Fun Holiday Activities In The First Grade Classroom

In this episode of The Firstieland Podcast for Elementary Teachers, your host Molly Schwab shares seven fun and easy classroom activities to help you stay calm, keep your students focused, and avoid December chaos. Instead of fighting the holiday excitement, you’ll learn how to embrace the season with meaningful, low-stress lessons that still hit your standards.

You’ll learn:

✔️ How to use Gingerbread stories to teach comparing and contrasting while keeping kids engaged

✔️ A creative Gingerbread Baby adoption project that teaches responsibility and inspires writing

✔️ How Holidays Around the World can cover social studies standards in a calm, structured way

✔️ Simple no-prep games that give you and your students a much-needed brain break

✔️ Hands-on writing prompts that make students excited to write again

✔️ How to plan magical theme days like Elf Day or Santa Day—without the overwhelm

By the end of this episode, you’ll have a list of tried-and-true December ideas that keep your students learning and your classroom peaceful, all while creating magical memories they’ll never forget.

Resources Mentioned In This Episode

FREE MONTHLY READ ALOUD PLANNER - https://firstieland.com/planner

Gingerbread Baby Resource – https://firstieland.com/gingerbreadbaby

Elf Day Activities – https://firstieland.com/elf

Santa Day Activities – https://firstieland.com/santa

December Writing Prompts - https://firstieland.com/winter-writing

December No Prep Games - https://firstieland.com/games

Holidays Around The World - https://firstieland.com/holiday

Books Mentioned

The Gingerbread Man - https://amzn.to/49FaO0Y

The Ninjabread Man - https://amzn.to/4oxngog

The Gingerbread Girl - https://amzn.to/47xMFIq

The Gingerbread Man Loose In The School - https://amzn.to/3JTvrfk

The Gingerbread Cowboy - https://amzn.to/496H6Sp

The Runaway Dreidel - https://amzn.to/4nL2n7A

Stop That Pickle - https://amzn.to/3XlbxwS

Let's Stay Connected

Visit our website: www.firstieland.com

Need resources? Visit our TPT store here: https://firstieland.com/TPT-store

Need more help or ideas? Send me a message on Instagram @firstieland

To check out all the resources mentioned in this episode, head over to the show notes – https://firstieland.com/episode23

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Have a wonderful day and remember to make learning feel like play… see you next week!

💜 Molly

Full disclosure: Amazon links in my descriptions are usually affiliate links, which means if you purchase through that link, I receive a very small percentage of the sale.