Christmas Stocking fillers 2024 🎄

It’s nearly here and we know as teachers just how hard it is to get through the final weeks of the Autumn term with all of our normal workload plus the added festival activities. Christmas can leave gaps in your day while half the class are at choir practice or at play rehearsals, and you may not know how to fill these parts of your busy day, which is why we are offering you a range of digital stocking fillers to help you fill those moments. 

Busy Things is offering you a range of fun, festive digital content that you can use to get that much-needed magical moment of peace within your class, just search and select the Christmas tab in the special events section. Here are just a few:

Snowball shootout: This fun game is very similar to Angry Birds. Just aim the cannon to try and hit the pink men! See what happens when you hit the nets, targets and passing birds! This game has a different control system for tablets and touchscreens. For tablets it's automatic, but if you are using a touchscreen or whiteboard, you will need to turn on the 'Whiteboard/Touch mode' setting in the Device settings in the teacher bar.
Miner Birds is one of the most popular games on Busy Things and it has had a festive makeover: Miner Birds Christmas edition. Collect candy canes by answering maths questions - the more canes - the more complex the question. There are also surprise bonuses to discover hidden in the presents. The first player to 20 candy canes is the winner. It costs a candy cane to dig through a boulder or travel 2 spaces. Have a piece of paper and a pencil at the ready to help you work out the more complex questions!
Santa’s Sleigh Dash! - in this fun game the pupils help Santa to get as many presents delivered as possible! In the daytime, they collect as many presents as they can using the ‘giddy-up' button to keep him in the air (on a desktop computer you can use the space bar too). They should make sure they avoid the red monsters or else it’s game over! At night time, they drop the presents down the chimneys by pressing the ‘throw present’ button (on a desktop computer they can use the space bar too).

Snowball shootout: This fun game is very similar to Angry Birds. Just aim the cannon to try and hit the pink men! See what happens when you hit the nets, targets and passing birds! This game has a different control system for tablets and touchscreens. For tablets it's automatic, but if you are using a touchscreen or whiteboard, you will need to turn on the 'Whiteboard/Touch mode' setting in the Device settings in the teacher bar.
Miner Birds is one of the most popular games on Busy Things and it has had a festive makeover: Miner Birds Christmas edition. Collect candy canes by answering maths questions - the more canes - the more complex the question. There are also surprise bonuses to discover hidden in the presents. The first player to 20 candy canes is the winner. It costs a candy cane to dig through a boulder or travel 2 spaces. Have a piece of paper and a pencil at the ready to help you work out the more complex questions!
Santa’s Sleigh Dash! - in this fun game the pupils help Santa to get as many presents delivered as possible! In the daytime, they collect as many presents as they can using the ‘giddy-up' button to keep him in the air (on a desktop computer you can use the space bar too). They should make sure they avoid the red monsters or else it’s game over! At night time, they drop the presents down the chimneys by pressing the ‘throw present’ button (on a desktop computer they can use the space bar too).

There are 3 other ways to play the game:

• ‘Words’ within this mode at night time you must select the present that matches the label on the chimney,
• ‘Mental Maths’ they must choose the present that matches the amount on the chimney.
• ‘Shapes and colours’ during night time you must select the present that matches the shape/colour on the chimney.

Decorate a Christmas Tree:  Enjoy decorating digital Christmas trees and adding them to a snow scene. Use stickers, stamps and brushes to create delightful designs!
Write a letter to Santa! Children can let Santa know what they want for Christmas by writing and decorating a letter using the publishing tool. You can then print it ready for sending to the North Pole – did you know you can send letters to Father Christmas via Royal Mail and get a reply? Find out more!
Jolly Jingles: It’s time to guess that tune, with the pink monster being the conductor for the pink men but he needs your help. Tap the pink man beneath the monster to get him to play his bell. Keep going until the fairy lights are all lit up! Can you recognise the Christmas song they are playing?

Design a Christmas card: Children can use lots of lovely paint tools and stickers to create their own custom Christmas cards. Also, newly added are more fun colouring sheets which you can use digitally via Busy Paint or simply print out.

Want even more Christmas activities for children? Have you got your Free Busy Things Christmas Activity Packs? Their Christmas Topical Pack for Schools is completely paper-based, and accessible to anyone. Take a look for a taster of Busy Things’ activities! In it, you’ll find:

• A fact sheet about Christmas
• A Christmas tradition and meaning-matching activity
• A Christmas card make
• A snowflake-making activity
• A Santa-themed coding puzzle

There really is something for everyone! 

There is also a digital writing template for the festival of Hanukkah with both a simple and advanced option.

Just 2 easy Tool Suite has a Christmas winter wonderland tab found here, where you can access a bumper pack of festive treats, the collection is powered by just2easy’s library functionality.

