The holiday season is approaching and what perfect time to bring festive cheer into the classroom while keeping your students engaged in learning? ESL can be exciting, especially with games like Snowball QnA to creative projects like building a cosy Christmas themed living room. Whether you’re teaching vocabulary, listening skills, or cultural awareness, these 5 ESL Christmas activities will have your students laughing, learning, and celebrating the season together.
1. Christmas Vocabulary Bingo
Description:
Turn learning into a festive competition with Christmas Vocabulary Bingo! This classic game gets a holiday twist as students practice vocabulary in a fun and engaging way. To make it a little unique, the teacher calls out clues, give descriptions, or even act out the words to help students find the match. It’s the perfect way to reinforce vocabulary while building listening and focus skills.
How to play:
- Prepare a set of Christmas Vocabularies. Introduce the vocabularies to the students.
- Prepare empty Bingo cards. Have students write down the vocabularies in whichever order they want.
- Call out words or for stronger classes: provide clues (e.g. “It’s a traditional festive drink.”)
- Students mark their boards/ cards when they find the match.
- Students must complete 5 rows/ columns to win. For each row/ column they complete, they must shout a word from the phrase “Have A Merry Christmas Everybody!”
2. Holiday Traditions Around The World
Description:
Take your class on a global holiday adventure with Holiday Traditions Around the World. This activity not only improves English skills but also fosters cultural awareness. Students will learn how Christmas is celebrated in different countries.
How to play:
- Assign students a country to research (or provide prepared materials).
- Each student or group presents how Christmas is celebrated in their assigned country, focusing on unique traditions, food and customs.
- Follow up with a class discussion comparing traditions. (i.e. Which ones are the most unique? Scary? Intriguing?)
3. Build A Cosy Christmas-Themed Living Rooom
Description:
Students envision the cosiest living room where they will drink a cup of hot cocoa and the fireplace crackle with burning wood. In this activity, students design and decorate their ideal festive space, combining creativity with English practice.
How to conduct the activity:
- Provide a large poster board or use a white board to outline a living room.
- Assign small groups to different tasks: drawing a fireplace, hanging stockings, decorating a tree, or wrapping presents.
- Each groups explains their part of the room, using descriptive language like “We put three red stockings knitted by Grandma above the fireplace.”
4. Snowball Q&A
Description:
Let your students burn off some holiday excitement with Snowball QnA! This energetic activity gets students up and moving while practicing speaking and comprehension. Plus, the element of surprise keeps them engaged.
How to conduct the activity:
- Each student writes a Christmas-themed question on a piece of paper (e.g., “What’s your favourite holiday memory?” or “What’s the size of the biggest snowball you’ve made?”)
- Students crumple the papers into “snowballs” and have a quick snowball fight for 30 seconds.
- Each student picks up a random snowball, reads the question aloud, and answers it.
Teacher’s note: To encourage longer responses, you can prompt follow-up questions. This game works great for speaking practice and is perfect for ending the lesson on a high-energy note.
5. Write a Letter to Santa
Description:
Encourage your students to unleash their creativity and practive their writing skills with the classic Write a Letter to Santa activity. Younger learners can focus on simple sentences, while more advanced students can elaborate on their wishes and holiday experiences.
How to conduct the activity:
- Each student writes a letter to Santa, starting with “Dear Santa.”
- In the letter, they share what they want for Christmas and describe why they’ve been good this year.
- Students can decorate their letters with drawings or stickers.
- Optional: Have them read their letter aloud or collect them for a class display.
Teacher’s note: To encourage longer responses, you can prompt follow-up questions. This game works great for speaking practice and is perfect for ending the lesson on a high-energy note.
Looksie here! We’ve got something that combines most of the activities together!
In this resource, students can do most of the above activities in one go! Even better, it’s all prepared for the teachers (except for some cutting).
Students will co-operate to complete printable quizzes & challenges to build their Christmas tree. Perfect for ESL classes as it includes flashcards featuring Christmas vocabs, festive trivia, and insights into Christmas traditions from around the world. Each quiz and challenge reinforces their knowledge.
By the end of the activity, students will have learnt a sizable knowledge about Christmas, and a wealth of interesting facts to WOW their relatives/ friends in the next Christmas gathering.
To see the preview, click here.