Are you (and your kids) getting tired of the same old, old-fashioned art craftivities for the Christmas holidays? Looking for something fresh and contemporary to engage your kids and brighten your walls? Do you want to introduce some Christmas art projects that are fresh and new?
Well, you have come to the right place! I have many unique holiday art activities that I am sure your kids will love. I have made them easy (and virtually foolproof) for you as a teacher, and the results will leave a lasting impression, not only with the kids but with your school community at large. Doesn’t that sound like a recipe for a little holiday cheer?! Let’s get started.
Tessellated Christmas Trees
This one is a crowd-pleaser for young and old. Each student colors and cuts out a Christmas tree design (that I created). Then, each student’s individual tree fits perfectly with the trees made by their classmates, and together, all the individual pieces combine (tessellate) to form a class Christmas tree!
The final class tree can be displayed on your door (a popular choice), on your classroom wall, or in the hallway. Some teachers have even gotten the whole school involved and made a HUGE tree for the front entryway or auditorium. This makes for a truly unique, community-building Christmas project.
But whether you use it for your class, your team, or your school, the results will be incredible and have people excited all through the season! (Additional licenses are discounted at check-out if you’d like more than one teacher to use this project).
You can find my tessellated Christmas tree resource in my Teacher Pay Teachers store HERE.
Shaving Cream Marbelized Christmas Ornaments
Get ready to get messy! Okay, this perhaps is not the best opening line to describe a classroom Christmas art project, but…! I have taught this lesson literally hundreds of times to age groups ranging from 3 years to high school gifted programs. It’s fun, it’s messy, and it’s truly magical. I haven’t met a kid yet who didn’t get really excited when the magic is “revealed” at the end.
However, with that said, this lesson is not a quick print and run kind of activity. It takes a little time to gather all the supplies you need (shaving cream, liquid watercolors, thick paper). But, once you have the supplies and the know-how, you’ll be super excited and be looking for ways to show it all off—you’ll use it at school, at your nephew or niece’s Christmas party, or anywhere else you can!
I have made an instructional video to go along with this activity. Use it when you teach your kids. I’d show my students the video, and we’d go step-by-step together along with the video, pausing at each step.
I promise you and your kids will have a lot of fun with this one, not to mention the interesting looks you get from the check-out clerk at the grocery store when you come through the line with a bunch of cans of shaving cream! I get mine at the dollar store.
All the instructions you need to do this activity, including step-by-step descriptions, templates, lots of pictures, and the how-to video, are available for free HERE in my TPT store.
Christmas Around the World Agamographs
Who doesn’t love agamographs! Wait, what is an agamograph? It’s a picture that changes from one image to another as you look at it from one side and then the other. It’s hard to say, but fun to interact with!
Agamographs are super fun and contemporary activities to integrate art into your holiday classroom easily. There is a huge “wow factor” in this Christmas art project. The students love the surprise, and best of all, they did it themselves!! I have developed a unique set of Christmas Around the World agamographs that includes Christmas images from 12 countries. Countries included are America, Italy, France, Sweden, Brazil, Australia, Mexico, England, Netherlands, Canada, Germany, and Russia.
Use this activity for your anticipatory set for your Christmas Around the World studies. Use this activity as a final project when you are finished with any Christmas Around the World unit. Or use this project on its own for a memorable integration of art, culture, and geography!
The images have already been “spliced” together, and each space has been assigned a color. Students color them and then fold them. Once completed, students can walk from one side of the image to the other and watch it change!
Making agamographs is a project often done by art teachers in the art room. However, I’ve taken out most of the “prep and mess” so that classroom teachers can find this useful and fun. This project makes a big impression on children and the school community. It gives kids such a great opportunity to try and explain how they created them and all the steps and sequence involved.
My set of Christmas Around the World agamographs is available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store HERE. Or, if you are feeling ambitious and want to try to make your own agamographs, I have a step-by-step blog post to help guide you along available HERE! Whichever way you do it, you’ll have tons of fun!!
DIY Christmas Card
I don’t know if you are like me or not, but I can’t seem to bring myself to throw away all the Christmas cards people send me each year for the holidays. I’ve been saving them for years–but a bit unsure why! Then (finally!) I came up with a fun way to use them in the classroom to help prompt kids to make their own unique holiday cards.
This idea is perfect for DIY Christmas cards or DIY holiday cards. It’s easy for kids because it takes the fear out of coming up with what to draw for a holiday card. The final results are certainly keepsake-worthy!