Design your own Christmas Jumper: Why not celebrate Christmas Jumper Day by designing your own Christmas jumper? Use the attached template and paint and clip art tools to make your jumper as festive as possible.  https://www.j2e.com/library/collections/14/resource/1005
The Grinch coding activity: Can you input code in J2Visual to move the Grinch around the maze, to return the presents to Whoville? https://www.j2e.com/library/resource/2350

Bradley has also created some J2Create files in the past and these are still accessible via the library community, just click on each icon below to find out more about each lesson.

You will also notice many of the tools with the j2e tool suite will have a Christmas makeover:

• J2Branch: a Christmas set of resources to sort – elves, reindeer, gingerbread men etc. – plus a Christmas background and the clothes category are all winter clothes.
• J2Pictogram: a set of high-quality Christmas clip art images to use.
• JIT: Both Write and Paint have had a festive makeover, with a Christmas background in Write and Paint having high-quality Christmas clip art images to use.
• J2code: Visual has a reindeer instead of the usual penguin sprite (also remember with the option to find a sprite via the internet search feature you find even more Christmas characters).

Using the Augmented Reality Builder Adobe Aero, you can also use these Christmas images in the j2e Toolsuite to create your own virtual winter land in your school (or in Bradley's frosty back garden).

For more details on how to do this, watch this video.

Please note Adobe Aero is still is still in beta version after more than 4 years since its launch. The last minor update was in January 2024, and there are still numerous serious bugs and limitations!

Widgit has produced 4 ready-made activity packs you can download for Christmas. Created for learners to enjoy from EYFS to KS2.

The Christmas Pack brings the sparkle of the season to your classroom, featuring a symbolised version of the Christmas story, colourful semantics, comprehension cards, and fun-filled activities to keep little elves busy – including a very special letter to Santa (just don’t forget the mince pie)! Download for free here
Away in a manger: Share the magic of the Nativity with symbol-supported / text stories featuring vibrant illustrations, or why not draw your own? With tic tac toe, acrostic, and word searches to explore, our colourful set of themed worksheets and activities are sure to inspire the imagination this Christmas. Download for free here
Communicating at Christmas -  Do children in your care struggle to cope at Christmas? Whether it’s the change of routine or preparing to meet Santa for the first time, this comprehensive pack can help encourage conversation while reducing anxiety, including the Christmas-themed Communication Board – the perfect addition to any Christmas display! Download for free here

Seasons Greetings: With five designs to choose from, including a fireplace, grotto and snowman scene, there’s nothing more special than a handmade Christmas card – perfect for colouring in and sharing with loved ones! For the finishing touch, why not print the Widgit festive labels from the Greeting Card Stickers template to pop on envelopes and gifts? Download for free here

Adobe
Don’t forget it is never too late to send a Christmas card. Unlock creativity this festive season and design your electronic (and environmentally friendly) Christmas greetings using Adobe Express. Start your design from scratch or use the ready-made template Christmas card designs, available here.

Adobe are also running their ever-popular live lessons on a Christmas theme. Aimed at 7-12 year olds, these live lessons get you and your pupils using Adobe Express to create incredible pieces of digital media. Each lesson is 75 minutes long but there's a natural break right in the middle. There are 2 Christmas-themed lessons, both different so you can book both.

For many people, music is a major part of the festive season. This free book designed by LGfL Community member Simon Pile celebrates 25 Christmas classics and suggests ways you could get creative while singing along to a little bit of Bublé while dusting down your baubles. With 25 classic songs linked to 25 creative activities inspired by the lyrics from each song.

We also have a fantastic rewind session Seasonal Sensory - Technology Tinsel: This resource is for classroom practitioners, and those working in SEND, looking for simple and practical ideas to engage their learners combining fun with engagement and curriculum content. In this session, we discuss the power of sensory learning, especially for those with barriers to learning and understand how this impacts both UDL (Universal Design for Learning) and The Engagement Profile. You will see a mixture of hands-on activities and online resources that can be used effectively for fun sensory learning for Christmas and beyond.

Whilst we are sorry to say we can’t get around to everyone’s house to drop something in their stockings, we can give you the gift of various licences and services, LGfL bundles loads of extra value into our broadband service to save lots of money, safeguard children, keep data secure as well as providing access to some of the best educational software on the market today for free you can out about all of these services here.

To help use and find all of these stocking fillers we have created a site with all of the best resources and content, which you can here.

However you fill the last few weeks of this school year, we at LGfL want to give you a massive round of applause and thank you for all of your hard work and support this year. We hope you have a restful break and are ready for hopefully a brighter 2025!

Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year! And don’t forget to please share your Christmas creations with us on LGfL’s X or Facebook page.