Christmas Reading Activities

I am so excited to be part of Crafty Night Owl’s 30 Days of Christmas series!

Isn’t there something magical about reading under the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree? It’s one of my favorite childhood memories. Now that I have three children of my own, I love recreating that love of learning during the holidays. As you can see from my pumpkin math for Halloween and pop it sight word games for the Fourth of July,  every holiday is an excuse to learning something fun in a new way!

One of my favorite literary traditions for the holiday season is to individually wrap 24 days worth of Christmas books. My children love unwrapping presents and they love reading stories so it is something they look forward to every night. Each year we add a new book to our collection and then I supplement the days that are left from the library. My library only allows two children’s holiday books out at a time, so I put myself on the hold list for some of our favorites. By the time we have read our first two, the next two are typically ready. Get yourself on the hold lists now!

On some of the days, we pair a craft with the book. Love these pics from two years ago of my then four-year-old silly Lily making snowflakes to go along with her Christmas book. Dying that I don’t know the name of the book to share it with you all! Anyone recognize the snowflake instruction page, pretty please?

Here are some of our favorite books that we will be reading this year:

The Polar Express is one of our absolute favorites. On the day we read this book, we like to watch the movie and have a hot chocolate night as well. Sometimes we put together a sensory bin with bells and other Christmas items to go along as well.

My children adore the book Snowmen at Night. The perfect activity for this book is – you guessed it – going outside and making snowmen! This year we are going to play a roll a snowman activity, too. It is simple, fast, and easy! You assign a snow man body part to a number on the dice and make a key – this would be great for an older child to do for you. Once the key is made, you give each child a dice and with each roll they add a new snow man part until they’ve made an entire snowman. Simple way to add a little math and art into reading time.

I love the illustrations in There Was No Snow on Christmas Eve. The poetic rhymes in this book match the beauty of the water color illustrations. I may let my children create their own water color Christmas masterpieces on the day we read this lovely book.

What Christmas books do you read in your family?

What are your favorite holiday traditions?