French Christmas lesson ideas - digital and print

It’s that time of year again – the time when every French teacher begins looking for French Christmas lesson ideas! The days are getting shorter, the students are getting restless and everyone is ready for a little break. If you teach high school (like I do) you are torn between wanting to relax a bit and doing some fun activities and needing to prepare students for final exams.

I’ve got some ideas for some activities you might find useful, and I am also going to share some ideas from my fellow French teachers. So even if you don’t teach high school French, I may have some leads on French Christmas lesson ideas for younger students as well!

Are you looking for a fun way to learn and practice French Christmas vocabulary items? I’ve made a cute digital hunt style game. It can be played individually or as a class on the smartboard. It’s easy to set up – just share the PowerPoint, Google Slides or pdf file with students and they will be able to work their way through the hunt by selecting the correct vocabulary item for the image.

If you’re looking for a challenging – but fun – activity for your students, check out the Joyeux Noel digital escape game. Students will need to ready the clues VERY CAREFULLY in order to unlock the locks. Students have so much fun playing these games! Best of all, it’s free!

A quick and fun activity is the Christmas digital magnetic poetry activity. Share this Google slides activity with your students and watch the creativity grow! Drag the words to make poems about the holiday season.

French Christmas Lesson ideas for reading practice

If you’re looking for something to read, I have a short story about the adventures of Père Fouettard. He’s tired of always being the bad guy, so he makes an arrangement with his buddy Père Noel – they will trade roles this year. Unfortunately, things don’t work out the way he planned – children are scared, parents are confused. This is written in the past tense, so it’s a good review for the imparfait and passé composé.

For culture, you might be interested in this full-color printable PDF magazine about the holiday season. From the origins of Père Noel to recipes for the season and more, you will find all sorts of information about how the French celebrated the holiday season.

Finally, I have a comprehensible input lesson for 2nd semester and later about how the holidays are celebrated in France. It comes with a reading, retell and comprehension activities and a powerpoint of the reading. If you can’t decide what to get, I also offer all of these items in the winter bundle at a 20% discount.