Unwrapping the history of Christmas

Individual lessons and fun quizzes to engage learners with the different traditions of Christmas throughout history

Why not bring some festive fun into your classroom and take your students on a journey through time to discover how Christmas has been celebrated, banned and interpreted over the centuries. As well as one-off lessons, it is the perfect time of year to encourage group work with a range of fun activities and quizzes.

One-off Christmas lessons

Investigate how people in the Middle Ages celebrated Christmas and encourage students to compare it to modern traditions with this overview presentation.

Or, use this creative lesson to examine the reasons behind Cromwell banning Christmas during the 17^th century and to what extent it was effective.

For a more comprehensive, source-based activity, check out this interactive lesson which will help learners understand what the festive season was like in the trenches, during a war that people believed would all be over by Christmas.

Christmas fun through the ages

Build upon students’ interpretation skills with this series of lessons, tackling a variety of Christmas traditions from trees to pudding, as well as thinking about why there are many versions of Saint Nick.

Cover the Christmases of the past with this engaging quiz, an ideal treat to wrap up a term’s hard work. Alternatively, embrace the festive season with this comprehensive KS3 quiz*, which is best answered by small groups working together to answer multiple-choice questions.

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*This resource is being sold by the author

This blog post is featured in the December history newsletter from TES Resources.

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