Basically, you cut out small but interesting pieces from your old Christmas cards, glue them to pieces of paper, and then have your students use their imaginations to “fill in” the rest of the picture. Then, sit back and watch the fun!
Full details about how to do this contemporary and fun Christmas art project with your classroom can be found in my blog post, DIY Christmas Cards for Your Classroom.
I’ve made a fun, easy, and inexpensive resource that you can use right away to do essentially the same thing with your students. I call this idea “Holiday card stARTers,” and they are available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store HERE. It’s been kid-tested and approved! And even if you DON’T save all your cards like me (I’m jealous) but still want to do this activity with your students, I have you covered there, too.
Christmas / Holiday Coloring Sheets
What kid doesn’t like doing some coloring for the Holidays? I have you covered here, too. But not with old-fashioned, boring Christmas-scene coloring pages, but rather with new, contemporary coloring activities and designs. For example, my “Pop Art”-style interactive coloring pages let the kids add their own patterns and doodles to their pages and encourage creativity and thought in the process.
I have sets of my contemporary “Pop Art”-style interactive coloring sheets for the holidays featuring gingerbread men, Christmas symbols, and general snow/winter designs. I also have a set featuring “ugly sweaters” that kids love to design and color!
All my sets of interactive coloring sheets also come with appropriate writing prompts as well.
And recently, I’ve introduced another style of coloring sheets to my collection—”stained glass” designs. Teachers have been doing so many beautiful and creative things with them. From gorgeous bulletin board displays to making ornaments.
These sheets feature images and designs reminiscent of stained glass that you may find in churches or other craft markets—things like wreaths, ornaments, nativity scenes, angels, poinsettias, holly, etc. Many of these “stained glass” sheets are designed so that the class collection can hang as a unified display that makes for a beautiful Christmas focal point for your room. You can find them all HERE.
3D “Pop Art” Christmas Ornaments
Another contemporary Christmas art project is assured to make the kids (and their parents) happy. This one is a teacher favorite too! My unique 3-D Pop Art Christmas tree ornaments are always a big hit as they make such a beautiful keepsake for the family tree.
My 3-dimensional Christmas ornament is made from one sheet of paper and is very easy! First, have your students decorate (color) the design of their choice. Then, cut out the ornaments. Finally, fold the paper into the final 3-D Christmas ornament. The entire ornament is cleverly folded from a single sheet of paper.
In my resource, you will get pages of detailed instructions, printables, handouts, etc. You also get a 5-minute how-to video and 3 different designs for your ornaments.
Trust me. Kids LOVE this project! You can find this 3-D “Pop Art” Christmas Ornaments resource in my Teachers Pay Teachers store HERE.
Directed Drawing
I also have some holiday-themed directed drawing activities. Kids love getting step-by-step instructions for how to draw. By the end, they figure out that they can, indeed, draw things that look like the stuff they didn’t think they could draw. Be they dinosaurs, cartoon characters, pets, or Christmas characters!
I have developed a collection of directed drawing instructions for Santa, elves, carolers, and nutcrackers with that in mind. This resource includes step-by-step drawing instructions for the kids. It also includes an example of my step-by-step instructions. This is for you, the teacher, to follow to help get the best drawing out of your kids!
You can find them in my TPT store HERE.
Once the kids have drawn their holiday pictures, you can take this activity further by having them color their holiday drawing. Or better yet (for the more ambitious), you can have them paint their final drawing.
This makes for a wonderful final product that has everyone feeling quite proud!
I have included examples in this resource. For more ideas on how to do this painting extension, you can check out my blog post on directed drawing. Simply apply the same concept and techniques to the Christmas images.
I have a How to Draw a Girl Elf freebie in my TPT store. This will get you and your kids started drawing holiday characters right away!
Table Posters
My holiday-themed “Table Posters” are small posters (think big coloring pages). You spread out on a table and have small groups of kids work together—or apart! They are immediately engaging, lead to great discussion and cooperation, and, most of all, they are fun! You can find them in my TPT store, HERE.
Designed for pre-K, kindergarten, and 1st graders (but of course, older kids love them, too!).
My holiday set of table posters includes the following designs:
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- Christmas Tree
- Poinsettia
- Ornament
- Stocking
- Gingerbread Cookie
- Star of David
- Dreidel
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I also have some really fun holiday sweater/ugly sweater table posters that your students will love. You can find them HERE.
That’s it!
I have many other resources that will infuse your Holiday lessons with art. Be that math, language arts, music, or nearly anything else! You can check them all out HERE.
As always, thanks for reading, and most importantly, thanks for making art with your kids!
Happy Holidays to all!!
Jenny K.
