Keep your students occupied during the anticipation of the Christmas holidays. The busier the students are, the less likely they will be to become distracted by the upcoming break. Use the holidays as the focus of your lessons instead of trying to avoid it. Activities about Christmas and other holidays during that time keep kids learning when many of them are already dreaming of a white Christmas morning and presents.

Christmas Around the World
Learn about holiday traditions around the world. Either study winter holidays together as a class, featuring a different country each school day, or have each student choose a country and conduct research about that nation's Christmas or winter holiday customs. The day before school dismisses for the holidays, have a classroom party with holiday foods from each of the countries you studied. Other ideas for the classroom are to have the students create a Christmas ornament representing the holiday custom of each country. Hang these ornaments from a tree in your classroom. This activity applies to social studies classes and language arts classes if you have the students write a paper about a single country.

Letters to Santa
For a language arts lesson, have the students write a letter to Santa. This is best for younger grades who will not balk at the notion. To incorporate this activity into other lessons you are doing in your classroom, have the students pretend that they are a character from the book the class is reading in their language arts or English class. This is also a way to use this activity for older students.The students then write the letter to Santa as though it is written by that character. For instance, a letter to Santa from the lame Tiny Tim in Dicken's "A Christmas Carol" might ask for a bigger Christmas goose or a new crutch to use.

Wreath Craft
Students create a wreath in class for an art project to take home and decorate for the holidays. Cut out the center from a paper plate, leaving a ring. The student takes a 2 inch square piece of tissue paper and puts his finger into the center of the paper. The tissue is pressed around the finger. The student then dips the portion of the tissue paper covering the tip of his finger into white glue. He then glues the tissue to the paper plate ring. This will create a tuft of green tissue paper. Following this same procedure, the student glues tissue paper tufts to completely cover the paper plate ring all the way around, leaving space to glue a tissue paper bow onto the top or bottom of the wreath. Gluing the tissue paper is a simple enough task for first grade students, but allow extra time for the students to finish the task.

Colonial Christmas
Study about colonial-era Christmases. How did the colonists differ in their Christmas celebrations? Did Virginia celebrate in a different manner than Massachusetts? Recreate a colonial Christmas in your classroom with historical decorations made by the students in paper. Conduct research on colonial holidays on the Internet and have the class discuss differences between the modern celebration and the historical.