Christmas Math Activities and Puzzles

This Christmas Mystery Tangram Puzzle combines two favorite math activities into one. This printable Christmas puzzle will have students both practicing plotting ordered pairs on the coordinate plane and solving a fun tangram puzzle using the resulting outline from the plotted ordered pairs.

Students must match the equations of the parabolas with their graphs in order to decorate the tree. What a great task from Math with P. Nik!

Do your students need some practice graphing piecewise functions? Challenge them to graph a Christmas Tree in Desmos!

Your students will be singing “Oh Factor Tree, Oh Factor Tree…” when you get them making their factor trees in the shape of Christmas Trees!

Carol Anderson shares a fun-looking lesson that involves surface area and volume combined with building gingerbread houses.

Students use their knowledge of exponents to figure out which holiday exponent problems are correct and which are incorrect.

Teaching slope fields in calculus? When students draw in the solution curves, it will create a fun winter themed picture for them to decorate.

Can your students use their knowledge of arithmetic sequences/series to solve a real-world problem about building a Christmas tree display out of handprints?

Natalie McCrady inspires with an activity that involves using equations to graph a gingerbread house in Desmos. After students are done, they create a real-life version complete with candy decorations. How fun!

This reindeer pentominoes puzzle is the second addition to my growing collection of Christmas-themed pentominoes puzzles for the classroom. My students love pentominoes puzzles, and I think your students will love these puzzles as well!

Arrange the given pieces to decorate the ornament with a checkered pattern. This puzzle I created a few years ago now is trickier than it might first appear!

Can you arrange a set of twelve pentominoes to form the shape of a penguin?

This reindeer logic puzzle is perfect for bringing a bit of Christmas cheer into your classroom. Students are given seven statements about Santa’s reindeer who have run a race. They must use logical reasoning to determine the order in which the reindeer finished the race.

Help bring some festive puzzling spirit to your classroom with this pentominoes Christmas tree puzzle. My students love pentominoes puzzles, and I think your students will love these puzzles as well!

This Decorate the Christmas Tree Puzzle was my first ever original puzzle that I made for my classroom. Since then, it has been used in hundreds of math classrooms across the country!

Luke Janicke shares a clever Christmas-themed prime number puzzle. Can you fill in the stars with digits so that each line in the tree forms a different prime number?

Can you combine the letter trio cards to spell out some words associated with Christmas? Each trio of letters will be used exactly one time.

Looking for a fun Christmas game? Check out this drawing on your head Christmas challenge. The original challenge called for the participants to draw on a paper plate on top of their heads, but I switched things up and had my students draw on individual dry erase boards.

The classic game of nim gets a fun seasonal twist in the form of a Christmas tree shaped playing board!

Mrs. Allan suggests a great way to use a strategy game (Mulinello Quadrupio) to create a meaningful present for all of the students in her homeroom class.

Check out these math vocabulary Christmas ornaments that my Algebra 2 students created. Each student was assigned a different math vocabulary word that we studied during the first semester.

These Icosahedron Ornament Balls can be made using scrapbook paper or old Christmas cards. They make the perfect winter craft!

One of my most favorite projects was these Borax Snowflake Christmas Ornaments that I made a few years ago with my chemistry students with coffee filters. The ornaments are super glittery and sparkly in person.

These triangular christmas trees from Mark Ekstrom are beautiful! They are based on a tutorial from Martha Stewart.

These Christmas trees made with string, nails, and a piece of wood look so cool!

This inspiring mathematical Christmas display from James Welham includes Sierpinski trees, Koch snowflakes, and student-created origami.

Caitlyn Gironda – 12 Days of Math Class Door Decorations