Incorporating Christmas themes into classroom activities brings a touch of freshness at a time when students and teachers alike may be burning out a little. Art projects with Christmas designs are simple to implement, but there is no reason to stop there. It only takes a little imagination to add the theme to academic activities, as well.

Christmas Magic Math

Let students calculate lighting needs for math class.
Make math lessons a little whimsical by providing students with word problems about elves, reindeer and other Christmas ideas. Students can figure out how many strings of lights they would need for a particular area, giving them practice with measuring and with perimeter or area. Other ideas include creating patterns with ornaments, lights or mittens or practicing with fractions by modifying Christmas recipes to plan for Santa's elves or for parties with different sizes of guest lists.

You can combine this with writing practice if you have the children write, illustrate and solve their own word problems from equations you provide. Extend the lesson even more by adding the problems to a bulletin board for classmates to solve.

Christmas Wishes Writing

Writing letters to Santa practices grammar skills.
Letters to Santa provide a simple, traditional writing exercise. Expand the idea for older students by asking them to list what Santa should bring to other people and to explain their reasons for selecting those suggestions. Check social studies understanding by having the gift lists focus on historic figures.

Seasonal music provides students with the chance to get silly while practicing thesaurus use. Provide the titles of several Christmas songs and ask students to replace the words with synonyms to make puzzles for their classmates.

Poems with Christmas themes make an interesting lesson and quick bulletin board display. Assign formula poems, such as cinquain, haiku or diamante, and then allow students to copy them onto box shapes cut from wrapping paper.

Santa Surveys

Surveys and picture graphs fit well with Christmas themes.
Surveys provide data for a variety of classroom activities. Begin with having students create questionnaires about Christmas favorites, including foods, songs, traditions or the season's hottest toys. Next, students use their questions to collect information from classmates and family members. Once they have collected their data, students create a variety of graphs to share the survey results.

Extend this lesson by having older students use their graphs to write compare and contrast essays about the survey results.

Feasting Facts

Use Christmas foods to practice math skills.
Permutation questions appear on many standardized tests, and a Christmas theme offers a chance to practice without using the same dry problems. Provide a list of Christmas entrees, side dishes and desserts, and ask students to calculate the number of possible meal combinations. You can also provide a list of stamps, stickers and other craft materials. After students calculate the number of different ornaments possible from, for example, three types of ribbon, four types of beads and two colors of paint, allow them to make their own ornaments from those listed supplies.