10+ Fun & Engaging Christmas Themed Centres for Kindergarten

Hi friends! Like many of you Christmas is my favourite holiday and a favourite of many of our students! High interest typically means high engagement so I love incorporating Christmas themes into our centres when I can do it in a hands on, meaningful way that supports their learning!

I hope you are able to find some ideas in this blog post to help you with your December planning!

1. Give Santa’s Beard a Trim!

Since giving Frankie’s trim from my Halloween pack was such a hit with both so many of your students and my kids (you can see a photo of that at the top of this blog post) I decided to make a Christmas version and it was also a big hit! Giving a “purpose” to the cutting makes it so much more motivating, especially for the kiddos who typically do not pick up scissors!

*All of the centres shown in this pack can be found in my “Kindergarten Christmas Centres: Literacy, Math, Fine Motor and More!“

2. Rudolph Play Dough Antler Letter Match

This is one of those ideas I came up while driving home from school one year (all my best thinking happens on the drive to and from school😝) so after T went to bed that night I promptly whipped up a batch of cinnamon play dough (I just added some cinnamon to a regular homemade play dough recipe) and the next morning I set it out with some googly eyes, red rhinestones and mini popsicle sticks with upper and lowercase letters written on them (I just used a black flair pen to write on them).

I invited the students to made Rudolph and make the antlers match (uppercase to lowercase). Anything with play dough is usually a hit and this one was no exception!

3. Uppercase & Lowercase Tracing

This is soooo simple but adding some thematic clip art is such an easy way to make the same activity feel like new. And if you teach Kindergarten, you know practicing letter formation is needed all year long for most kiddos! Just laminate it and pop it in your writing or dry erase centre. Easy peasy!

4. Christmas Word Charts + Mini Books

Here’s another centre that is a staple in my classroom! The kiddos love looking at the word chart and using it to draw and label thematic words! Some of my more advanced kiddos like to use it to support their sentence/story writing too.

These mini books are also a great way for students to practice their letter formation. There’s 3 different versions so it’s easy to differentiate for the different needs in the classroom. I don’t know what it is about it but the mini book format has been a hit in every class I have taught so these are also a staple thematic centre for me!

5. Dab/Make & Read

This is another staple centre for me, since my students always LOVE bingo dabbers! I also like to use the colour version with magnetic chips and wands to switch it up. This is a nice, low (no?) prep centre!

6. FREE: Christmas Tree: Find & Cover/Dab/Trace

My own kiddo LOVES activities with magnetic chips + wands so I made up this activity! There are so many options (mats with uppercase, lowercase, initial sounds images) and lots of options for the cards too! There is also a dab it version you can use with bingo dabbers. Click here or on the image below to download this 46 page freebie!

*There is an extra S card for each set. When/if you are using the beginning sound mat or printable you’ll want to take out the x card and replace it with the extra s as there is not word that begins with x and 2 words that begin with s on the beginning sound printables!

7. Build & Trace

Another manipulative that gets a lot of love (my own kids love them too!) is snap cubes! They are great for developing stronger finger muscles (which we all know is needed for good pencil skills!) which I know is a skill that many Pre-K and Kindergarten students need! These mats are a fun, hands on way to work on this important skill!

8. Underneath the Tree: CVC Read & Match Presents!

My own kiddo (3.5 years old at the time) is starting to blend sounds to read words so I made these with him in mind! He LOVED reading the word under the tree and finding the present with the matching picture! It was also a great way to work on his vocabulary as he didn’t know the meaning of some of the words (e.g. he didn’t know that cap was a kind of hat or that fig was a kind of fruit). He really liked this one and has asked me to do it a few times! I hope your students love it just as much 🙂

9. Trace + Make: Decorating Christmas Trees

Here is another simple centre that the kids loved! I like to set these out with play dough for extra fine motor development opportunities but they also work with mini pom poms, pony beads, letter beads or any small loose parts!

I actually liked using the letter beads with these after reading Chicka Chicka Ho Ho Ho and my 3.5 year old and I pretended that the the letters were going up the tree just like in the story! I think I got these alphabet beads at Walmart but couldn’t find a link online and I’m not sure if they still have them in store.. but I know I’ve seen similar ones at Michaels and I think Dollar Tree might have some too!

10. Number ID + 1:1 Correspondence with Cookie Decorating

Since the Witch’s Brew activity in the Halloween pack was such a hit with both my own kids and your students, I knew I needed to make a Christmas version!

The students simply take 3 cards from the pile, place them on the grey rectangles and add that many “sprinkles” to the cookie! I wanted to make sure you didn’t need to buy too many extra things for this activity so I kept most of the sprinkles to line sprinkles (that can be made by cutting up pipe cleaners) and round sprinkles (I used pony beads for these but you could also use small pom poms!). You can omit the trees but if you want the trees I used, I got this Christmas Tree Glitter from Michaels!

As I expected my 3.5 year old LOVED this activity! He played with it over and over making all kinds of cookies. I hope your students love it just as much!

11. My Christmas Patterning Mini Book

This one is another staple for the mini book lovers in your class! There are lots of options for easy differentiation and a cut and paste version if you want to work on scissor and glue skills too 🙂

Again, all of these are in this Christmas centres pack. You can click on the image below if you’re interested in grabbing a copy for your class!

12. Candy Cane Patterning

Here’s another simple centre that the kids love every year! Just take some Christmas coloured pipe cleaners and shape them into a candy cane shape. Then set them out with pony beads and invite them to make patterns on them😉

13. Christmas Tree STEM

This is another simple centre but the kids LOVED it! Simply set out green plastic cups and some “ornaments” (I used Christmas coloured pom poms and bells). Then have students stack and create a Christmas tree out of the cups and decorate it! This is a great centre to promote teamwork/collaboration and planning/fine motor skills!

I hope you were able to grab some ideas that you think your students will love!