Welcome to one of the most wonderful times of the year! The holidays are upon us and depending on where you live, the snow is falling. With so many fun topics and themes to explore this time of year, December is a favorite for many preschool teachers.
However, for as much fun Christmas Theme Activities for Pre-K can be, they can also be a lot of work! Therefore, we have put together a full bundle of Christmas-themed lesson plans for you and your preschoolers!
Complete with independent learning activities, circle time, math and literacy centers, STEM learning, and a holiday read aloud, this bundle will keep your students engaged all month long.
Check out our Gingerbread Man Activities for PreK.
Christmas Activities and Lesson Plans for Preschool
While engagement is always an essential part of learning, there are times of the year when it is more difficult to get students to engage. Like in December.
All of the fun themes that teachers draw on for lesson plans, like the Polar Express, Gingerbread Men, and Cookie Decorating, are based on real-life events students may be participating in at home.
With the excitement of knowing they are going to ride the train to see Santa on the Polar Express or make Gingerbread Men with their moms, keeping them engaged in school can be tricky. It is not impossible though!
To help engage students at this time it is helpful to draw on these outside events when planning Christmas activities and lesson plans for preschool. This can take extra time though and like your students, you probably want to enjoy the holiday events when you leave school.
To give you more time to enjoy the holiday events we have created detailed Christmas lesson plans for you to follow. These lesson plans are centered around engaging and rigorous activities for preschoolers. Therefore, your students can have fun learning about Christmas themes while still engaging in important academic activities.
Preschool Christmas Read Aloud
One of our favorite activities during December is holiday themed read alouds! With so many amazing books to choose from, there is always something fun to read to kids.
In addition, while the Christmas read aloud books for preschool are often fun (and funny) they continue to be educational. Such as the book Pig the Elf which teaches students an important lesson about not being greedy with gifts.
Including holiday books in your classroom goes beyond just reading them though. You want to engage your students in activities that help them dive deeper into a text. This is why we have created 3-5 days worth of reading and comprehension activities to use with all of our favorite Christmas books.
To help you get started we have included our favorite Preschool Christmas Read Aloud with this bundle! Olive the Other Reindeer is a delightful book about Olive, the other reindeer we did not know about.
You and your students will love reading about Olive to get in the holiday spirit. Moreover, you will love having a week’s worth of reading lessons ready-to-teach!
Preschool Christmas Centers
In addition to reading as a whole class, literacy learning centers are another important part of helping preschoolers develop their language skills. You can make these literacy center lessons fun by making them part of the holiday theme.
No need to spend unnecessary time coming up with your own Christmas literacy centers though, we have already done it for you! In this literacy center packet, you will find nine engaging and educational literacy activities for preschoolers.
- Cookie Jar Rhymes: Identifying Rhyming Words
- Toy Factory Match: Initial Sound Puzzles
- Syllable Smash: North Pole Words
- Spot and Dot: Finding Letters
- Hunt the Room: North Pole Words
- Cookie Sheet Match: Matching Upper and Lowercase Letters
- On My Own Craft: Making a Reindeer
- Elf Toy Train: Writing Own Name
- Sequin or Rice Writing: Letter Formation
As you know, center work isn’t just great for developing language skills but it is also great for developing math skills. Therefore, we have also included nine Christmas math center activities in this resource.
- Count and Clip: Count Santa’s Presents in the Sleigh
- Flip and Count: Present Pileup
- Roll and Graph: Roll and Graph the elves’ toys
- How Tall?: Reindeer Training Measurement
- Compare and Cover the Cookies: Comparing Numbers
- Elf House Lights: Christmas Light Patterns
- North Pole Sorting: Sorting things in Santa’s Village
- Cookie Shapes: Drawing 2D Shapes
Preschool Christmas Activities
As a preschool teacher you know how important it is to foster independence in young children. This is essential to their growth and development as a learner and a person.
One of the best ways to help encourage and support children in gaining independence is to regularly provide independent learning opportunities. Our favorite way to do this is through stations.
We call these stations Exploration Stations because they are designed to do just that, help students explore! It is easy to create stations each month using a unit theme, such as Christmas.
While there are many different Christmas topics to choose from, we focused this preschool Christmas activity on the North Pole. Here are the different stations we planned out for you and your students to learn about the North Pole.
- Explore: read informational sheets about the North Pole
- Build: use the cards to build gifts in different patterns
- Color: follow step-by-step directed drawings to color a North Pole character
- Make: use the materials and instruction cards to decorate a holiday tree
- Sort: sort examples and non-examples of North Pole items
- Play: use the magnifying glass and checklist to play I Spy
- Create: follow the directions to create a reindeer
- Match: cut and paste to match Santa’s gear
- Write/Draw: write or draw about the North Pole
December STEM for PreK
In addition to exploration stations, STEM activities are another great way to engage students in independent thinking. Moreover, STEM provides the perfect opportunity for students to work together and develop collaboration skills.
Whether you are new to STEM for preschool or an expert, we have provided everything you need to easily implement a December STEM activity for PreK this month.
Following the Engineering Protocol that we have created and explicitly outlined, your students will work together to solve a problem. In this December-themed STEM activity, Santa’s reindeer have quit and no he doesn’t have anyone to guide his sleigh on Christmas Eve.
Using materials you already have in your classroom, students will come up with designs to make a sleigh for Santa that can hold presents and slide a long distance down a hill without stopping.
Prek Christmas Songs
Before you jump into any of the activities above there is an important routine that most preschool teachers use in their classrooms – circle time! Circle time is the best way to begin your day with students.
This dedicated time allows you as the teacher to review lessons from the previous day and introduce new important things, like the next letter in the alphabet. Moreover, it allows you to have fun with your students!
Singing during circle time is a favorite activity for many teachers and students. It is the perfect way to practice verbal skills while starting the day in a fun and positive way.
Another great thing about circle time is that it is easy to create a theme that follows the other activities for the month. Like Christmas!
In our North Pole Circle Time Christmas Activities for Preschool, we have included song lyrics with a familiar holiday song to sign with your students. In addition to the PreK Christmas Songs, there are several other North Pole activities to help you begin each day.
- 2 reread/review the text activities
- 3 responding to text activities
- song lyrics with a familiar tune + 2 corresponding activities
- pocket chart poem + 2 corresponding activities
- 3 game-style whole class activities
- 5 corresponding independent worksheets
- 1 emergent reader
Depending on how you conduct circle time, you have the choice of printing or projecting these circle time activities.
In addition, as with all of our lessons for the holidays, this activity packet includes detailed circle time lesson plans. These make it easy to implement without too much preparation.
Christmas Lesson Plans for Preschool
If you want to focus on enjoying the season then this bundle of all the Christmas lesson plans above is perfect for you. With minimal preparation and detailed lesson plans, you can quickly implement every activity into your classroom.
The result? A fun-filled educational month of learning that leaves you time to enjoy the holiday events outside of school.
