12 Easy Classroom Christmas Party Ideas for 4th – 5th Grade
This is a hectic time of year for teachers, isn’t it? We’ve hardly recovered from Thanksgiving, and somehow it’s already Christmas time and winter break is just around the corner. Suddenly, you have to come up with class Christmas party plans that are affordable, calm(ish) – and hopefully won’t leave you questioning your life choices at the end of the day. This can be a little tricky in upper elementary. Classroom Christmas party ideas for 4th and 5th grade kids need to be fun and festive, but not babyish. Your students are at a magical age – caught between being little kids who still love Santa and middle-schoolers who are too cool for everything.
So today I want to help you plan a classroom holiday party that can be pulled together with little prep, a stop at the dollar store, and maybe a few cotton balls, popsicle sticks, and a dry erase board.
Below are some of my all-time favorite fun Christmas activities that check all those boxes. I tried to include fun crafts, Christmas games, and just general fun ideas that actually work with big kids.
So grab your jingle bells, throw on some Christmas music, and let’s get into the holiday spirit!
Classroom Christmas Party Ideas for 4th and 5th Grade
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Candy Cane Pass
If you’ve never played Candy Cane Pass, you need to. It’s a simple game, super quick, and hilariously fun. All you need is a candy cane. That’s it!
How to Play
Have the class line up in a big circle. Give the first student a candy cane, which they have to pass to the next person without using their hands. They might hold it in the crook of their elbow, under their chin, or with their feet. It’s hilarious to watch them strategize. Time how long it takes for them to pass the candy cane all the way around the circle.
Why Kids Love It
Big kids love the ridiculousness of this holiday game. It’s just enough challenge for fifth graders, but not so tricky that fourth graders get frustrated.
Why You’ll Love It
It requires zero setup, it burns off holiday energy, and it’s a great way encourage teamwork. Also: cheap – like 99 cents cheap.
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Holiday Left-Right Story
Put students into groups of 4 or 5. Give one student in each group a small prize (think candy cane, sticker pack, anything small your students might like). Next, read a funny left-right story out loud. Every time you say “left,” they pass the gift to the left. When you say “right,” they pass it right. When the story ends, the student holding the prize gets to keep it.
You can repeat this several times so more students win something. I like to play it once in the morning and again throughout the day rather than several times in a row. This activity doesn’t work well with one big group, so make sure you keep the groups small.
Why Kids Love It
So much suspense! They never know who the next person will be to get the gift.
Why You’ll Love It
Super inexpensive and a great little time filler
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To play this game, you need a story with the words LEFT and RIGHT repeated throughout. You write your own if you’re creative, but you can find them online too.
To save you some time, I wrote a Christmas left-right story specifically for this game.
You can download it from the Free Resource Library.
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Reindeer Games
One of my favorite activities is something I call “Reindeer Games” – basically a set of fun Christmas activities kids rotate through in small groups. Think of it like a festive, holiday Olympics.
Ideas for “events”:
- Snowball Target Toss: Throw “snowballs” (aka cotton balls) at simple targets. Kids LOVE anything that even resembles a snowball fight.
- Holiday Pictionary: Use Christmas songs or holiday words.
- Jingle Bell Relay: Teams compete to move a jingle bell from the front of the room to the back by passing it to each other on plastic spoons. If they drop it, they have to start over.
- Reindeer Ring Toss: Tape a pair of cardboard antlers to the back of a chair. Students toss a ring (pipe cleaners work), trying to hook it on the antlers.
- Ornament Roll: Mark a starting line. Give each student a round plastic ornament. Say GO and they start blowing their ornament to make it roll. Whoever rolls it the furthest in 1 minute wins.
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Why Kids Love It
It gives them a variety of games without getting stuck in one activity for too long. They get to move, laugh, and compete with each other.
Why You’ll Love It
Each station is extremely low cost, and you can use materials you already have. It also keeps your party structured (essential for the last week before break).
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Easy Gingerbread Houses
I love the idea of decorating gingerbread houses, but dang they can get messy (and expensive) fast. But there’s a “budget teacher” version that’s perfect for a 4th or 5th grade class party: building houses with graham crackers, frosting, and whatever candy parents send in.
Some ideas for edible decorations: shredded coconut, Skittles, thin pretzel sticks, cookie sprinkles, chocolate chips
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Why Kids Love It
This feels like a real Christmas tradition. It’s hands-on, creative, and they get to eat sugar at school, which is basically their dream. They also love showing off their creations to each other.
Why You’ll Love It
Inexpensive, easy, plus, you get at least 30 minutes of peaceful building time. Students can socialize while they work (even 5th graders need to work on social skills).
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Christmas Bingo
This one doesn’t need a whole lot of explanation. You can use printed boards – or give students a word list and a blank bingo card (get a free template in this blog post: Classroom Bingo), and let them make their own cards. This will fill up a lot more time.
Add in a few silly actions – like stand up and shout “Ho Ho Ho” when you get bingo – to make it extra fun.
Why Kids Love It
Who doesn’t love bingo? It’s a classic game they already know and is easy to adapt to holiday vocabulary.
Why You’ll Love It
It’s easy to control the pace, it fills a lot of time, and if you laminate the boards, you can reuse them forever.
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If you want to free up some time to work on lesson plans or tidying up your room, try a self-running bingo game that calls out the cards for you by projecting them on your whiteboard:
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Christmas Would You Rather?
