Christmas math activities provide a great way to help your child brush up on their math skills before as well as during Christmas break. Not only do children get a chance to practice their math skills, but they also get the fun of decorating and helping out with the meal preparation, which makes them feel like they are "big". Use the activities below to practice math skills as you bring in the Christmas spirit.
These tips are some really basic things you can do to help your child practice their math skills without doing any large actual activities.
- Practice arithmetic and calender reading by counting down the days to Christmas on the calender. Have children check the date, then subtract the date from Christmas.
- Allow children to help bake cookies and prepare meals as a way to learn about measuring tools and fractions. Playing with cookie cutters is also a great way to work on shapes!
- Make paper chains using a pattern that the children repeat over and over so that they can understand the concept of patterns.
- Make a game of hanging candy canes and other decorations on the tree. Which part of the tree is the biggest and which is the smallest? Which part has the most decorations and which part has the least?
- Have your kids help you to figure out a budget for Christmas. Ask them to make a list of names of people they want to buy gifts for. Then give them a set amount of money to spend on these gifts and ask them to figure out how much they have to spend on each person.
This is one of those Christmas math activities that you will cherish for years to come. Take your child out to gather pine cones and flexible pine branches. Help your child to create a wreath with the pine branches by forming the branches into a circle and tying them in place with string. Then, help your child to decorate the pine cones with glitter. Glue or tie the pine cones to the wreath. Then, use bows and dried berries to finish decorating the wreath by gluing them to it. Make sure your child puts the items on the wreath in a set pattern. Practice counting skills and organization by counting the items to go on the wreath, then deciding where to place them on the wreath so that they all fall into a pattern.