If you ask most high school students about math, their facial expression immediately turns to stone. Most students relate math as boring, confusing, and dreadful. Unless they have a mathematical brain they feel lost trying to grasp concepts and equations. So let’s go back to the basics of learning and have some fun when students are playing they forget they are learning and they are much more relaxed and in a relaxed state it is easier to learn.
1. Take a trip into Space before the Christmas break
Teens can get restless, especially near the holidays and the break. So why not have some fun with aliens, space, and math In the Helo Mars Activity students can use their trigonometry skills This fun activity involves the NASA Mars Helicopter Scout and great resources to complete the tasks.
Learn More: Rocket Stem
2. Make DIY: “The 12 days of Christmas”
Scavenger hunts are a wonderful choice of activity to end off your learners’ school year, and although this activity pack is geared toward 4th graders you can easily raise the difficulty by including higher-level math questions. All your class then has to do is search the room, find the answers, and solve the equations!
Learn More: Teachers Pay Teachers
3. Fast Paced Christmas-themed Trashketball!
Play classroom “Trashketball” and revise Algebra1 or other units. To give it the Christmas theme the crumpled completed worksheets will be the “snowballs “and the trashcan can be a decorated Christmas target. One point for correct answers and one for the shot!
Learn More: Mrs. E Teaches Math
4. Merry Christmas Equation – Can you solve it?
See if your high school students can figure out this super cool holiday equation that when solved will reveal a hidden message! If they struggle to solve it, allow them to check out this explanation of how they can crack the equation and discover the secret holiday message.
Learn More: Econlib
5. STEM and Math go hand in hand.
Stem activities involve science, technology, electronics, and math. Use your geometry skills and build a marshmallow igloo or some cool geo-board snowflakes. Here you have more than 20 STEm activities you can do around Christmas. Watch out students might get addicted to these Christmas maths ideas.
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6. Jeopardy: a fun revision class for Math Teachers
Jeopardy in the classroom is a classic and when you get the students involved in making their own version, you really have them wrapped around your finger. They are revising in creating a variety of questions and answers. Play this fast and competitive challenge. Great for all math lessons.
Learn More: Jeopardy Labs
7. Hands-on Math DIY at Christmas time
Time to put away the books and get out the board games and SCRABBLE math is fun to make and play inside and outside of the classroom around the holidays. Lots of ages can play and for the little ones let them use a calculator for an advantage. Great pastime.
Learn More: Instructables
8. Jinglebell Rock Math Dance
Get your learners back in their groove with a bit of Christmas Pop or Rock Music. Simply play a few festive tunes and then invite them to move their arms or bodies to mimic various mathematical functions like a sine or cosine curve.
Learn More: Imaginary
9. Teaching inflation through “The 12 days of Christmas”
This is such a fun practice activity and a great way to learn about inflation. Students can look at the lyrics of the song which were written in 1780 and try to estimate how much every gift would cost at that time and then compare it to 2022!
Learn More: Maths Careers
10. “Let it snow”
It doesn’t snow a lot in many places due to global warming but in some states of the USA and Canada, they can get a good snowfall around Christmas time. Let’s teach about meteorology and the averages of rain and snow in the winter.
Learn More: Nasa
11. Ann Dickerson Candy Cane Math and Hypothesis
Teens love eating candy canes. It is a fun project to predict how candy canes dissolve the fastest. This is all about predictions, teaching students how to use a student observation sheet and record sheet to track their findings and compare them to the predictions that they made.
Learn More: Little Bins for Little Hands
12. Winter Wonderland Snowflake
Mathematical concepts don’t always have to be limited to an academic space, there are so many examples in the real world where you can find math at work. Introduce your learners to real-life math by showing them how snowflakes use angles to create intricate and beautiful hexagonal shapes.
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13. Can your students solve the coloring puzzle?
Leading up to the holiday break, teens get fidgety and one of the best ways of calming them is by doing a bit of coloring. These are fun motifs and challenging to do in class. A fun way to do revision. A great holiday puzzle!
Learn More: Algebra 1 Coach
14. Tracking Santa GPS
Take on the challenge and calculate Santa’s route in a mathematical way. Find the distance from one city to the next and how long did it take Santa to get from Paris to Warsaw and then over to the USA. How many kilometers did he fly? Can your students track it and chart it?
Learn More: Math Drills
15. 1979 Flashback Logic Puzzle at Christmas Time
These are some tricky puzzles put together by a 1979 math teacher and teens are still baffled by some of them. Great for math classrooms. Using some paper and pens they can try their hand at these puzzles during class periods or in math lessons.
Learn More: Pleacher
16. Christmas Shopping Spree- know your tax and discounts
Everyone loves shopping at Christmas, and consumers must be aware of discounts and sales tax. To be a savvy shopper is a smart one. This unit is packed with lots of resources and math exercises on teaching high school students. Students will have fun on their pretend shopping spree!
Learn More: Education World
17. Do you want to build a snowman?
Learning about volume and size is an easy revision activity, but trying to calculate the size and volume of snow and snowmen is challenging and fun in a small time. Check out this entertaining and educational video about “Olaf and Frosty”!
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18. Gingerbread Math Activity Packet
When you think about Christmas, you think about the homemade gingerbread houses that you tried to make and never lasted a day. The roof and walls caving in because of all the candies and goodies piled on top. This is a fantastic activity to do in math class and fun for students.
Learn More: Teachers eGFI-k12
19. Alphabet Board App Stranger things “Merry Christmas”
In groups, students can take on the challenge of making a real Christmas alphabet board like the one in the TV series “Stranger Things”. This is a STEM activity and can be made with LED lights, a power adapter, a printable, and a few odds and ends. Challenging and fun!
Learn More: Instructables
20. Can your high school students plan and buy the Christmas Dinner for 8 on a budget?
We all love to eat at Christmas. However, on that note, many of us never really know the cost involved in buying and cooking the holiday dinner. Give your students different budgets and guidelines on figuring out mathematically how much money is dropped on the festive meal. Pizza anyone?
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