How do I keep students focused during the countdown to winter break? One key is to use fun Christmas math activities that still keep the students working on standards but also engage the students. I try to make my fun Christmas math activities more winter/holiday themed to ensure all of my students are included. I also change up my classroom management to keep students engaged and on task, so I can continue teaching the standards as well. Below are some ideas for fun Christmas activities for Middle School math classrooms.
#1 Let them “shop”
Have students create a wish list of items from “Santa”. This is a fun Christmas math activity for students, it uses real-life math and works with their interests. Provide students with sales ads, or if you are a 1 to 1 school your students can look up the sale ads on their computers. Provide students with a budget, they must include sales tax. To add even more math, have students calculate the original sale price. Students will be using percents, algebra, decimals and not even realize it.
#2 Play the Good Behavior Game
Maybe you already play some sort of behavior game with your students, or only bring it out for those tough times of year. Either way, make your behavior game Christmas or Winter Themed (To include those students who don’t celebrate Christmas). Play gingerbread men against gingerbread teachers. Have a strand of paper Christmas lights, hang up a bulb each time they win the game, you could provide a prize when they get a strand of 10. If you teach multiple class periods, have the class periods play against each other come up with festive team names for each period. This may not be a math Christmas activity but it will help keep students of all ages focused on your lessons until break.
#3 Have students complete a Quadrant Plane Picture
Students love this activity, and it keeps them engaged for the entire class time. This is a great activity to do before any graphing unit to provide students with practice before you begin the unit, it’s great to use as an intervention for those students who are still struggling with the quadrant plane, or just fun practice for students. If you haven’t heard of the Math-Aids website before, it is a great website I use for free math worksheets. I use their worksheet for repeated intervention with my students, it can create a different worksheet on the same concept for my students to help track intervention.
#4 Work on critical thinking skills
Take a break from your usual notes, practice, more practice and have students work on logic puzzles. These help students think critically and build their confidence and stamina with working on challenging problems. Logic puzzles may not be a standard but knowing how to approach and work through novel problems certainly is. Find a free Christmas logic puzzle from the Math Geek Mama here.
#5 Complete fun Christmas math worksheets
These worksheets help students practice solving multi-step equations. I feel like solving equations is a foundation to algebraic thinking. This is a skill I want my students to be able to do in their sleep, I created many different types of activities to use throughout the year for my intervention students to have constant practice with this skill. I have found that the age doesn’t matter, students enjoy coloring and novelty of an activity. My students worked quietly on these activities and I was able to help others one on one or in small groups while they worked.
I would love to hear your ideas as well in the comments.
