Having a Christmas party in your classroom on the last day before the break is irresistible. The students’ attention spans are waning, and everyone is getting too excited to quietly complete Christmas worksheets, not to mention you’ll be in everyone’s good books! A Christmas party is a good way to get students bonding, and leaving school on a high note, making them happier to return in the new year.
Here are our recommendations on how to throw a party with school Christmas party activities everyone can enjoy.
Decorating the Classroom
Decorations
Decorating the classroom should be number one on your list. This gives the students an opportunity to be creative and takes responsibility for the party by creating a fun environment. Perhaps you could schedule an activity making Christmas decorations the afternoon before your party so that the children can have fun putting them up the next day before the party. At Springboard Supplies we stock a selection of different Christmas decoration kits, templates, and bases that children can customize and make their own. Here are a few:
- Wooden Christmas Cutouts
- Polystyrene Christmas Decorations
- Paper Mache Christmas Decorations
- Star Hangers
- Embossed Tree Decorations
Make sure you have a selection of craft materials for the children to choose from to really get into decoration-making.
The Christmas Tree
Having a real Christmas tree isn’t ideal in any classroom, but you don’t have to deprive students of the fun of decorating a tree. A cardboard substitute like our Cardboard 3D Christmas Tree is a hazard-free, relatively mess-free and much cheaper alternative. This means children can really get stuck in decorating the tree with crayons, paints, and sticking their own decoration crafts to the cardboard sides.
The Christmas Wreath
Making a Christmas wreath is a good group activity for the children to on together as a team. You could turn wreath making into all sorts of games that require the students to think, focus, work together, and be creative.
Hand out card in the shape of leaves and berries so that each child have three or four pieces. Talk to the children about the importance of kindness and love at Christmas and how, at Christmas, being kind and friendly to each other is just as important as giving and receiving presents.
Ask the children to think of some ways of showing kindness at Christmas and write them on their piece of card. Mark out the template of a wreath on a piece of poster paper and have the children stick their pieces of card on top. Then display the wreath on the classroom wall.
Christmas Photo Booth
This is a fun idea to build confidence and have the kids expressing themselves. Set up a Christmas photo booth in the classroom. This can be made with a sheet of festive paper as a backdrop and some Christmas props. Perhaps you could position the tree in the shot. Cut a rectangular frame out of black card, about A3 size.
The students can enter the photo booth to have their photos taken with their friends, or to take pictures of each other. The children can hold the black photo frame up in front of them or pose with the Christmas props. Print the photos out at the end of class for the children to take home with them.
Classroom Christmas Party Activities and Games
Penguin Race
In this game, participants have to race each other whilst waddling like penguins. SEt up your contestants in a line on one side of the room and give everyone a ball to hold between their legs just above their feet. Each participant must make it to the other side of the room without losing their ball by waddling alone. The first person to the other side is the winner. We stock a collection of softballs in different shapes and sizes that is perfect for this game, you could even get the students to test out different kinds of balls to see which ones are easier to waddle with.
Christmas Decoration Balancing
You might need to bring in a selection of Christmas ornaments for this game, or you could use the decorations the children have made themselves. This game requires a lot of focus and students must work together in pairs in order to win. Use a kitchen roll holder and a thin stick (a gardening cane is ideal). Balance the can on the up-turned kitchen roll holder so an equal length of the cane is poking out on either side.
The object of the game is to add as many decorations to the cane as possible. It’s up to pairs of students to add Christmas decorations to each side of the cane at the same time so as not to tip it either way. Participants can only use one hand throughout the game. Find more games that require children to work together in our blog on the popular book How The Grinch Stole Christmas.
Christmas Tree Bowling
For this game, you’ll need 10 paper cups. Green cups are ideal but you could always paint some white ones green. Decorate the cups with pom-poms and add a star to the top of each. These will be your Christmas trees. Arrange the trees in a bowling pin formation and let the students take turns in bowling a ball to try and knock them down. For younger children's Christmas activity you could arrange the cups in a pyramid and challenge them to knock the pyramid down with the ball.
Classroom Ice Skating
Let your students enjoy the magic of ice skating… sort of! This game helps little ones to practice balance, coordination, and dexterity. Each child should have two paper plates, these will be their ‘skates’. The children will have to skate across the room with their feet on their ice skates being careful not to lift their feet off the ground and lost their skates. You could let the children skate freely around the classroom getting the hang of it and developing their technique before marking out an assault course for them to traverse. Time each student and the one who manages to complete the course the fastest wins.
Put on a Performance
If your school celebrates the religious aspects of Christmas you might want to incorporate the story of the nativity into your Christmas party. The BBC offers some KS1 and KS2 friendly animations to explain the story of Christmas. You might even be thinking of putting on your own nativity performance. Kids will have fun with our pack of Christmas Stick Puppets, putting the costumes together and drawing on the faces.
You can also get all the costumes you need for a school nativity play with us, including:
