The month of December is a time filled with fun, excitement, and lots of holiday cheer. It can also be a bit overwhelming with all the activities, parties, treats, and holiday chaos the season brings. I like to keep my students engaged with hands-on learning that features a holiday twist. I love to use a Flippy Flap or holiday lapbook activity to help incorporate the holidays into classroom lessons and activities. These keep students focused during the short month in school and creates fun opportunities for learning.
What are Flippy Flaps
One of my favorite ways to teach in an interactive way is by using lapbooks, or as we call them, Flippy Flaps!
What is a Flippy Flap? They are a mix of an interactive notebook and a lapbook. These little books are created to enhance student learning by integrating higher-level thinking into everyday classroom activities. Flippy Flaps are usually made in a composition notebook or file folder, and dive much deeper into subjects than typical note-taking or worksheets. Plus they fit great in students’ little laps!
Each of these holiday Flippy Flaps is designed with the primary student in mind. A great way to reinforce standards while digging into fun and engaging themes.
Here are some of my favorite Flippy Flap ideas for the holiday season!
Gingerbread Flippy Flaps
Gingerbread cookies are one of the cutest little holiday treats to incorporate into lessons and students just love them.
This gingerbread flippy flap holiday lapbook activity comes with everything you will need to engage with students. I like to start by reading the Gingerbread Man story to my class as a read aloud. This really sets the stage and gets the kids excited to learn more about gingerbread.
Then we dive right in and start learning about all things gingerbread! The gingerbread K-W-L chart is great place to start as we tap into what prior knowledge students have and what they want to learn. As we dig into gingerbread there are so many fun activities for the students. They love sequencing how to build a gingerbread house and labeling a gingerbread man.
This gingerbread flippy flap also includes lots of opportunities for responding to the Gingerbread Man story. The students love using the picture cards to sequence the story and practice retelling it. There’s also a section for identifying the story elements.
And we can’t forget one of my student’s favorites activities each and every year . . . a gingerbread cookie graphing activity! Students will learn all about collecting data and graphing as they answer a very important question: What part of the gingerbread man do you bite first? The students will use tally marks to collect the data as each person in the class takes a bite of their gingerbread man. Then they create a bar graph to show the results.
There is tons of fun to be had with gingerbread during the holiday season. Once all your activities are complete they will be colored and glued onto the file folder to create an awesome Gingerbread Flippy Flap.
Reindeer Flippy Flaps
Students are enthralled by reindeer. They learn of the “magic” associated with flying reindeer and Santa, but many are amazed to find out that reindeer really exist! This Reindeer Flippy Flap is a great way to add some Christmas science to your lesson plans.
This Reindeer Flippy Flap holiday lapbook activity provides lots of interactive activities to build a great reindeer themed book. These are super simple to put together and come with step-by-step instructions. You can complete all the activities or tailor this flippy flap to meet the needs of your students.
The Reindeer Flippy Flap includes lots of great science vocabulary and facts that your students will just love. They can then use what they learned to complete the Reindeer Can – Have – Are summary. And we can’t forget about the reindeer themed writing too! Students will write about what they would be like if they were reindeer. This fun writing prompt will get them thinking as they use what they learned about reindeer to apply it to a different situation.
There is also a vocabulary section and an image for labeling parts of a reindeer. Your students will love learning about the life cycle of a reindeer too. Students will get to color, cut, and paste the life cycle into the correct order to get in some sequencing practice.
So while the reindeer topic is filled with fun – there’s so much learning to be done. These are just a few of the activities included to construct this fun, Reindeer Flippy Flap!
All About Christmas Flippy Flap
This All About Christmas Flippy Flap will help students dig into common American Christmas traditions. Students will learn facts about Christmas, Santa Claus, Christmas trees and more. Students will get to talk about their favorite Christmas activities like songs, food, and gifts. One of the favorite activities year after year is writing a letter to Santa and making a Christmas list.
Students will also find activities including:
- Cut and paste Christmas vocabulary
- Christmas facts ornaments
- Compare and contrast activity
- Christmas memories using the five senses
Through these activities students will work on skills like sequencing, vocabulary, and descriptive writing. This Christmas lapbook is a great way to connect social studies, reading and writing standards in December. And . . . it’s guaranteed to keep your students engaged and learning.
One of the things I love most about using flippy flaps in the primary classroom is the ability to keep all of the students learning together. If you’ve been in the classroom more than a day, then you already know how easily things can get lost. By completing one activity at a time and gluing it into the notebook or folder, students keep all the pieces together! And . . . they are so proud of their final product. They love taking it home and sharing it with their families!
Engage your students with Christmas traditions and facts with this All About Christmas holiday lapbook.
Holidays Around the World Flippy Flap
Around the holidays there’s no better way to meet social studies standards and engage students than by teaching Holidays Around the World. This fun unit teaches students about different countries and cultures and how they celebrate. Students will learn about different holidays and holiday traditions.
For many students, this is the first time they learn that others can celebrate differently. It’s surprising and fun for students to learn that people in different parts of the world celebrate completely different holidays!
This Holidays Around the World Flippy Flap will help you teach about other holiday festivities celebrated in different parts of the great big world. It includes flags and countries being learned about and features 5 different holidays celebrated including Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Santa Lucia, Diwali, and Las Posadas.
For each holiday, students will learn facts like when and where it takes place, what food is eaten, what clothing is traditionally worn, and what activities people partake in. Giving students opportunities to compare and contrast these holiday celebrations with their own is a great way to develop high level thinking skills.
For a deeper dive into the holidays students will learn important vocabulary, create a mini flipbook about each holiday and have opportunities ot apply their new knowledge to writing prompts.
There is so much to learn and this holiday lapbook provides everything you need! This is a great lapbook that teaches so much and students will really enjoy diving into other cultures. Grab the Holidays Around the World Flippy Flap to get started.
Hanukkah Lapbook Freebie
Want to give lapbooks a try in your classroom this holiday season? Sign up below to get the Hanukkah Lapbook to try in your classroom now!
Holiday Flippy Flaps
Flippy Flaps have so many benefits. Not only are they fun and engaging for the students but they are a great way to practice and review a variety of skills, practice following directions and get some fine motor practice in too! If you’d like to incorporate holiday Flippy Flaps all year long, then check out this Flippy Flaps Holiday Bundle in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.
Save these December Holiday Lapbook Ideas
Be sure and pin these December holiday lapbook ideas to your favorite classroom Pinterest board so you can quickly come back and find them whenever you need some holiday inspiration or an idea to keep your students engaged and learning right up to the winter break!
