Are you looking for some Christmas activities for students in high school to liven up those last few classes before the holidays? Are you valiantly battling the holiday slide, when all your students can think about is presents, chocolate, and a break from school?
Whether you’re looking for Christmas computer activities for your middle school students or fun Christmas writing activities for your high school students, we’ve got you covered.
Today we have ten activities you can do with your students to keep them engaged until the last bell rings.
The first Christmas lesson for high school students are these digital activities. These Christmas computer activities are fun for middle school students too, although they will suit older students better.
They will work if you’re still doing online learning. They’re also perfect if your students are leaving early for the holidays and you need to prepare work for them.
Parts of speech escape room
This escape room by GameWise follows Santa’s elf as he tries to overcome Santa’s nemesis the Easter Bunny. The Easter Bunny has stolen Santa’s naughty-or-nice list. Students play as the elf to try and get the list back.
The escape room reviews some parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives) in a fun way. Students need to get correct answers to progress in the game.
These fun Christmas activities for middle school students are also a great way for older high school students to review parts of speech.
The great part? You can try the free demo version before you buy the full version.
Sentence structure escape room
The even better part? You can do the follow-on game which reviews sentence structure grammar here.
In this game, students must again rescue the naughty-or-nice list from the evil Easter Bunny. But this time they review sentence structure grammar.
During the game, students must answer questions about subject, object, phrases, and clauses. To progress in the game, students must answer questions correctly.
It also has a free demo version available here.
These fun Christmas activities for high school students are a great way to review grammar while still celebrating the holidays. They are also great middle school Christmas computer activities if students know their grammar.
Christmas reading, writing and grammar activities
If you’re looking for some Christmas classroom activities for high school students, try these reading, writing and grammar activities. Most of the Christmas activities and printables are suitable for middle school students and high school students.
Reading activities
The first Christmas activity for students in high school is this activity by EB Academics by Caitlin and Jessica, the activities cover common core topics and skills such as:
- characterization
- point of view
- setting
- symbolism
- identifying the main idea
- summarizing plot
- theme
- vocabulary
- plot development
- comparison.
And it does it through twelve different holiday-themed activities such as a letter to Santa and a snowflake activity.
Christmas grammar activities
This activity by Juliet Faulkner encourages students to pay attention while reading. Students read real-world holiday messages and find grammar errors.
Fun and funny, the activity encourages students to connect grammar to their real lives. The activity has 36 real-life examples of grammar fails, an answer/correction key, and is provided in a few formats.
Christmas writing activities
The first Christmas writing activity for students in high school we have is this activity by The Classroom Sparrow. This massive bundle has nineteen activities including tasks such as:
- Christmas newspaper articles
- a Christmas writing prompt advent calendar
- an ugly Christmas sweater activity
- a North Pole career exploration activity
- a Christmas carol writing activity
If you are looking for fewer activities, this bundle by Education is Lit is an alternative. With both Christmas and New Year’s activities, it includes students in the fun if they don’t celebrate Christmas.
The first activity is a Christmas dinner menu writing activity. The second activity is a growth mindset New Year’s Resolutions activity. Both activities can be done in print or digital.
The third Christmas writing activity for students in high school is this essay activity by ELA Ninja. It is a great way to get in some essay-writing practice heading into the holidays.
The product has a PowerPoint to teach students how to write an argument and four articles about Thanksgiving and Christmas. It includes scaffolding to differentiate for struggling students, a pre-writing sheet, a peer editing sheet, and a marking rubric.
Christmas lessons using a movie
If you’re looking for something to do with a movie (no judgment here – get that grading done!), these lessons may be better suited.
This activity by Julie Faulkner also uses a non-fiction text, which can be difficult to incorporate into your curriculum. The activity pairs an essay by Charles Dickens with the movie Christmas with the Kranks.
Included in the product are a teacher’s guide and instructions for a substitute teacher to take the lesson. (Then maybe you can chuck a sickie and get your Christmas shopping done!)
But this product is still rigorous. It also has the following available in PDF or digital form for Google:
- question and answer sheets
- an analysis sheet
- analysis task cards for the essay
- and an irony analysis for the movie.
The second Christmas movie lesson for high school we found was this activity for the movie Elf.
The activity by Danielle Knight would suit you better if you are wanting to watch short clips instead of a whole movie.
(But we encourage you to use your in-class time as well as you can. If you need some time to mark or plan a holiday menu show the whole movie). The product includes:
- links to shorter clips of the movie
- a presentation for a smartboard or projector
- background notes on the movie
- links to compilation scenes of the movie
- activities for inference, generalization, and characterization.
Christmas escape room
Last on our Christmas activities for students in high school list is this Christmas escape room by Language Arts Excellence. The escape room engages students in language arts skills through five main tasks, including:
- identifying figurative language in a popular Christmas song
- sequencing a Christmas poem
- identifying parts of speech in fun Christmas facts
- spotting commonly confused words in passages about how Christmas is celebrated throughout the world
- decoding a message to find out the song they need to sing to escape on Christmas holidays.
The product contains:
- instructions
- print checklist
- team chart
- welcome sign
- materials for each of the five tasks
- student answer booklets
- teacher answer key
- reflection task to be completed either in-class or as homework.
Want more Christmas content?
See this blog post for more Christmas classroom activities for middle and high school students.
Feel guilty about putting on a Christmas movie?
See this blog post for 4 guilt-free reasons to watch a video.
