Christmas Activities for EYFS: 20 Ideas by Area

These 20 Christmas activities for EYFS cover all seven areas of learning, from a post office role play to melting ice decorations, and finish with a carpet movement game for the days nobody can sit still. Each idea is tagged with its area, so you can see what a December week is teaching, not just how much glitter it used.

EYFS stands for the Early Years Foundation Stage, which covers learning and care from birth to five in nurseries, with childminders and in Reception classes in England. These activities suit nursery, preschool and Reception, and most scale down for under-threes if an adult stays within arm's reach. For a refresher on the areas themselves, see our guide to the seven EYFS areas of learning.

What makes a Christmas activity work for under-fives?

Short, hands-on and done more than once. December in a setting is already loud with rehearsals and parties, so the activities that land are ones a child can repeat and get better at, not a craft an adult finishes for them.

Most Christmas activities for nursery are crafts, which are mostly fine motor work. The Department for Education's guidance on physical development treats big movements as groundwork for a healthy body and for children's social and emotional well-being, so they get a section of their own here.

One safety check before the decorations go up: look for button batteries in anything that lights up or plays a tune. The government's product safety office warns that they "can do severe harm if children swallow them", and that a child who may have swallowed one should go straight to A&E. Keep anything with button batteries, and any spares, out of children's reach.

Which Christmas activities fit the prime areas?

These nine work directly on the three prime areas: personal, social and emotional development; physical development; and communication and language.

1. The present guessing game (communication and language)

Wrap an everyday object, a sock, a spoon or a toy car, in a box. Children shake it, weigh it in their hands and take turns asking a question. Give one clue at a time ("It's soft, and you wear it on your feet"). It builds questions and describing words.

2. A Christmas story with sound effects (communication and language)

Choose a Christmas picture book and agree a sound for three words before you start: a shake of keys for bells, a pat on the knees for footsteps, a "shhh" for snow. Children listen for their word and add the sound. It's listening, attention and understanding in one story.

3. The Christmas post office (communication and language)

Turn the role-play corner into a post office: a counter, envelopes, stickers for stamps, kitchen scales and a few wrapped boxes. Children take turns as customer and clerk, weighing parcels and choosing where to send them. Join in as a customer with a tricky request to stretch the conversation.

4. Decorating the class tree in turns (personal, social and emotional development)

Give each child one decoration they've made, and hang them one at a time while everyone else counts down or sings. Waiting for your turn, and watching someone else have theirs, is the hard part. Take photos of each child with their decoration for a display or for home.

5. A December feelings circle (personal, social and emotional development)

Sit in a circle and pass a handbell. Whoever holds it says one thing they're looking forward to, or one thing that feels strange this month: a new practice, a cousin visiting, the room looking different. Passing without speaking is always allowed. Some children find December unsettling, and this gives it words.

6. The elf's dressing-up challenge (personal, social and emotional development)

Fill a box with hats, scarves, mittens and big jumpers. Each child picks two and puts them on by themselves, then helps a friend with a zip or a sleeve. It practises the dressing that the early learning goal for Managing Self names, and it's good rehearsal for wrapping up to go outside.

7. Parcel over, parcel under (physical development)

Stand in a line, one behind another. Pass a large, light wrapped box back over heads, then through legs, alternating. The last child runs to the front and it starts again. It needs coordination, a careful grip and some patience with the person in front, and works with as few as four children.

8. Tinsel tightrope (physical development)

Lay a strip of tinsel or a skipping rope in a straight line on the floor. Children walk along it forwards, sideways, heel to toe, then backwards slowly. Make a wiggly line once they've got it. It's balance practice that looks like a circus act, and two-year-olds can do it holding a hand.

9. Snip-and-loop decorations (physical development)

Give children strips of coloured paper and child-sized scissors. They snip each strip into shorter pieces, then glue or tape the pieces into loops and hang them up. Development Matters lists "making snips in paper with scissors" for three and four-year-olds. It's the same hand control they'll need for a pencil.

Which Christmas activities fit the specific areas?

The four specific areas build on the prime ones: literacy and mathematics, then understanding the world, then expressive arts and design. Two ideas for each.

10. A card for someone at home (literacy)

Give each child a folded card and pens. Nursery children make marks and say what they mean while you scribe; Reception children write their name and, if they can, a word or two by sounding it out. It's real writing for a real reader, which is the best reason to write anything.

11. The rhyming stocking (literacy)

Fill a stocking with objects that have easy rhyming partners: a sock, a hat, a bell, a key. Pull one out and ask the group for a word that rhymes, real or silly. Spotting and suggesting rhymes is on Development Matters' list for three and four-year-olds, and the silly ones count.

12. Bauble patterns (mathematics)

Use shatterproof baubles in two colours, or paper circles. Start a pattern on the floor, red, gold, red, gold, and ask what comes next. Then make a deliberate mistake and see who spots it. Older children can try three-colour patterns. Thread them on a ribbon to hang when they're right.

13. Biggest present, smallest present (mathematics)

Wrap five boxes of different sizes. Children line them up from smallest to biggest, then guess which is heaviest and check by holding one in each hand. Count them, take one away, count again. Hide something rattly in one so there's a reason to keep comparing.

14. Melting ice decorations (understanding the world)

Freeze water in small tubs with cranberries, leaves or orange slices and a loop of string, then hang them outside. Check them every day: are they still frozen, dripping, gone? The Natural World goal includes understanding "changing states of matter", and a frosty week makes it vivid.

15. Christmas then and now (understanding the world)

Ask families to send in a photo or an old card from when a grandparent was small. Look at them together: what's the same, what's different, what is that strange television? Children talk about the people in their own families, which is where the Past and Present goal starts.

