Christmas Pattern Block Templates

I love activities that give familiar classroom supplies a seasonal twist, and these Christmas pattern block templates are a lovely way to bring some festive fun to the learning table. With a handful of colourful shapes and a printed activity mat, children can build Christmas pictures while exploring how different shapes fit together.

Pattern blocks offer plenty of opportunities for hands-on learning. As children turn, slide and arrange the pieces, you can chat about shape names, colours and the choices they make. Try asking, “Can you find another triangle?” or “What happens if you turn that piece around?” These simple questions encourage children to look closely and experiment without making the activity feel like a worksheet.

The Christmas templates from You Clever Monkey feature a Christmas tree, reindeer, stocking, Santa hat, bell and star. They would make a cheerful addition to a preschool activity table, a kindergarten maths centre or a quiet afternoon at home during the busy holiday season. I especially like the idea of setting out a small tray of blocks alongside a few mats so children can choose which picture they want to build.

You can also extend the activity with a little counting and sorting. Ask children to count the blocks in their finished picture, group the pieces by shape, or compare which design uses more triangles. For children who enjoy an extra challenge, invite them to recreate a picture beside the template instead of placing the blocks directly on top.

Once they have explored the printed designs, encourage them to invent their own Christmas pattern block pictures. A snowflake, a present or a completely imaginative festive creation gives them a chance to put those shape-building ideas into practice.

Add a holiday spin to your pattern blocks with these printables from You Clever Monkey.

There’s a Christmas tree, reindeer, stocking, Santa hat, bell and star. Play with these then challenge your kids to make their own holiday designs (snowflake, Santa, etc.) with the pattern blocks.

You can buy these to print from You Clever Monkey.

With little kids especially, linking learning to physical activity really does help them learn. Movement can help kids focus, and it just keeps them from sitting still all day, which isn’t good for anyone.

The good news is lots of different learning activities can be adopted to get kids moving while they learn, so let’s look at some math and number activities that use gross motor skills.

Probably the most obvious thing would be hopscotch, which helps kids count while they hop. You can also mix up the numbers, do skip counting with the numbers, give kids a simple math problem and have them hop to the correct answer, and on and on.

This number hop game from Gift of Curiosity is a more chaotic version, with number flash cards on the floor that kids can hop, skip or jump to as you call them out (this one is more for individual number identification than counting). It’s a great indoor option if it’s too hot, cold or rainy out to do traditional hopscotch, too.

This painter’s tape number line idea from Days with Grey doesn’t involve quite as much movement, but kids can move around while they place things on the number line and work on learning about one to one correspondence. In the blog post they use shoes, but you can count anything you’ve got handy. (Be warned when I visited this website had an ad that continually took up the whole page, but you can get the idea pretty quickly.)

One of the important tasks of learning numbers is learning a parent’s phone number just in case it’s ever needed, or how to dial 911 in case on an emergency. Teaching Mama has a great way to practice telephone numbers and get some movement in with a giant telephone keypad made out of paper plates. You can also use this for counting practice, but it’s a great idea for learning phone numbers, too.

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