Use these winter Holiday Party Ideas so you can have Christmas fun with these activities for socially distanced in-person or virtual classrooms. Whatever your classroom setting these school party tips will be a blast.
Christmas and winter break are fast approaching, but this year, as with all things, we can’t celebrate like we normally do.
We can’t have the super cute holiday parties with all the games and winter-themed foods in our classrooms this year.
All December long, we love celebrating Christmas time and wintertime in our classrooms with our Gingerbread Book and our Under the Christmas Tree Writing and our Christmas Lights Addition Activity.
And while this year is definitely a weird one, we can still make Christmas special and fun for our students. Even if we celebrate Christmas and winter holidays with them virtually.
Winter Holiday Party Ideas and Activities for Virtual Learners
Even if we’re teaching virtually this year, we can still connect with our students and celebrate the upcoming winter break and the winter holidays.
We just need to get a little creative and put some twists on ideas we’ve used in the past and make them work for us this year.
Spend the school day before your holiday break and carve out time in your day for your class party. And use these ideas, or a combination of these ideas to make the celebration work for you and your students
1. Wear Festive Gear
Kids can still dress up for Christmas and a winter holiday party, even if they’re not going anywhere! Encourage your students to wear festive holiday clothes to your Zoom call and make sure to wear one yourself.
Maybe they have a fun shirt, an “ugly Christmas sweater,” a Santa hat, reindeer headband, or a winter cap.
Remind students that if they don’t have festive gear, they can wear anything they want.
2. Play Freeze Like a Snowman Dance
Get your students up and moving with a freeze dance contest where no one gets “out.” You can use festive holiday music and when the music stops, tell them they have to “Freeze like a Snowman.”
It’s a fun and silly way to get their wiggles out and get them up and moving.
3. Play Christmas Bingo or Winter Bingo
Students love Bingo and this Christmas Bingo or Winter Bingo will be a sure hit. You can print out the cards and send them out during a school pick up or email the pdf to parents and have them print out one card.
For markers to cover up the spaces, students can use pennies or cereal or anything small from home.
The student to get 5 in a row and call out Bingo first wins…maybe they get to pick the next spirit day theme? Or you send them some stickers? Or they get to choose the story you read next.
4. Play Snowman (an updated version of Hangman)
Instead of Hangman, build a Snowman as the students guess the letters to a winter-themed word. With every letter they guess incorrectly, you draw a piece of the snowman: each round body part, the hat, each eye, the carrot nose, the mouth, the stick arms, and the top hat.
5. Play Charades
Act out winter or Christmas activities like a snowball fight or drinking hot cocoa or decorating a Christmas tree or ice skating.
You can do all the acting out or you can “assign” students to act it out during the Zoom call party.
6. Christmas or Winter Art
Holiday parties are the perfect time to do an art project. You can drop off the supplies to your students, have them pick them up, or use a simple winter-themed directed draw activity like these so it requires no supplies.
If you can get supplies to your students, they’ll love this Thumbprint Tree Art or Thumbprint Snowman Art.
7. Read Christmas or Winter Books
Christmas and Winter books are always a hit to read at holiday celebrations…
Here are my top 12 Christmas Books, my top 12 Religious Christmas books, my top 12 reindeer books, and my top 12 winter books if you’re looking to spice up the books in your classroom library.
8. Scavenger Hunt
You can have a winter holiday party without a scavenger hunt. Send your students on a winter-themed scavenger hunt through their house to find things one at a time like:
- something cold
- something blue
- something you eat in winter to stay warm
- something you wear to stay warm
- something you would use to build a snowman
- something you use in the winter
Or send your students on a Holiday themed scavenger hunt for things like:
- something red
- something green
- something sweet
- something you eat at the holidays
- a Christmas or Hanukkah decoration
9. Estimation Jar
Hold up a jar filled with candy canes or jingle bells or Christmas lights and have the students guess how many are in the jar. They can write their guess in a private message to you or they can write it down on a piece of paper.
To help them guess more appropriate math estimates, you can show them what 10 of the items look like in a separate jar so their estimates aren’t quite so random or far off.
10. Create a Class Winter Story
Tell a story together as a class Mad Lib Style!
To create it, write a Christmas or winter-themed story about a winter wonderland, a candy decorated gingerbread house, or learning how to ice skate or a reindeer adventure and leave out certain words. Then just like Mad Libs, have students choose words to finish the story. Then read the story out loud.
It’ll probably be hilarious when it’s done.
11. Make a Tree
Send home these Make a Tree Kits with mini Play-dohs to your students and give them time to create their most fabulous trees as possible.
If you want to sneak in a little learning with this activity, they can write a sentence or a story about their tree or tell the class a story about their tree. Or, you can call it a party and just make the trees for loads for fun.
12. 20 Questions
Pick a Christmas or winter themed item in your head like a snowman, a reindeer, a candy cane, a snowflake, etc. and have your students try to guess what you’re thinking of by asking questions.
Remind them to ask things like, “Are you an animal?” “Can you eat it?” “Can you wear it?” “Is it real or imaginary?”
The winner can be the next person to choose a Christmas or winter themed item to answer the questions.
13. Share a Winter Holilday Tradition
Wintertime is such a great time to share all of our different family traditions and holiday celebrations. As we are having our winter holiday party we can invite students to share a family tradition or a special holiday decoration or teach their classmates how they celebrate their holiday.
If students need a little inspiration, you can use our Digital Winter Holiday Celebrations Unit that teaches about:
- Hanukkah
- St. Nicholas Day
- St. Lucia’s Day
- Las Posadas
- Christmas
- Kwanzaa
- La Befana
- Chinese/Lunar New Year
- Eid and Ramadan
- Diwali
14. Zoom in/Zoom Out
Take advantage of the screen between you and your students and take a Christmas or winter item and zoom in really close on it and see if your students can guess what it really is. Try candy canes and jingle bells and a plastic Santa or snowman.
However you celebrate Christmas and Winter Break with your students, I’m sure you’ll make it amazing…even if it’s different than how you would celebrate if they were sitting in the same room as them.
A virtual Winter Holiday party may be different…but it can still be special and fun.
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