17 Christmas classroom games for students

In this guide

• Santa says
• Twenty questions – holiday edition
• Pin the nose on Rudolph
• Christmas charades
• Merry musical chairs
• Twinkling tongue twisters
• Antlers up!
• Christmas crosswords
• Winter wonderland word search
• Blitzen bingo
• Christmas cards
• White elephant
• Frosty freeze dance
• Elf, Elf, Santa
• Oh, Christmas tree
• Sit down, stand up
• Winter word scramble

Every year, without fail, the holidays come around and both students and teachers seriously need a break. Some traditionalist teachers may balk at the idea of play in the classroom, but the pedagogy of play is not something to be dismissed. 

What better way to get into the holiday spirit than playing some Christmas games in your classroom? These games can be educational or purely for fun – something we should never take for granted. Read on for some Reindeer games to share with your students this season.

1) Santa says

Simon who? All kids know that they need to be good to get what’s on their Christmas lists, and what better way to behave than by doing exactly what Santa says?

In this holiday version of Simon Says, students will need to listen carefully – either to you or to a classmate playing Santa – and follow instructions. You won’t need any materials for this simple festivity!

2) Twenty questions – holiday edition

This classic game is a favorite among all ages. Mix it up by secretly assigning a student a holiday-themed person, place, or thing. Project the answer on the board behind them, and instruct the student to ask their peers yes or no questions to uncover the answer. 

To get to the right answer, students will need to use deductive reasoning, critical thinking skills, and come up with strategic questions.

3) Pin the nose on Rudolph

You may be familiar with the classic children’s birthday party game Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Here’s a festive take on the classic! 

Your students can work in pairs or as a team to guide a blindfolded classmate to their target. Team-building, trust, and fine motor skills are all conditioned with this game. You’ll need a large picture of a reindeer, a red nose, and something sticky to get the nose to stay. 

4) Christmas charades

Who doesn’t love charades? Kinesthetic learners will especially appreciate the opportunity to get up and move their bodies while their peers use context clues to figure out who or what is being imitated.

As a bonus, themed charades can be a fantastic way to review vocabulary words, historic figures, and events!

5) Merry musical chairs

A huge part of the holidays is the music! Bring some of that festive caroling into your classroom by adding a twist to the classic game of musical chairs. 

You may need to substitute desks for chairs, but the concept remains the same. Conflict resolution and patience are tested in this winner-takes-all challenge – just make sure to go over some ground rules first to keep everybody safe. 

6) Twinkling tongue twisters

Silly, challenging, and no materials required! Verbalize or write out some holiday-themed tongue twisters for your students to try their hands at. They’ll be so busy laughing at themselves, they won’t even realize that they’re practicing pronunciation and vocabulary.

Here are some fun ones to try out:

• Blitzer bobbles a billion brilliant bells.
• Crazy kids clamor for candy canes and Christmas cookies.
• Pretty packages perfectly packed in paper.
• Santa’s super sleigh slips so swiftly through the snow.
• Ten tiny toy soldiers tinker with twenty toy trains.

7) Antlers up!

When I was in elementary school, a class favorite was always Heads Down, Seven Up. Now that I’m older I’ve come to realize that our teachers let us play it so often not only because we loved it, but because it gave them some peace and quiet!

If you’re not familiar with the premise, here’s a quick outline: The teacher picks a few students (it was seven in our case) to go up to the front of the class and be “pickers”, and everyone else puts their heads down on their desks with one of their thumbs pointing up – no peeking! The pickers then go around and silently tap one student’s thumb each. When all pickers have chosen, they go back up to the front, and those who were tapped have to guess who chose them. 

For a festive twist on this quiet game, instruct your students to place their hands on the top of their heads like reindeer antlers, instead of sticking their thumb up!

8) Christmas crosswords

Here’s another quiet option, and one that’s particularly good for independent work, and as a time-filler when students have finished an assignment. Use this crossword puzzle creator to make a unique puzzle for your students. 

Studies have shown that completing crossword puzzles regularly may help improve one’s memory, vocabulary, and critical thinking. 

9) Winter wonderland word search

If you’re looking for something a little simpler, a word search is always fun! Word searches do not require a strong grasp of the English language, so it’s a fun and easy way for ELL’s and  students of all levels to play with words.

Use this word search generator to create a worksheet that reflects a winter wonderland. 

10) Blitzen bingo

If you’re really loving creating worksheets, here’s one for bingo! This is another opportunity to play with seasonal vocabulary and test your student’s listening skills and ability to focus. Add some Christmas cheer by using holiday themed stamps or candy as bingo markers.

11) Christmas cards

Perhaps less of a game and more of a craft, but your artsy students will love getting the chance to make custom holiday cards for friends and family. Your students’ fine motor skills, project planning, and fine motor skills will benefit from this easy lesson.

12) White elephant

What could possibly be better than a game that guarantees you’ll end up with a prize? A fun spin on the traditional Secret Santa, a White Elephant gift exchange requires budget friendly gifts with no specific recipient intended. 

You can ask your students to each bring in a gift, or shell out for the prizes yourself. To play, all of the wrapped gifts are placed in one area, and one student chooses a gift to unwrap. The second student to go can either choose a new gift to unwrap, or take the gift from the first student.

The turns continue until all of the gifts are unwrapped and every student has a prize! Just make sure your students are equipped to handle the possibility of losing a particular gift to avoid any possible temper tantrums. 

13) Frosty freeze dance

This is a festive twist on a game that I used to play all the time in my elementary gym class. Our teacher would play a song, and all of us would dance to it. When the teacher paused the song, everybody had to freeze. Anyone who was caught moving after the song stopped was out.

This is very easy to do in a classroom with Christmas music! Just make sure you have an open space suitable for a dance party.

14) Elf, Elf, Santa

Want even more movement? Try this alternative to Duck, Duck Goose. Students sit in a circle while one goes around naming the rest. The student chosen as Santa is the Goose and must tag the one who picked them before their spot in the circle is stolen!

15) Oh, Christmas tree

Test your students’ decorative skills by having them work together to decorate a Christmas tree! Using construction paper, tape a paper tree to your wall and ask your students to create ornaments to place on the tree. They’ll love seeing the finished work!

16) Sit down, stand up

Here’s another simple game that will get your students up and moving. Simply call out a yes or no phrase for students to agree or disagree with. If their answer is yes, they should stand up – if no, they remain sitting.

Here are some examples to make this more holiday-esque:

• I like playing in the snow
• I enjoy baking Christmas cookies
• I can name all of Santa’s reindeer 
• I like listening to holiday music
• We have a real tree in our house

This easy activity will promote some physical activity in an otherwise long day spent sitting at a desk, and as a bonus, it’s a great way for you and your class to get to know each other better! 

17) Winter word scramble

Word scrambles are an easy way to get your students concentrating on vocabulary words while boosting their cognition skills. Here are some fun scrambles of popular Christmas words:

• mtcsshiar – christmas
• ohidlay – holiday 
• rnedeeir – reindeer 
• sanat – santa 
• aneonrtm – ornament 
• genrgrdiaeb – gingerbread
• lphruod – rudolph
• emrry – merry 
• ongegg – eggnog 
• pensret – present 

Whether your students celebrate Christmas in their homes or just in your classroom, any one of these games will be a holiday treat. 

Looking for more secular holiday fun? Almost all of these games can be made most inclusive by swapping out the word “Christmas” for “holiday” or “winter”. Santa and the elves can easily be swapped for Frosty the Snowman and his friends!

If you are looking for more holiday themed ideas, check out these holiday themed topics from ClickView – Christmas and Hanukkah.