You’re almost there! Winter break is right around the corner, and I came up with the perfect list to make your last day of school prep a breeze. Here are 10 easy-prep holiday center activities that will get your students even more excited for winter break.
Non-Academic Holiday Centers
1. Â Finger Ice Skating
Your students should roll up their sleeves because this easy-prep activity can get messy! All you’ll need is a few cans of shaving cream, paper towels, and cleared-off tables. As you give each student a pile of shaving cream to spread on their desk, be sure to explain that they can write words, draw pictures, or practice their “finger ice skating.” Once the activity has finished, give each student some paper towels to wipe off their own desks. (Bonus… your classroom will smell great and shaving cream cleans the desks.)
2. Snow Throw
Have students crumple strips of white paper to create “snowballs” until they each have 10. Create teams of 2-3 students and allow them to pick holiday-themed team names. Place a bucket on the ground and have the teams take turns throwing their snowballs into the bucket. Make sure to keep score somewhere that is visible to everyone. The team that gets the most snowballs into the bucket wins!
3. Holiday Freeze Dance
This no-prep activity is perfect for kicking off a winter celebration. All you need is some holiday music and enough space for dancing in the classroom. Students should be dancing when the music is playing, but when the music stops, they have to freeze. Any students caught moving will be asked to sit down, and the game will continue until there is one student left standing.
4. Snowflake Art
Grab some coffee filters or white paper and some scissors. Fold the paper in half 3-5 times and begin cutting out small shapes around the edges of the paper. Model by cutting triangles, rectangles, squares, semi-circles, etc., then show the result. Be sure to remind students that every snowflake is different, so they will each have something special to take home for winter break.
5. Skate Around the Room (for carpeted classrooms)
Give each student two paper plates and some crayons, then set a timer and allow the students to decorate both sides of their plates however they see fit. When time is up, ask the students to help stack chairs and push desks to clear an open space in the center of the room. Lastly, model how students can skate around the room by stepping on their plates and using them as “ice skates.”
Academic Holiday Center Activities
6. Directed Drawings
This holiday-themed Language Arts activity is as easy as printing out some of our Directed Drawing worksheets and watching as the students learn to draw snowflakes, dreidels, kinaras, Christmas trees, diyas, hot chocolate, and more. When students are done drawing, they can turn over their papers to practice handwriting, vocabulary, and sentence building.
7. Snowball Fight
Give each student one piece of white paper and ask them to write their favorite thing about winter break. For example, their favorite holiday movie, family tradition, or anything else they might be looking forward to. Younger students can write simple sentences, while older students can write a paragraph that includes more details. Next, have the students crumple their papers and spend 1-2 minutes having a class snowball fight (make sure to mix up those snowballs). When time is up, you can pick up one paper at a time and read their writing aloud as the rest of the class tries to guess who made the snowball.
8. Color by Number
Hand out one Color by Number worksheet to each student or let them choose their favorite from different holiday-themed pictures. You can sit back and relax as your students practice math or language arts skills to discover what colors they’ll need to complete each part of their picture.
9. Â New Year Countdown
This easy-prep activity is perfect for small group math centers. Start by cutting strips of construction paper and ensuring that each student has access to tape or a glue stick. Have your students count how many days are left until the New Year and create counting chains in an AB pattern. Students can take these chains home and remove one chain each morning to count down the days to the New Year.
10. Survey, Tally, and Graph
Give each student a copy of the Survey, Tally, and Graph worksheet and ask them to think about which winter activity they like best, sledding, ice skating, or skiing. Next, the students will talk to their peers and add tallies on their worksheets to keep track of how many classmates like each activity. Once students are done surveying and tallying, they will graph their findings and answer questions based on the results.
Put your last week of activities together in minutes with these 10 easy-prep holiday center activities. Whether your school allows you to have celebrations in class, or if you have to keep them academic in nature, Education to the Core has you covered.
Written by: Madison Patten
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