Christmas Activities for the Primary Classroom
Christmas is a special time of year in the primary classroom. There are songs to learn, Christmas cards to create, decorations to make and plenty of excitement as the end of term approaches.
It can also be a busy few weeks with lots to fit in alongside the usual curriculum. Christmas-themed activities can offer a lovely way to bring learning into a festive context, whether you’re practising maths, developing reading skills, exploring traditions or getting creative.
If you’re looking for Christmas activities for the primary classroom, you’re in the right place. We’ve brought together some of our favourites, from maths and English to art, music, computing and more. Some are from Busy Things; some use free resources from other organisations; others are just simple activities you can adapt to suit your pupils.
Planning ahead? Some of the Christmas activities on Busy Things will be available from mid-November. We’ve included them below so you can see what’s coming and plan ahead.
- Enjoy our advent calendar
- Write a letter to Santa
- Explore the Nativity story
- Give maths a Christmas twist
- Discover Christmas traditions around the world
- Get creative with Christmas cards and designs
- Explore snowflake symmetry and pixel art
- Make some festive music
- Help Santa deliver the right presents
1. Enjoy our advent calendar
Everyone loves an advent calendar as they provide a little joy each day.
The Busy Things’ Christmas advent calendar provides a festive jigsaw a day from 1st to 24th December, with the puzzles gradually becoming more challenging.
You could display the puzzle on your interactive whiteboard each morning, invite a different pupil to play it or use it as a short opportunity for pupils to work together.
The Busy Things Christmas advent calendar will be available from 1st December.
2. Write a letter to Santa
Writing to Father Christmas is a familiar Christmas activity, but it can also give pupils a genuine reason to practise writing, handwriting and presentation.
Busy Things has a Letter to Santa writing template that pupils can decorate and complete.
If you’d like to send the finished letters, Royal Mail’s Letters to Santa service is available again this year. For 2026, letters should be posted by Wednesday 9th December to receive a reply.
Challenge your pupils to think carefully about what makes a letter effective. What information does Santa need? How will they organise their ideas? How can they make their writing persuasive?
3. Explore the Nativity story
Christmas provides a natural opportunity to explore the Nativity story through reading, sequencing and discussion.
Busy Things includes interactive Nativity activities that can be explored together on an interactive whiteboard. Pupils can follow the story and discuss what happens at each stage.
The Nativity ordering activities are great as a follow-up, providing an opportunity to test the children’s understanding of the order of events.
Our free Christmas Topical Pack also includes a Nativity activity where pupils match picture prompts to descriptions to create their own summary of the Christmas story.
4. Give maths a Christmas twist
Christmas provides plenty of opportunities to practise maths in a festive context.
On Busy Things, Feed the Monkey: Christmas edition gives pupils a chance to practise counting, while Miner Birds: Christmas edition challenges them to be the first to collect 20 candy canes by answering mixed maths questions.
If maths is your focus, you could also create your own Christmas shopping challenge. Give pupils a selection of presents and prices and ask them to work out totals, calculate change or find different combinations of gifts to buy within a specific budget.
The festive context can make familiar maths skills feel a little different, while pupils are still practising the mathematical skills they need.
5. Discover Christmas traditions around the world
Christmas is celebrated in many different ways, making it a useful starting point for comparing traditions and finding out more about how people celebrate in different places.
The Christmas Topical Pack includes a section exploring Christmas traditions from around the world, with questions to encourage pupils to compare what they discover with their own experiences.
You could extend the activity by asking pupils to choose a country and research another Christmas tradition.
6. Get creative with Christmas cards and designs
Christmas cards give pupils an opportunity to combine design, creativity and practical skills.
Busy Things includes a Christmas Cards activity, where pupils can create their own festive cards featuring Busy Things characters.
Our Custom Sleigh game gives pupils the opportunity to design their own Christmas sleigh from a range of options.
The Christmas Topical Pack includes a pop-up Christmas card activity, Christmas bunting and snowflake activities too.
7. Explore snowflake symmetry and pixel art
Festive pictures can provide some lovely opportunities to explore patterns, coordinates and symmetry.
Our Snowflakes activity allows pupils to explore the symmetry of snowflakes whilst Pixel by Numbers: Christmas edition (right) enables pupils to match numbers to colours to uncover a festive picture.
The Christmas Topical Pack includes separate hands-on Snowflake Symmetry activities for KS1 and KS2, and also a paper-based pixel art activity where pupils use coordinates and a colour key to reveal the hidden Christmas picture.
8. Make some festive music
Christmas is full of musical opportunities, from carols and songs to creating new rhythms and tunes.
On Busy Things, Jolly Jingles lets pupils experiment with bells and work out which tune they are playing.
You could take this further by asking groups to create a short festive rhythm using classroom instruments or body percussion. Can another group copy it?
The Topical Pack includes a Christmas carol activity where pupils identify missing words from familiar Christmas songs.
9. Help Santa deliver the right presents
Santa has a lot of presents to deliver, so getting the right one to the right place is important!
Santa’s Sleigh Dash: Words gives pupils a festive way to practise reading. First, they collect the present, then at nighttime need to read carefully so Santa delivers each present to the correct destination.
Where’s My Present? focuses on observational skills. Pupils need to find the present from those displayed by matching them by size, shape and pattern.
For another take on Santa’s deliveries, the Christmas Topical Pack includes two paper-based coding challenges. Pupils need to work out the sequence of moves Robo-Santa needs to make to deliver his presents.
Together, they provide a fun way to bring reading and computational thinking into a Christmas context.
Find more Christmas activities on Busy Things
Once the Christmas activities are live, simply search ‘Christmas’ to explore the collection on Busy Things. You’ll find Christmas versions of familiar activities, including Feed the Monkey and Snowball Shootout, alongside activities created especially for Christmas, such as Santa’s Sleigh Dash, Where’s My Present?, Custom Sleigh and Jolly Jingles.
In addition to these, there are resources in the Christmas topical pack.
Ready to explore more Christmas learning?
If you’d like to explore the Christmas activities mentioned in this article, as well as more than 1,600 curriculum-linked activities, games and tools for ages 3-11, you can try Busy Things free for 28 days.
Explore activities for maths, English, phonics, science, computing, art, music and much more, then decide whether Busy Things is right for your school.
We hope you have a wonderful festive season in the classroom, with plenty of opportunities for pupils to learn, create, explore and enjoy Christmas together!