This takes zero prep and is so fun. To play, call out holiday-themed questions like, “Would you rather live at the North Pole or in a gingerbread house?” Have kids move to one side of the room to choose their answer.
Why Kids Love It
They love debating. They love arguing. They love trying to convince their friends that their choice is the only correct choice. Also, the silly questions will get them laughing.
Why You’ll Love It
Zero materials. Zero cleanup. Everyone will be engaged.
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Christmas Craft Bar
I’m a sucker for a good fun craft, but at school, it needs to be quick, meaningful, and not involve 30 different steps and three drying phases. Set up a “Craft Bar” with choices they can do at their seats.
Be sure to put out instructions and examples for them to follow. Play some Christmas music in the background to add to the holiday ambiance.
Easy craft ideas:
- homemade ornaments (popsicle sticks, sequins, washi tape, glitter glue, etc.)
- holiday bookmarks (cardstock, yarn for tassels, scrap fabric, buttons, etc.)
- holiday greeting cards (construction paper, stickers, glitter glue, etc.)
- paper snowflakes
- Christmas origami
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Why Kids Love It
Choice. Choice. Choice. They love being able to pick what they want, and showing off their creativity.
Why You’ll Love It
These are all simple crafts, and they keep the class busy and calm. You don’t have to supervise this one. Just let them work while you get teacher stuff done.
If your class wants to make these crafts as gifts for family members, include a gift-wrapping station with a roll of paper, bows, and name tags!
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Human Christmas Gifts
All you need for this is some toilet paper and red ribbon. Choose one brave volunteer per group to be the wrapped gift. Set a timer and say go. Kids wrap their team member like a Christmas present before time runs out. You get to be the judge and pick the best looking gift.
Why Kids Love It
It’s pure chaos but in a good way. It’s super funny, a bit competitive, and involves some strategizing.
Why You’ll Love It
This is a zero prep activity, and it’s a fun way to burn energy. Be sure to lay some ground rules ahead of time (like “No toilet paper above the shoulders”).
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North Pole STEM Challenge
I love this for upper elementary because it feels like a party, but it is truly one of the best educational activities for building critical thinking skills. Perfect if you want something fun but still academic-ish.
The Challenge
Give students popsicle sticks, tape, cups, pipe cleaners, and a cup of cotton balls. Their mission: build a “North Pole structure” (bridge, tower, snow fort, etc.) that can survive a “snowstorm” of cotton balls tossed at it.
Why Kids Love It
Hands-on, competitive, cotton balls flying everywhere? What could be better to a 10 year old?
Why You’ll Love It
It’s a ridiculously cheap activity with a high level of engagement. Great for teaching teamwork, and if your admin walks in, bonus points for doing STEM!
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If you want to give your class an entire STEM-themed week before Christmas break, check out this Arctic Circle STEM Challenge set:
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Classroom Gift Swap
This is a fun twist on a class gift exchange with a spending limit of $1–$3. Ask kids to bring in a CHEAP wrapped gift for this. If that’s not something you can ask them to do, you can always supply little “treasure box” items for them to wrap and use.
Get everyone to sit in a big circle holding their gift. Turn on some holiday music and have them start passing their gifts around the circle. As the music plays, call out “REVERSE” and everyone must start passing in the opposite direction. When the song ends, everyone opens the gift they ended up with.
Why Kids Love It
They get a mini-surprise, and even older kids love unwrapping something.
Why You’ll Love It
It’s low-cost, easy to manage, and it’s just fun to give presents, even if it’s just a little token.
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Christmas Charades
If you want a whole-group activity that gets everyone laughing without turning your classroom into total chaos, Christmas charades is perfect.
Write a bunch of holiday-themed actions, characters, and phrases on slips of paper and toss them into a bowl or bag. Call one student up to draw a slip, and they act it out silently while the rest of the class guesses. If you want to keep everyone involved, let the first student who guesses correctly be the next person to act.
Why Kids Love It
It’s a fun game that combines movement and silliness but doesn’t feel babyish.
Why Teachers Love It
It’s fast, funny, and requires pretty much no prep and no materials.
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If you don’t have time to come up with your own words and phrases, here’s a done-for-you Christmas charades game that you can just print and use:
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North Pole Freeze Dance
When you think of freeze dance, you probably picture something for younger kids. But by adding a little twist, I found that my fourth graders loved it just as much.
To play, put on some Christmas music and get the class dancing around. Then stop the song and call out something like:
- “Freeze like a melting snowman!”
- “Freeze like you’re stuck in a chimney!”
- “Freeze like a reindeer landing!”
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Students freeze in silly poses, and you pick “winners” that best match what you called out.
Why kids love it:
It’s just plain hilarious.
Why teachers love it:
Minimal prep, safe movement, and perfect for shaking out wiggles during the holiday season.
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I hope these classroom Christmas party ideas for 4th and 5th grade help you plan a very fun, but easy, holiday celebration! No elaborate prep. No expensive supplies. No over-the-top decorating – Because you deserve an enjoyable, stress-free day, too. If you try any of these, I hope they help make your December joyful, easy, and full of laughter!
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North Pole Escape Room Activities
Add more holiday fun to your December lesson plans with a Christmas-themed escape room! This activity will keep your students engaged all day, using their math and reading skills to help Santa get to his vacation in sunny Florida.
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