Turn the twelve days of Christmas countdown into a magical activity! ✨🎄Complete an ELA task each day to build a Christmas Tree.
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This December you can turn the twelve days of Christmas into an interactive countdown activity that’s learning magic! ✨🎄
Do your kids have the December wiggles? If they do, giving them 12 days of Christmas activities will help them and you, too! They’ll love this “Build a Christmas Tree” so much that they’ll be asking you for the next craftivity every day.
I love activities for upper elementary aged kiddos. If you have kids or students that are 8-12 years old, read on, because this is a unique way to learn about Christmas traditions while having fun.
What’s Special About This 12 Days of Christmas Countdown Activity?
This 12 Days of Christmas Countdown ELA Activities is special because it isn’t just busy work. It combines reading comprehension, vocabulary practice, sequencing, inference, and creative writing into one festive, no-prep package! Students will use their ELA skills to complete a task a day and build a Christmas Tree in the 12 days countdown.
I love to make learning fun with games, escape rooms, and interactive activities. This packet is focused on literacy with a reading passage about the history of Christmas and some of the traditions of Christmas around the world. Plus, you can use these to decorate your holiday bulletin boards in your classroom!
What Kids Will Do in the 12 Days of Christmas Countdown
It’s not just holidays around the world. It’s not just an escape room.
✨ It’s a magical mixture of both. ✨ Here’s what they’ll be doing:
- Decode a secret holiday message (critical thinking)
- Reading about the history and traditions of Christmas around the world. (reading comprehension, sequencing, and a pre and post reading activity)
- Vocabulary practice that has students look for words that are new to them (metacognitive learning)
- Word analogies (critical thinking)
- Inferencing about one of the traditions (infer and predict)
- Games and puzzles throughout the entire twelve days that will keep your young ones having fun.
Instead of losing precious instructional time to holiday jiggles, you’ll watch students eagerly complete meaningful assignments each day to earn ornaments and decorations for their very own Christmas tree.
🎄 They start with a bare tree on Day 1 and build toward a fully decorated masterpiece by Day 12—keeping motivation high through the most distracting time of year!
🎄 Watch this preview video to see it in action!
This is a printable PDF comes with everything you need to make beautiful Christmas trees. Plus, it includes larger size decorations to put on bulletin boards or walls or windows, or wherever you want to put them. I personally love the strings hanging in the windows of classrooms to clip student artwork up for everyone to see.
What’s Inside This 100+ Page Resource
🎄Photographs of the activities from each of the twelve days, so you know exactly what to do.
📖 2-page reading passage exploring Christmas history and traditions around the world
🔍 Secret message decoder that doubles as a fun brain teaser
📝 Vocabulary activities that make learning new words feel like a game
🎯 Sequencing puzzles to strengthen comprehension skills
✍️ Descriptive writing prompt about Santa’s cookies (with sensory details!)
🎨 12 days of standards-aligned activities covering reading, writing, and critical thinking
🎄 Cut-and-color ornaments students add daily to watch their tree come to life
📌 Large-size decorations included for bulletin board displays
Why This is Perfect for Busy Teachers and Parents
🎄 Easy printable PDF – The tree is the size of two pieces of 8 1/2 x 11 paper.
❄️ Minimal prep – just print the student pages and let them go!
🎅🏼 Aligns with Common Core anchor standards for reading and writing
❄️ Perfect for morning work, centers, early finishers, or whole-class instruction
🎅🏼 Keeps students motivated with the visual reward system
🎄 The most important thing of all: It has academic rigor disguised as holiday fun!
How to Use the 12 Days of Christmas Countdown Activities
- Christmas activities you can do at home with your children or in school with students
- Holiday reading comprehension
- December morning work
- Christmas around the world
- Advent countdown alternatives
- Festive literacy centers
- Holiday writing prompts
- Literacy learning and skills practice cloaked in fun
Your students will beg to complete their daily challenges, and you’ll love watching their trees (and their skills!) grow more beautiful each day. Nothing makes a home or classroom happier than seeing joyful student artwork hanging up.
🎁 Are you ready to make December your most engaging month yet? Give yourself the gift of prepared, purposeful, festive learning!
Here’s where you can find this magical 12 Days of Christmas Countdown Build a Christmas Tree Activity. I’m pretty happy with it, and I hope you will be, too.
Teachers Pay Teachers
TeacherStore io
Etsy
Watch the preview on Youtube
Don’t forget to pin this post to your Pinterest holiday board!
Happy holiday countdown!
