A Festive Round-Up of FREE Holidays Around the World Activities

It’s that time between Thanksgiving break and Christmas break. A time where you want to feel the Christmas spirit, but it’s, also, a bit chaotic. Depending on how your school calendar works, your students may be taking winter benchmarks before the break. But you, also, want to celebrate and have some good times with your students before the New Year!

A festive, fun way to do that is by learning about holidays around the world! What’s great about this theme is that it is multi-disciplinary and covers social studies standards. It’s, also, a way to include Christmas in your classroom while, also, being mindful of other holidays your students celebrate.

In fact, I make sure to include all the winter holidays my students celebrate in our studies. When I was a classroom teacher, that sometimes varied our topics year to year. Which in my opinion, is wonderful! I don’t have to do the exact same thing every year, but can be sure to include favorite activities each year.

When searching “holidays around the world” online, you will get many, many hits. So, I took the time to search for the ones that are free, fun, and don’t take too much prep work and compiled them here, just for YOU!

1. Holidays Around the World Passport from Sunny and Bright in Primary

This is was my go-to for years. I printed out the passport and decided which countries I wanted to include in our studies. Then, I printed them out for each student. We completed 1 page every 1-2 days and, then, I let them glue on their passport stamp. I decided which countries by what holidays I wanted my students learn about and, also, how much time we had left until being off from school. Along with the passport, the activities varied each day. Sometimes I read a book, we watched a video, or listened to music. We, also, made a craft for each holiday we learned about. Many of these activites are included on this list!

2. Holidays Around the World Posters from Around the Kampfire Teaching

Scroll to the bottom to access the free posters! I found these after leaving the classroom to teach reading intervention, but I love them because they have holiday greetings in the language of each country along with their flag.

3. Art Project Ideas from The Kindergarten Smorgasboard

I have used many of these art projects with my students in the past! There is an example of each project on this page and what country it comes from. Each project has minimal prep work involved. And you will have most, if not all, of the materials already in your classroom. Our poinsettias came out cute. I hung the paper strip Christmas trees in the hall. The Santa Lucia Day hats were a hit! I even used the Yule log and the wreath projects. You will need to collect toilet paper rolls for the Yule logs and get and cut paper plates for the wreaths in advance.

4. Diwali Lantern Craft from The Joy of Sharing

This blog includes several Diwali craft ideas. I used the lantern craft in my classroom. They came out so beautiful! And my students got some good fine motor skill use in the process.

5. Chinese Lantern Craft from Show My Crafts

This is one to use for Chinese New Year. It’s a fun paper weaving class that need few materials. Red and yellow paper, scissors, glue, and string are all you need! You can use cardstock for a sturdier craft, if you’d like.

6. Holidays Around the World STEM Centers by Carly & Adam

This is another new one I found recently. It does cost $8.00 to purchase from Teachers Pay Teachers, however I think many of the centers could be recreated without purchasing it. For ease of simplicity, it could be a good purchase. If you want the centers to be free, pick and choose the ideas you want to use and go for it!

7. Printable Mini-Books for Mexico, Italy, and Germany from Keeping My Kiddos Busy

These books have some great vocabulary that go with each country and holiday celebrated in that country. They, also, include simple facts and the pages can be colored. They can be completed whole class and then used for partner reading.

8. Christmas Around the World Worksheets by Leap of Faith Crafting

There are 20 pages of free worksheets! Each one is based on the traditions of a country with facts and a picture to color. These could easily be stapled together to make a book for studying each country or be used in a center during independent work time.

9. Christmas Around the World Videos for Kids by Simply Kinder

This post has some great videos to share with your students. These videos aren’t too long, so can easily fit into your day. There is, also, a great Australian Christmas song that my daughter loves!

And another one for Italy from Disney! You can skip parts if you want to make it a little shorter. It’s a 10 minute video.

10. 110 Holidays Around the World Books from Natalie Lynn Kindergarten

This list is pretty inclusive! If you’re looking for a selection of holidays to choose from, you’ll be sure to find what you’re looking for on this list.

Final Thoughts

I hope you and your students have a fun and festive time by using these holidays around the world activities! If you enjoyed the videos, check out this post 12 Christmas Brain Breaks to Get You and Your Class to the Holiday Break!