End of Year Activity Ideas | Christmas Puzzle Fun

Are you looking for some end of year activities that involve some Christmas cheer with a sprinkle of curriculum?

Don’t get us wrong, there is absolutely a place for Christmas craft in the classroom, however, sometimes keeping your students’ minds engaged will ensure that their behaviour stays on track towards the end of the school year. That’s where our brand new Christmas resource for the classroom is the perfect addition to your list of end of year activities.

The Teach Starter Christmas Code Cracker Whole Class Game has been our most popular download over the last few days – and it’s no wonder why! One of our talented teachers, Royce, alongside Karen and Carlos (two of our amazing designers/illustrators) created this awesome resource.

And, it’s a little beauty…

End of Year Engaging Activity Idea

Here’s how to set up this awesome ‘escape room’ style activity in your classroom.

Place a treasure of your choice into a treasure box (we picked up this cheap box from Bunnings). If possible, lock the box with a number combination padlock.

Divide the class into mixed ability groups. Spread the groups throughout the learning space so they cannot see each other’s work.

Read the following scenario to the class, with as much enthusiasm as possible at the end of a school year…

It is Christmas Eve and Santa Claus is preparing for his night of delivering presents. He goes to open the garage to prepare his sleigh, but alas! He has forgotten the combination to his lock.

It has been an entire year since he set the code and he has not opened it since. There are 4 digits in the code, hidden within puzzles that relate to Christmas. Can you help crack the codes for Santa to get his Christmas mission back into motion?

Introduce the four Christmas puzzles to the class, these can be completed in any order.

Don’t worry, each puzzle comes with an answer sheet for the teacher. No thinking required…

Christmas Gift Dominoes

Students need to match up each of the Christmas toys with a description. The shape they create with their dominoes will be one of the numbers.

  Christmas Santa Facts Maze

Your students will love working out the maze of Santa facts! Students start by colouring in the first box and then continue to colour the pathway of the real facts about Santa.

Their path will eventually bring them to a number at the bottom of the page. This is another number of the four-digit code.

Christmas Wordsearch Fun

Students need to colour each of the words on the Wordsearch. Once all coloured – a number (written in word form) will become visible – magic! This is another number for the four-digit code.

Christmas Code Breaking

As students decode this message they will be given a maths word problem. The answer of this word problem will be one of the numbers needed to form the four-digit code to break open the padlock!

Final Christmas Riddle

Once your students have correctly completed each of the four puzzles they must try to work out what order the four numbers need to be in in order to unlock the padlock.

This is done by reading the Christmas Code Cracker Final Riddle!

What fun! A fun Christmas inspired activity for the classroom with a sprinkle of curriculum!

We’d love to hear how your class go working out this puzzle.

Share your images by tagging @teachstarter on social media!