Interactive Classroom Advent Calendar: Counting down to Christmas with your students - Update 2024

I’m a huge Christmas fan, so naturally I’ll buy the first advent calendar I see to help me count down to my favorite holiday. It makes the last month of the year fly by, and it’s so much fun to treat yourself with a gift every single day of the Christmas season in December.

Why not do the same for students? How much fun would it be to start every school day in December with a Christmas game or activity? We created a fun, free, and digital BookWidgets Advent Calendar!

What’s inside?

The calendar I created is actually a Hotspot Image widget, with hidden hotspots for every day in December up until December 20st (winter break in most countries). Every hidden hotspot contains one interactive Christmas activity, totaling to 15 BookWidgets exercises.

The activities in this calendar are mainly targeted to primary school students (although I love doing the Christmas activities myself as well!). Activities include:

• Help Santa find his clothes - Hotspot image widget
• Guess the Christmas associations - Snowman widget
• Christmas Crossword widget - Crossword widget
• Christmas Wordsearch widget - Wordsearch widget
• Write a letter to Santa - Worksheet widget
• Play Jingle Bells on the piano widget - Piano Widget
• Create a hilarious JibJab e-card - Web Embed widget
• Watch a short animated Christmas spirit movie - Video Quiz
• Write a Christmas Story - Randomness widget
• Get Santa’s friend out of the maze - Whiteboard widget
• Find the 10 differences - Spot The Difference widget
• Decorate the Christmas tree - Whiteboard widget
• Complete the Christmas puzzle - Jigsaw Puzzle widget
• Christmas Memory Widget - Memory Widget
• Help Santa find Rudolph - WebQuest Widget

How to use the calendar?

1. Share this link with your students, or let them scan the QR-code below with the BookWidgets app or any other QR code scanner app.
2. Check the date, starting from the first school day in December: Friday.
3. Students click on the number of the date. A Christmas activity will open.
4. Students make the Christmas activity.
5. Go back to the Advent Calendar: Click on the black arrow in the upper left corner.
6. Repeat for the next day!

How to make changes & create your own Advent calendar

Create a free BookWidgets account, and duplicate the widget you want to change. You can find all the widgets in this public widget group folder.

!Important!

You have to duplicate all the widgets before making changes. Click on the arrow next to “show” and choose “duplicate”.

Addendum: A Dutch BookWidgets Advent Calendar

For all Dutch-speaking teachers, there is also a Dutch BookWidgets Advent Calendar. Go to this group if you want to create a copy to make your own changes.

Wrap up

Do you have any fun ideas we can add to our advent calendar? Share them in our Facebook Teacher Community or mention us on X. No, we didn’t forget a word… X is Twitter ;)

And me? I’m Lucie from BookWidgets. I’m happy to connect with you personally on X or LinkedIn.