Updated:

November 26, 2023

During the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, there are many free Christmas math activities that will capture your children’s attention! I have listed my favorite Christmas themed activities for all grade levels pre K- elementary. Many are appropriate for multi age activities. I used many of these to run a Christmas break math camp for all ages kindergarten-6th grade. I have also used them with homeschoolers in a multi age setting. Many are also appropriate for the classroom, particularly in a small group setting.

I will do a separate post for winter themed activities not related to a specific holiday.

Free Literature Based Math Activities

Math Geek Mama has a free printable math game (addition and subtraction of up to 4 digits) to go with the book Christmas Tree Farm. In this game players roll dice to determine how many tree seedlings they will start their farm with. They then draw cards and use a recording sheet to determine how many trees are lost or planted over ten years of farming.

After reading The Gingerbread Man or Jan Brett’s Gingerbread Baby or Gingerbread Friends, there are MANY free gingerbread themed math activities to do. Math Wire has a great collection of Gingerbread Math for all ages, which includes everything from counting games to probability and coordinate graphing.

If you teach pre K or kindergarten see Mrs. Fantastic’s post Gingerbread Math . Other great options for young learners are these printable addition puzzles or these gingerbread pattern cards and addition mats designed to be used with Dots or gumdrops.

image from Instagram @exploringandlearninginfdk

If you read Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer have some physics fun as you try this Rudolph Balloon Race activity from Steam Powered Family.

Math Crafts

Christmas tree version of fractal tetrahedron

Make a fractal pop up card.

Christmas Themed Manipulatives

Use a styrofoam tree from the dollar store as a geoboard.

Use red and green M&Ms (or small pom poms if you don’t want to use candy) in your ten frames or as bingo counters (make and print your own Bingo cards here for any concept you want).

Open a bag of Christmas bows and make a graph of the colors. (This blog post has you put painters tape on the floor for a young student to physically make the graph.)

Fill refillable plastic ornaments with small Christmas items and have children estimate how many are inside.

Christmas counting activity tray for younger children

Make shapes from jingle bells and pipe cleaners

Santa’s Beard Roll and Count activity with mini marshmallows (or cotton balls.) To adjust for older students have them add or multiply the numbers on two dice and cover the sum or product.

Use Hershey kisses (circle garage sale price stickers fit perfectly) to play a Memory game with facts in any operation.

Free Christmas STEM Challenges

Gumdrop Bridge STEM challenge

Christmas Cup Tower Challenge

Jingle Bell STEM challenge

Build a Sleigh STEM challenge

Christmas Tree Salt Circuit

Clothespin Circuit Christmas Tree

Another simple (no prep) but fun Christmas STEM challenge I have used is to make the tallest Christmas tree possible using only mini marshmallows and toothpicks!

Free Christmas Printables

I have chosen activities that are not just worksheets with some Christmas illustrations!

Adaptable to any age/level

Decorate a Christmas Tree Number Sense activity (adaptable for any age/level) from Math Geek Mama

Printable Christmas Coding game in 3 levels

2 level Christmas I Spy printable

Christmas 3D shape ornament templates

Lower Elementary

Many free quality Christmas math and literacy printables for kindergarten at The Printable Princess

Christmas math dice games for preschool-3rd grade

Christmas pattern block mats (snowman, gifts, wreath, snowflake, tree)

Upper Elementary/Middle School

Logic puzzles (grids and Suduko) with a Christmas theme

Number pattern Christmas tree coloring activity

Christmas Tree Tessellations

Printable (digital version also available) game to practice multiples, prime and square numbers

Christmas themed coordinate graphing, addition/subtraction trees and dot to dots on Math Salamanders

Elf Toy Inventory with growing number patterns

Optical Illusions

Christmas tangram puzzles

Christmas tree cartesian art for middle school

Free Online Games

Mr. Nussbaum Math Christmas Games

Holiday Games on Math Playground

Holiday Games at Cool Math Games

Christmas Math Mosaics at Primary Games

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  1. Terrific puzzles for making kids (gasp!) actually think! Still training my middle schoolers, but the fairly simple math allows for focus on the thinking/problem-solving aspect of the puzzles! Thanks for creating them — I use them all the time for warmups.

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