fun Winter classroom Activities your students will love

Coming back from a long winter break can sometimes be a challenge. It can also provide lots of opportunities for fun, hands-on learning with winter classroom activities related to the season and holidays! Long, cold winter days stuck inside calls for engaging, interactive activities to get students excited to dive back into learning. Luckily, there are lots of events and holidays throughout the winter months that can be incorporated into lessons. Here are some of my favorite winter classroom activities to use in January and February.

These fun winter classroom activities include everything from Martin Luther King Jr. to Valentine's day.

winter Classroom Activity fun

The first few weeks after the break can be an adjustment. It’s amazing how quickly students and teachers alike get out of the daily routine on the winter break. These fun and engaging winter classroom activities help to ease everyone back into learning.

Unlike the yucky, grey weather outside, winter learning doesn’t have to be boring! There is a lot to celebrate to keep students engaged and excited. One of my favorite things to incorporate into the classroom are the many different winter holidays. From New Year’s to Valentine’s Day, there are lots of holidays that we can incorporate into our lessons. All of these winter holiday activities will break up the winter months and get your breezing through the first half of a new year. Let’s check out some of the fun winter classroom activities your students will love!

New Year’s Activites

The start of a new year is always exciting and full of possibilities. While we may not be in the classroom on New Year’s Day, that doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate the new year as a class. I loved to get students involved in making resolutions and goals for the year.

This FREE New Year’s activity is the perfect way to get students thinking about all they want to accomplish. Students will write out goals using this guided flipbook.

Instead of being left to ponder resolutions on their own, students are guided through thinking about specific goals for the year, including a goal for the year, something they want to improve on, a book they want to read, and something they would like to learn.

There is also a New Year’s themed writing page that is perfect for turning those goals into a paragraph. It’s a great way to guide students through brainstorming and writing.

When students are done writing, the included New Year’s party hat craft makes a great addition to display the writing. I loved showing off my students’ work on a class bulletin board or in the hallway.

100th day of school celebration

The 100th Day of School usually falls sometime in the month of January. Students are back from break and getting back into the swing of things. Celebrating the milestone of 100 days of school with fun, engaging activities is always a hit! In fact, it’s a classroom holiday!

I liked to start off the 100th Day of School by creating a special headband hat. The students loved to wear their hats all day long and it really set the tone for the day. It also gets their creativity flowing and works those fine motor skills.

Throughout the day we would complete a variety of activities all related to 100! Some of our favorites include:

Filling in missing numbers on a hundreds chart
Creating a 100 snack
Skip counting to 100
“If I had 100 . . . ” writing prompt

To end the day I would have students create their very own 100th Day of School book. Inside they document the day, their favorite activities, things they can do relating to 100 and more.

MLK Day Activities

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was an important figure in history and one that I loved teaching my students about. We celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day each winter, which allows us to teach students all about his life, work, and dedication to our country.

There are tons of fantastic resources and activities that will save you time and energy. Graphic organizers are a great hands-on way for students to record facts in different categories. This particular activity will have students providing examples of positive character traits shown by Dr. King during his life.

This is a great activity to help show students the type of person he was and the characteristics he embodied which made him such an important figure. The included informational readers provide a deeper dive into Martin Luther King, Jr. and his life. These books are loaded with information, that will help students learn in an interactive way, which helps with comprehension.

Speaking of comprehension, timelines are always a great way to introduce information, review information, and see how well students are comprehending what they learn. This cut and paste activity allows students to paste MLK facts in the order in which they occurred. It is a great activity to use at the end of the unit. This will test the knowledge students have retained on the subject.

Presidents Day Activities

Presidents Day is a holiday we celebrate each year in February. It is an important holiday filled with opportunities to teach children about history and government in a fun, interesting way. I liked to introduce important vocabulary and facts about the holiday as we began our day. This helped to lay the foundation for the rest of our learning.

Differentiated informational readers, designed for young students are the perfect way to dive into learning about this holiday. They include lots of factual information to help your students better understand this holiday. After reading, students can work on important reading comprehension skills with the included questions.

Having students write about what they have learned is a wonderful way to help them assimilate all the new information. This Presidents Day writing craftivitiy was a class favorite on Presidents Day. The students love creating George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

This Presidents Day resource also includes timelines, graphing activities, some Presidents Day themed color by code activities, and more! There’s plenty to fill your lesson plans for Presidents Day and the days following. It is an important holiday to learn about, with so many fun activities to keep students focused!

Valentine’s Day Activities

Valentine’s Day in the classroom is filled with excitement and anticipation! But with visions of candy and cards, it can be hard to keep students focused and learning in the days leading up to the holiday. You can incorporate these fun, Valentine’s Day activities into the classroom all week long, and keep your students engaged in their learning.

Valentine Flipbooks are a fun way to learn about reading and writing. Students will read short poems, practice writing about the holiday and then finish it up with some fun coloring activities. Reading and writing are important parts of everyday teaching, so add a fun Valentine’s Day twist, and students will love it!

This Valentine’s Day resource includes a variety of math and literacy activities that are perfect for the middle of February. Your students will work on skills like synonyms, parts of speech, correcting sentences, math facts, and more!

One of my favorite Valentine’s Day activities is writing a friendly letter. Students will write a letter to their best friend explaining why they are such good friends. It’s not only a great writing activity but an opportunity for students to reflect on what makes their friendships so special.

Your students will love learning with these Valentine’s Day math and literacy activities.

Engaging Winter Classroom activities

Aside from the winter holidays, there are also lots of other fun, engaging activities to keep students focused and thriving. Winter is filled with adorable creatures like polar bears, penguins, and snowmen. And sweet treats like candy canes and hot cocoa. When we integrate those fun themes and characters into learning, it is easy to make students excited!

Winter color-by-code

Color-by-code was always a huge hit in my classroom. I loved using color-by-code activities to provide some fun and engaging math fact practice. The students love solving the problems in order to color the picture. They don’t realize just how much math they are doing! It allows students to practice basic math skills, like addition and subtraction, while creating a colorful picture.

These Winter Themed Color-by-Code activities incorporate cute winter themes and simple math equations. You can also find Winter Holiday Color-by-Code activities for all the fun winter holidays listed above! Students will love creating a cute, colorful picture while brushing up on math skills!

Winter Activities Your Students Will LOVE

New Year’s Resolutions freebie!

Be sure to grab this fun and engaging New Year’s resolutions activity FREEBIE today! It’s a great way to talk about goals and planning while getting in some writing too!

winter activities on teachers pay teachers

Whether you find yourself in the early weeks of January or smack dab in the middle of winter, all of these activities are a great way to keep your students engaged in learning during the gloomy days of winter.