven pipers and
- Twelve drummers.
Enjoying the Christmas holiday in the classroom needs to be done carefully and with much prudence to not offend those who do not celebrate Christmas. With a little creativity, though, the commonly celebrated aspects of the holiday can be used for educational displays while bringing some Christmas cheer into the classroom.
Related Articles:
- Bulletin Board Ideas for Teachers – A collection of bulletin board ideas for each season and a variety of holidays.
- Christmas Math Lessons – Creative math lesson ideas that bring some Christmas spirit into the classroom and allow students to have fun while learning.
- Teaching about Christmas and Kwanzaa – Lesson ideas for teachers related to the history behind Christmas and Kwanzaa.
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