The Christmas holiday lends itself well to plenty of classroom decorating and activity ideas. The whole month of December can become a time of creativity and fun as you integrate the holiday into your lesson plans. Whether you focus on icons like Santa Claus and snowmen, or the more emotional side of the holiday such as kindness and giving, there are plenty of opportunities to fit Christmas into your classroom.

Bread Dough Ornaments
Students can make a simple dough of sorts at their own desks by removing the crusts from two pieces of white bread and tearing up the soft middles. Mix these torn up pieces of bread with a tablespoon of white glue to make a soft clay. Add more glue if necessary. This clay may be molded into a Christmas ornament and air dried, then painted and sprayed with shellac to preserve.

Snowball Race
Provide every student with a 2-inch white Styrofoam ball. Divide the class into two teams. Ask the teams to stand on one side of the classroom and place two laundry baskets on the opposite end of the classroom. The goal is for each team to race to get all their balls into their basket. Here's where creativity comes in. How will the balls get into the basket? Ideas include having teams throw the balls from across the room, telling them they can't use their hands to carry the balls or even allowing them to get the balls to the basket in any manner of their choice. The catch? Tell them they can't walk and must use another form of mobility.

Secret Santa
Have your students pick names out of a hat at the beginning of December. Set guidelines for gifts, such as a $5 or under limit or the stipulation that the gift has to be homemade. Another idea is to encourage students to perform random acts of kindness for their secret Santa partner over the course of the month. On the last day of school before holiday break have students exchange their final gift and attempt to guess who their secret Santa was. Award prizes for the students who guess correctly.

Classroom Holiday Cookbook
Have students bring their family's favorite holiday recipe to class. Each recipe should be written neatly on a piece of copy paper. Students can decorate the pages with illustrations or by making a collage with family pictures and magazine cut outs. Make a copy for each student and three-hole punch all the pages, making sure all students place the holes in the exact same places. Three-hole punch two pieces of construction paper, which will serve as the front and back of the cookbook. Thread 4-inch pieces of yarn through each hole, tying each piece in a double bow. Students can decorate the front covers of their class recipe books individually. To further personalize the cookbook, each student can sign the back of the book and even add a small illustration if they desire.