School Sparks - Kindergarten Readiness

Why I love Christmas math worksheets

For some children, math is an intimidating subject. However, it is hard to feel intimidated with jolly Santa and adorable Rudolph staring back at you from the page.

Tips for using the Christmas math worksheets

Christmas illustrations can make counting more fun. Before your child counts the pictures in each row, ask him to name the numerals that follow the pictures to be sure that he can accurately identify each number. Encourage your child to touch each picture one time as he counts aloud. For boxes with larger amounts of pictures, your child may want to lightly mark each picture with his pencil to keep track of the pictures as he counts.

The pictograph and bar graph worksheets provide practice recording and comparing amounts with colorful Christmas pictures. Begin with the pictograph worksheets and then move to the bar graph worksheets, as they are more challenging. Finally, encourage your child to create his own graphs using the blank bar graph template. Brainstorm with your child a holiday question to be written under the bar graph columns. Begin with questions that have two or three answers, such as: What is your favorite Christmas song, Jingle Bells or I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas? Direct your child to mark one box for each answer, starting at the bottom of each column. Then discuss the results with him. It's fun to guess which answer will get the most votes and then see who guessed correctly.

When your child sorts the holiday pictures on the sorting and classifying worksheet, ask him to explain how he categorized the pictures. Was color the key to dividing the pictures? Perhaps he sorted them by size. After he sorts the pictures, challenge your child to shuffle the pictures and try to sort them using a different attribute.

Finally, introduce the Christmas patterning worksheet. Cut out the pictures at the bottom of the page. Then ask your child to say aloud the pattern as he recognizes it before he pastes the pictures in the blank boxes. To challenge your child, consider printing several copies of the patterning worksheet so that your child will have a large variety of Christmas illustrations to work with. Then ask him to create interesting patterns using these pictures. As with other patterning worksheets and activities, remind your child that his pattern needs to repeat at least one time and the pattern cannot change.

There are also additional activities described at the bottom of each worksheet to try at home. Enjoy this holiday season and the opportunities to spend joyful time with your children, family, and friends.

Extra activities to supplement the Christmas math worksheets

When your child has completed the Christmas math worksheets, you can continue his learning with fun math activities at home. For example, a decorated Christmas tree provides numerous different opportunities to practice important math skills.

• Start by challenging your child to count how many ornaments are on the tree. Depending on how large your tree is, this could require advanced counting well beyond the number 20!
• Challenge your child to record his observations on a graph by recording how many red, green, silver and gold ornaments there are, for example. Using the blank bar graph template, you can label each column according to the different types of decorations on your tree and give your child important practice creating a graph.
• When it is time to take your tree down after the holiday, you can challenge your child to sort the ornaments into different groups. He can place breakable ornaments in one pile and non-breakable ornaments in a different pile. Or, he can sort by color, shape, or size.

The opportunities for learning are endless and using fun, Christmas-themed items makes learning exciting.