Advent Calendar: 14 Activities to Brighten Up the Classroom Before the Holidays

For each activity, Alloprof provides a short description and, in some cases, a link to the page where it is presented and where you can download the printable tool.

Writing to Santa with your students? In reply, Santa will send you a classroom poster featuring the name of every student in your class.

Gather all your students’ letters in one large envelope. No stamp needed! Include a printed class list with each child’s first name, along with the  checklist for Canada Post staff.

Mail everything to Santa Claus, North Pole, H0H 0H0, or drop off the letters at your local post office no later than December 2, 2026.

Discovering other languages sparks curiosity and gives the brain a workout! Why not take advantage of the upcoming holidays to learn how to say “Merry Christmas” in different languages with your students? Besides being fun, this activity helps them develop their language awareness and open up to cultures around the world. It’s also a great opportunity to highlight the languages spoken by the students in your class.

Origami is a wonderful way to combine art and  geometry. For a more  eco-friendly activity, invite your students to bring in recycled paper (scrap paper, old wrapping paper, construction paper, etc.), which they can decorate before folding. It’s also a chance to explore  solids and their  nets: the ornaments are octahedrons, one of the five  regular convex polyhedra students will study in secondary school.

To keep up the theme of festive classroom decorations, what could be better than bringing together all your students’ kind words by hanging them up as holiday banners? Print these banners for students to cut out and colour, then invite each student to write a wish, a dream, a hope, an inspiring sentence or anything else they’d like to share.

December is the perfect time to renew your students’  love of reading with our reading comprehension game,  Book of Spells! Holiday-themed stories are waiting for them: Delicious and Generous, Licorice, Are You There? and Who Are Santa’s Reindeer? To continue the adventure, check out our  holiday reading suggestions or our selection of  story books about winter, which can spark a discussion about family traditions.

The holiday season is a great time to let your students’  literary creativity run free by inviting them to  create their own stories. For example, they can  make up a Christmas story using a template. Once their story is finished, they can present it as a zine, a small hand-folded magazine. Our  ready-to-use kit includes folding instructions and a printable template.

Learning songs helps students exercise their memory, build their vocabulary and develop their sense of rhythm. Singing together also strengthens their sense of belonging to the group. From Petit papa Noël to Vive le vent, holiday classics are perfect for this.

Here’s a simple approach to learning a song in class.

1. Play the song two or three times while projecting the lyrics.
2. Learn the chorus first, since it’s the part that comes back most often.
3. Add the verses one at a time, pairing each line with a gesture or an image.
4. Take turns singing: one group sings the verses, and the other sings the chorus.
5. Sing the song again for a few minutes every day until the holidays.

A few ideas to go beyond memorization:

• Rewrite the lyrics: In teams, students keep the melody of a familiar song and make up new lyrics about their class or their traditions. It’s a great exercise for working on rhymes and syllable counts.
• Sing in other languages: Students who speak another language at home can share a song from their culture.
• Perform the song: The class can sing it for another class, at a school assembly or in a video sent to families.

Exploring traditions from other parts of the world is a great way to broaden students’ horizons and enrich their cultural knowledge. Quebec is home to rich cultural diversity: Haitians, Latin Americans, Greeks and Italians, among others, also celebrate Christmas, incorporating their own cultural elements. To learn a little more about these traditions, we offer this resource featuring a selection of holidays celebrated around the world. As a follow-up activity, why not hold a short discussion or an exhibit of student drawings so they can share their family traditions?

Whether they arrive by mail or by email, Christmas cards are always a pleasure to receive. To make the writing activity even more fun, you can invite students to try a funny or poetic style, among others. Download the postcard template here.

With our many printable colouring pages, there’s something for every taste and every level! Colouring is a must-do holiday activity: it offers a calming moment while helping students practise their fine motor skills and concentration.

The holiday break is almost here! To brighten up the last week of school before the break, this article offers a wide range of fun competitions to try in class. It’s a great opportunity to enjoy the benefits of active breaks at school.

Bingo is a classic game loved by people of all ages. To get into the holiday spirit while reviewing vocabulary words, there’s nothing better than trying our Christmas bingo!

The holidays are a great time to bring out board games! To combine learning and fun, you can choose educational board games. On the Alloprof website, you’ll find printable games to use in class. These include our themed game The Sled Race, inspired by the Game of the Goose;  Allomarket, which helps students learn how to count money; and Think Fast! which helps students control their impulsivity.

And if your students have lots of energy and prefer mini-games that get them moving, you can print our  Active Breaks with Flo cards.