The hustle and bustle of the holiday season can make it feel like a race to get to winter break. With performances, parties, and in-service days all fighting for attention, you’re doing your best to ensure your students learn as much as they can before their brains check out and visions of sugar plums start dancing in their heads.

We’ve got a selection of Christmas activities for school that you can use to tap into students’ excitement for the holiday season while still getting in the critical background knowledge and skills they need to learn.

• Discover Christmas stories from around the world in ELA
• Build background knowledge of Christmas traditions in social studies
• Try fun holiday experiments in science

[Discover Christmas stories from around the world in ELA](id-ela)

Key takeaways:

• Focus ELA lessons on Christmas traditions and customs around the world.
• Paired text analyses can help students compare and contrast Christmas traditions across cultures.
• Theme your whole-class literature selections by choosing timely Christmas stories, like “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens.

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Help your students get in the spirit of the season with Christmas stories and lessons that look at holiday traditions from around the world in your ELA classes:

What Christmas traditions do people have around the world?

Cultural customs and family traditions are hallmarks of celebrating Christmas and other end-of-year holidays. Help students dive into where traditions come from and why they’re so important to celebrating holidays:

• Read an article about what family traditions are and why they matter.
• Discover how people around the world party and celebrate important events.
• Explore the traditions and customs associated with holidays such as Christmas, Kwanzaa, and Lunar New Year.

How can students compare and contrast cultural Christmas traditions?

Paired text analyses are an exciting way to help students compare and contrast information. Use one of these activities to help your students better understand how people around the world celebrate Christmas through traditions such as gathering with family, giving gifts, and helping others

Explore Christmas celebrations in Zambia and Colombia

Discover how people in Zambia, Africa, and Colombia, South America, celebrate Christmas traditions with this paired text activity:

• Assign the fiction story “Thoko’s Gift” by Fiske Serah Nyirongo about a family Christmas gathering in Lusaka, Zambia.
• Compare the traditions mentioned in the fictional story to those in a nonfiction article about how Afro-Colombians celebrate Christmas in February.
• Have students use a Venn Diagram to compare how different cultural groups celebrate Christmas worldwide.

Discuss the tradition of gift-giving

In many major end-of-year holidays, gift-giving is a common theme. Students can explore how and why giving presents is such a prevalent tradition with one of two paired text analyses:

• Assign the short fictional story “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry and/or “Legend of the Poinsettias,” a Mexican story by Angela McAllister.
• Read a nonfiction article that explores the tradition of giving holiday gifts.
• Ask students to use a paired text analysis worksheet to answer the question, “What is the main idea of each text, and how are they connected?”

Focus on charity and compassion

People often want to give back and help others during the holiday season. Use this paired text analysis to explore the theme of charity:

• Have students read the fictional story “Uncle Martin” by Angela McAllister, a French tale about spreading kindness on Christmas Day.
• Assign a nonfiction text about how a donation center ran out of space to store items after an overwhelming display of kindness in one Texas community.
• Ask students to complete a paired text analysis and answer the question, “How do the genre and style of each text impact the author’s message?”

What can students learn from the classic story “A Christmas Carol”?

Many students are probably familiar with the plot of Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” from popular media, even if they’ve never read the book. Share the classic tale with them and help build background knowledge on the author, characters, and setting with resources like:

• A video biography of author Charles Dickens.
• An interactive video that explores what makes “A Christmas Carol” a classic story.
• An article explaining what social factors inspired Dickens to write the story.

Add a writing component to your lesson with a Newsela Writing assignment! Students can write an essay that analyzes why Dickens chose the setting of Christmas for his ghost story.

What’s the difference between Christmas and other December holidays?

People observe so many different holidays during the winter—not just Christmas! Assign articles to help students understand, compare, and contrast topics like:

• The history of Christmas.
• Little-known facts about Kwanzaa.
• The history of Hanukkah.

[Build background knowledge of Christmas traditions in social studies](id-ss)

Key takeaways:

• Explore the history of popular Christmas traditions in social studies classes, like putting up Christmas trees and lights.
• Focus on economics and how Christmas shopping and spending affect principles like supply and demand and shipping costs.

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Teach students more about the history and background of Christmas celebrations, traditions, and customs in social studies classes:

Where do Christmas traditions come from?

Christmas is typically considered a Christian holiday, but it has both religious and secular traditions. Students can learn more about how people around the world celebrate using content that explores:

• Where Christmas trees come from, and what people do with them after the holiday. 
• Why people put up Christmas lights, and where the tradition started.
• Some of the most popular Christmas foods worldwide.

How do holidays affect the economy?

Christmas can have a significant financial impact on various sectors of the economy. Have students investigate these impacts with a targeted inquiry lesson. They’ll explore articles on topics like:

• How supply and demand affect people who buy Christmas trees.
• How impactful worldwide events force people to alter long-standing traditions and buying practices.
• The impact of Christmas shipping and wrapping waste on the environment and the economy.

[Try fun holiday experiments in science](id-sci)

Key takeaways:

• Teach students about mixtures in science by creating crystal ornaments.
• Explore the properties of air, water, and fire with a drinking candle holiday experiment.

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Help bring the magic of the holidays to life with Christmas-themed experiments in science class:

Grow a crystal ornament

Help your students create a science-based craft they can hang on their Christmas tree for years! With this crystal ornament experiment, students can:

• Learn the scientific definition of a mixture.
• Discover the similarities and differences between heterogeneous and homogeneous mixtures.
• Complete the crystal ornament experiment to put what they learned about mixtures into practice.

Uncover the illusion behind a drinking candle

Candles are often a staple in Christmas decorations and traditions. But have your students ever heard of a candle that can drink water? Help them see the science behind this “magic trick” with the following lesson:

• Discuss the necessary elements to start a fire and how the chemical reaction of combustion keeps it burning.
• Explore the different types of pressure in air and water.
• Do the drinking candle experiment to see firsthand what they learned about fire and pressure.

The best present: Year-round engaging content!

Use Newsela’s knowledge and skill-building products to create timely, engaging lessons for every holiday and event all year. If you’re not a Newsela customer yet, sign up for Newsela Lite and get a 45-day free trial of all our premium and differentiated content and activities to help you plan more exciting activities for Christmas and beyond.