16. The cardboard sleigh (expressive arts and design)

Find the biggest box you can and let the children turn it into a sleigh, sledge or delivery van with paint, tape and paper-plate lights. It becomes the role-play centre of the room for a week. Let them decide what it is; the best ones rarely end up as sleighs.

17. The jingle band (expressive arts and design)

Hand out shakers, bells fixed firmly to handles, and pan lids. Play along to a song the children know: loud, then quiet, fast, then slow, stop on the signal. Check before and after that nothing small has come loose: the NHS points out that putting things in their mouths is how children aged 1 to 5 normally explore. Trying to move in time with music is part of the Being Imaginative and Expressive goal.

What Christmas movement activities work on the carpet?

When it's too wet to go out and the hall is booked for the nativity, these three work in a cleared carpet space with a group sitting or standing in a circle.

18. Stir the Christmas pudding (physical development)

Everyone stands in a circle round a pretend bowl. Stir with giant arm circles, one arm, then the other, then both. Add ingredients with a jump in and a hop out. Into the oven: crouch down small. Then the pudding rises, slowly, all the way up onto tiptoes.

19. The sleigh ride (physical development)

Children sit in a line on the carpet, one behind another, hands on knees. Call the route: lean left round the corner, lean right, bump over the rooftops, lift arms for take-off, hold tight in the wind. Sitting balance and core strength, with a lot of giggling.

20. "Not a creature was stirring" (physical development)

A carpet game inspired by the old Christmas Eve poem. Children tiptoe round the carpet while you ring a bell. When it stops, call a word and everyone makes the shape:

• Mouse: knees on the carpet, bottom to heels, forehead down and arms long in front. So small nobody would know you're there.
• Cat by the fire: on all fours, round your back into an arch and let your head hang.
• Star on the tree: sitting, legs out wide with toes pointing up, then arms high and fingers twinkling.
• Wrapped up warm: knees soft, bottom back as if on a stool, and a tight hug round your own shoulders, eagle style.

End every round on mouse, so the room finishes still. If your setting has our mats, mouse is pose 1, cat is pose 3 and eagle is pose 13 on the Sun Salutation design, and star is pose 3 on Freedom Flow, so children can find each shape on the mat themselves.

How do you include children who don't celebrate Christmas?

Start by knowing who's in the room. Ask families how they mark December, if at all, rather than guessing. Some celebrate Christmas differently from the way nursery does; some don't celebrate it at all.

Most of this list doesn't depend on Christmas. Ice decorations, the sleigh that becomes a van, the tinsel tightrope and the pudding game work as winter activities with a change of name. Keep Father Christmas talk light, and never make presents the measure of a good December.

The People, Culture and Communities goal expects children to "know some similarities and differences between different religious and cultural communities in this country". Inviting a family to share how they celebrate their own festival, whenever it falls, does more for that goal than a worksheet on Christmas around the world.

What does a Christmas week look like with these?

Three sessions, each mixing areas so no single day is all craft:

• Monday morning: the present guessing game (1), then the rhyming stocking (11), then the sleigh ride (19) before snack.
• A wet Wednesday: stir the pudding (18), bauble patterns (12), then "not a creature was stirring" (20) to settle everyone for lunch.
• The last day of term: the feelings circle (5), a final check on the ice decorations (14), and the jingle band (17) for whoever is collecting early.

For the group-set version of the carpet game, settings can order mats for a whole class and leave them out for children to use in free play. Parents who want the same shapes at home will find our yoga mats for ages 3 to 8 are full length, so an adult can join in on the floor. There are more cold-weather ideas, sorted by the weather outside, in our winter activities for EYFS.

What if December is too much for some children?

Some children love the noise of December. Others find the rehearsals and the decorations that weren't there yesterday hard work, which can look like silliness, tears or hiding under a table.

Keep the bones of the day the same: snack, story and home time at their usual times. Tell children about changes before they happen ("After lunch the hall will be full of chairs"). Keep one corner of the room undecorated and quiet, with a few books and cushions, and let children choose it without it being a punishment. A child who watches the jingle band from the cushions is still taking part. For families looking for calmer Christmas Day ideas at home, our Christmas activities for kids run from Christmas Eve to Boxing Day.

Frequently asked questions

What are some Christmas traditions for young children?

In UK nurseries and Reception classes the familiar ones are decorating a tree, making and sending cards, a nativity or Christmas performance, carols, a party and a visit from Father Christmas. At home there may be stockings, an advent calendar and a special meal. Not every family has all of them, so ask children about their own rather than assuming.

What are good Christmas plays for preschoolers?

Short ones, built on a story the children already know, where everyone has a part and the songs are ones they sing anyway. Ten minutes is plenty for three and four-year-olds. Props help more than lines: a crown, a tea towel, a star on a stick. Rehearse in the room where they'll perform, because a new space unsettles small children.

What Christmas crafts work for a group of three-year-olds?

Crafts with one or two steps that a three-year-old can do mostly alone: snipping pre-cut paper strips and sticking them into loops, sponge-printing a roll of wrapping paper, collage cards with ready-cut shapes, and threading large beads onto pipe cleaners with an adult watching. Anything that needs an adult to finish it is the adult's craft, not theirs.

Are Christmas lights and decorations safe in a setting?

Most are fine with care. Check anything battery-powered, such as light-up decorations and musical cards, for small coin-shaped button batteries. GOV.UK's product safety office warns that one stuck in a child's food pipe can burn a hole, and tells parents to take a child straight to A&E if they suspect one has gone down. Keep small or breakable decorations out of reach too.

Sources

• Department for Education - Early years foundation stage (EYFS) statutory framework
• Department for Education - Development Matters
• Department for Education - Help for early years providers: Physical development
• Office for Product Safety and Standards - Hidden danger in your home: button batteries and powerful magnets
• NHS - How to stop a child from choking