December is an exciting, but busy month in our classrooms! We have plenty of December activities that can help calm the chaos and make your planning a breeze.
Holiday festivities, assessments, celebrations, end-of-the-semester activities, and the list goes on. So many things to do! Just remember… with winter break right around the corner, rest is in your near future.
In the meantime, we couldn’t be more excited to share these fun classroom learning ideas with you!
Gingerbread December Activities
1. Gingerbread Stories
Give me all the gingerbread! My students have a lot of fun with gingerbread-themed activities, so we kick off the month with our favorite gingerbread book studies.
Consider using a graphic organizer with students to help them visualize information from the story. This helps students organize their thoughts when comparing and contrasting the various stories.
Then, follow up your read-alouds with the gingerbread-themed activities below. Here are some read-aloud favorites that are great for comparison activities.
- The Gingerbread Baby
- Gingerbread Friends
- The Gingerbread Girl
- The Gingerbread Cowboy
- The Gingerbread Pirate
December Activity 2. Gingerbread Numbers
Help students build fine motor and number recognition skills with a gingerbread cut and glue number activity. This is great for review or to use as an assessment.
December Activity 3. Gingerbread STEM
Encourage creativity and teamwork with a seasonal-themed STEM challenge. Your students will be so engaged and focused when planning a trap for the gingerbread man with this Gingerbread STEM activity. My favorite part of this December activity is listening to students share their traps and hearing them encourage others to try new ideas. This is the perfect activity to strengthen growth mindset skills this month.
4. Gingerbread Cookie Writing
Cooking day in December is a fun one! If you are able to cook in your classroom, making gingerbread cookies with your class is a great science, math, and language arts lesson all in one.
Follow up your cookie baking with gingerbread cookie writing. This is a good way to teach sequencing and helps students plan out their writing. A good option for introducing “how to writing” is to use a sequencing activity with picture clues.
December Activity 5. Gingerbread Beginning Sounds
Many students are working on mastering beginning sounds. This adorable and engaging gingerbread beginning sound activity is the perfect review or extra practice. Place a beginning sounds activity in a center or use it for partner work.
Winter December Activities
Cold weather is in the air, snow is coming soon, and winter activities are a great way to kick off the new season with your students.
6. Winter Sentence Matching
Not only are sentence matching activities a reading activity to build fluency, but they are also great for discussing winter vocabulary. Using winter vocabulary cards before the sentence-matching activity can be a helpful pre-teaching strategy.
December Activity 7. Mitten Graphing
Teaching students to use and understand graphs is an important math skill. Data is all around us, and graphs can help students display and present this data. Use a mitten graph to teach this math skill in December. Pair your mitten graph December activity with a read-aloud of The Mitten by Jan Brett.
8. Snowperson Ten Frames
Using ten frames in your lessons helps students develop number sense. Ten frames help students begin to understand counting, place value, addition, subtraction, and more. Encourage students to visualize numbers and prepare them for future math skills by using ten frames in your classroom. Try a Snowperson Ten Frame activity with your students in December.
December Activity 9. Winter Story Problems
Using word problems encourages students to apply their math knowledge to real-life situations. Word problems are a critical math skill and encourage students to explore solution strategies that make sense.
Incorporating Winter Story Problem activities into your lessons encourage students to use both logic and creative thinking to find a solution. Something to include not only in December but all year long.
10. Snowy Tree Painting
When my class needs a calm Friday afternoon activity, it’s painting for the win! We read the story The Biggest Christmas Tree Ever by Steven Kroll and follow up the read-aloud with the cotton swab Snowy Tree Painting. I think you could hear a pin drop when students are painting. Perfect for building fine motor skills! Students can cut these out to hang in the classroom as winter decorations.
December Activity 11. Winter Cause and Effect
Cause-and-effect activities encourage higher-level thinking skills. A cause-and-effect activity can get students to stop, think, and communicate with each other. They really talk it out when completing cause-and-effect activities in small groups and I love to see the collaboration and teamwork! A Winter Cause and Effect activity is a great way to encourage creative thinking this month.
12. Label a Reindeer
Do you have a favorite reindeer read-aloud for this time of the year? Mine is The Littlest Reindeer by Brandi Dougherty. After reading a reindeer story, talk and discuss facts about reindeers and complete a label the reindeer activity.
13. December Listen and Color
During this time of year, everything is running full speed ahead with fun activities and happenings in our school! It can be hard to get students to focus and listen among all of the holiday craziness.
The December Listen and Color is perfect for engaging those listening skills and encouraging students to follow directions. Using a listen and color activity in December can help assess which students might need some extra instruction for various concept words. December Vocabulary words cards are a great way to include vocabulary with this listening lesson.
Language Arts December Activities
14. Word Family Sorts
Practicing word families builds the skill of rhyming and helps students see and understand word patterns. This is a great time to review all the word families your students have been learning. Using a word family sort is an interactive way to do this in your classroom.
December Activity 15. Sight Word Coloring
Include a color-by-sight word activity in a center this month for review and practice. This is a great option to have students color while you are completing individual end-of-the-semester assessments with your students.
16. Verb Tense Activities
A themed activity can make practicing verb tenses a little more fun for your students. A verb tense winter coloring activity helps students practice the difference between past, present, and future verb tenses. Have students practice writing the correct verb tense in a sentence with a fill-in-the-blank verb tense activity.
Math December Activities
17. Money Activity
How fun is a $20 Shopping Spree?! Your students will have so much fun getting to “spend” some money with this math activity. A great way to keep students engaged while counting money.
December Activity 18. Even and Odd Numbers
Learning odd and even numbers is important for developing future math skills. An odd and even number activity will give students extra practice with this skill that they will need throughout their math education. Students count the snowflakes with this cute snow globe activity and determine if there is an odd or even amount.
19. Winter Animal Bar Graph
Bar graphs allow students to analyze and compare data. A winter animal bar graph give students the opportunity to gather and display data in a simple and effective way. This is an activity that provides a visual for students to see data.
December Activity 20. Addition and Subtraction
Two-Digit Addition and Subtraction gives students extra practice with this important math skill. As students learn to add and subtract two digit numbers, they often need extra practice and support. This activity works great for review reteaching in a small group.
These December activities for primary students are the perfect solution to use for teaching new concepts, continued practice, review, assessment, or homework. Use them in a way that works best for your students.
Check out the complete assortment of December activities included in each grade-level packet.
- Kindergarten DecemberPacket
- First Grade December Packet
- Second Grade December Packet
At ETTC, our goal is to support you every step of the way, all year long. That is why our resources don’t stop here.
You can continue to find monthly activities for the remainder of the year with our monthly packets for every single month. Monthly packets are available by the month or in Year Long Bundles.
Written By: Sarah Cason
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