Christmas PE activities – fun for your pupils!

Christmas PE Activities 2024

We have updated our fun Christmas PE activities for 2022!  We’ve added new Christmas games and a fun activity sheet! Burn off some of that Christmas excitement and have a great end to the term.

Head Elf

This game can be played as an entire class or as smaller groups

• In a circle with one child in the middle.
• The children on the outside are all following one lead elf completing actions on the spot, e.g. jumps, squats, stretches etc.
• The player in the middle needs to guess who the head elf is.
• They have 3 attempts to guess correctly. After three guesses or a correct guess, switch both the player in the middle and the head elf.

Rocking around the Christmas tree

Some preparation before the activity is needed. Pre-write out on some paper the spellings that you have been working on. There needs to be at least one piece of paper with a spelling per child.

• Place the paper face down around the ‘Christmas Tree’. Turn on some Christmas music and rock around the ‘Christmas Tree’.
• When the music stops, children should find and stand on a piece of paper. Either all children can turn over their piece of paper to see the word and then practise that spelling, or you can select children. Place the paper back down and the music back on.
• Alternatives: You could have maths sums instead of spellings or words to practice reading.

Christmas Activity Sheet 1

Print off this sheet for each of your pupils; there is a range of fun puzzles, word games and colouring that will keep excitable children entertained.

Rudolph the red nose reindeer

Have the children sit in a circle on the floor with space on either side of them the teacher should read the popular song.  Every time to word ‘reindeer’ is read, the children should stand up turn around and sit down again.  Play again and get the children to sing along.

Extension: When the word ‘Christmas’ is used children should swap places with another child.

Christmas Activity Sheet 2

Print off this sheet for each of your pupils, there are Christmas PE activities for each day of December.  They can also have lots of fun colouring the sheet in as well!

Christmas warm-up

Children move around the area and respond to the calls from the teacher.

• Christmas Cracker – make a pair and high 5 each other
• Reindeer – crawl on hands and feet
• Santa Claus – hands-on tummy calling out ‘ho ho ho.’
• Turkey – pretend to be a turkey
• Christmas Pudding – curl up on the floor
• Can children think of any other Christmas actions?

Santa versus The Grinch

All pupils play the role of Santa, moving around the playing area trying to deliver their gifts (pupils can pretend to carry a sack placing gifts down or throwing down a chimney add in any actions you like).  However, the Grinch is trying to stop them from spreading the Christmas cheer!

The Grinch can tag Santa which stops Santa in his tracks.  Good news though!  Two Santas’ can join hands around the tagged player and sing ‘Rudolph the red nose reindeer had a very shiny nose!’ and this will release the player.

Choose as many Grinches as suits your group size, 1 -3 usually works.

Christmas Jingle

Select some fun uplifting Christmas music.  Choose a leader, this may be the teacher to start with until pupils are confident to take the lead.  Because it is winter and there is a big chill blowing in, sometimes the dance leaders become frozen and stop dancing….when the leader freezes everyone must stop dancing and freeze too!

If a player is caught dancing when they should be frozen they must perform a forfeit such as 5 lunges, star jumps etc.  Change the dance leader regularly! The lead dancer can restart whenever they like.  Rotate leader regularly.

Pass the present

Split the class into 2 groups, sitting at opposite ends of the hall.  Each group should sit in a circle with a large soft ball (the Christmas present).    At each end of the hall place 5 beanbags/balls (snowballs) for each group.  The objective of the games is for a team to collect their 5 snowballs and bring them back to the centre of their circle before the other team does.

To do this each group must pass their present using their feet (challenge), elbows (easier) or hands (easiest) all the way around the group without dropping it.  When the present gets back to the first player that player must jump up and run to the opposite end of the hall to get one of their snowballs, place it in the middle of the circle then pass the present to someone new to restart.  That player rejoins their place in the circle.

Only one snowball can be collected at a time, the team with all their 5 snowballs in the middle first are the winners.

Head, shoulders, knees, nose!

The aim of this Christmas game is to be the first to grab Rudolph’s nose!  Pair pupils up facing each other with a cone between them (Rudolph’s nose!).  The teacher calls out head, pupils must touch their head, the teacher calls knees, pupils must touch their knees.  Rotate through head, shoulders, knees and then when you say ‘nose’ pupils must try and snatch the cone (Rudolph’s nose) from the floor before their partner can.

Play several times swapping children around so they play against different partners.  Try to catch the pupils out! Ensure children stand up properly between each action.

Snowball Run

Spread 6 – 8 hoops (Santa’s sacks)  around the playing area.  Place 4 – 6 snowballs in each hoop sack and an equal number of snowballs spread around the playing area but not in hoops.

Split the class in half, one half is reindeer the other half are Snowmen.  Play for a set time e.g. 1 minute the reindeer need to try and get all the snowballs out of Santa’s sack and on the floor and the snowmen need to try to get the snowballs in the sack.  Count up the snowballs at the end of the time, the team with the most are the winners.  Replay a few times.

Christmas Dance

An easy dance that children and teachers can enjoy, and you don’t have to stand at the front teaching the steps, Santa does that for you in the Just Dance video.  Get your pupils to grab a partner and enjoy this Christmas dance fun!

Snowman and bright star

Pick 1 or 2 children to be the ‘Snowman’ and the same number of children to be the ‘Bright Star’. Give the stars a yellow cone each and the snowmen a blue cone each. All the other children should move around the space safely. The snowman moves around the area trying to tag the other children with the blue cones, if children are tagged by the snowman, then they must freeze. The star is the only way players able to unfreeze by being tagged by a yellow cone. Snowmen are not allowed to tag stars. Repeat the game but change the children who are the snowmen and the stars.

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