PULTEVENT
Classroom Christmas party games: 7 rounds for the projector on the last afternoon of term
Last day of term, twenty past one. The desks are pushed against the walls, somebody's mum has sent in a tray of mince pies nobody under ten will eat, and twenty-eight Year 4s in paper crowns are sitting on the carpet. The projector fan is humming. On the whiteboard, a bare 3D Christmas tree turns slowly while the teacher, laptop on the desk, says, "Right. Team Robins, you're first. Where does the star go?"
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The last afternoon before the holidays is famously hard to fill. The children are high on sugar and tinsel, the lesson plan went out of the window at lunchtime, and a video only buys forty minutes of quiet before someone starts crawling under the tables. A few games on the projector give the afternoon a shape, and the whole class plays together rather than in the corners.
The teacher runs everything from a laptop plugged into the classroom projector or board. PULTEVENT opens in the browser. Most of the rounds below need no pupil devices at all. The ones that do are played in teams, from a phone or tablet held by the teacher or a teaching assistant, and those devices need internet. Check with school IT that the site isn't blocked on the school network a few days before.
7 Christmas games for the class projector
1 Decorate the Tree
A 3D Christmas tree on the board. Teams take turns adding decorations from a device until the tree is done, and then everybody admires their work.
How to run it. Let each team send up one child at a time to do the tapping while a TA holds the device.
It's calm, cooperative and very festive, which is exactly what the first ten minutes need.
2 The Christmas quiz
Questions on screen, four answers each, team scores on the board: carols, Christmas around the world, reindeer names, what you'd find in a cracker.
How to run it. Write it in the quiz builder with your class in mind. Year 2 and Year 6 need very different questions.
Children love being tested when it doesn't count, especially when their table can win.
3 True or false, Christmas edition
"Christmas trees used to be decorated with candles." "Reindeer can see ultraviolet light." Teams choose, the board reveals.
How to run it. If the devices aren't cooperating, play it with hands up and run the reveals from the laptop.
Short, noisy and full of "no way" moments.
4 Festive charades
The board shows a Christmas word to one actor at a time: snowman, wrapping a present, a sleigh stuck in a chimney.
How to run it. Turn the screen away or show the word on the laptop only, so the class guesses from the acting.
Gets the wriggliest children up and moving in a way you're in charge of.
5 Christmas dance-off
Festive music, a countdown on screen, two teams dancing at the front. The class votes by cheering.
How to run it. Clear a space at the front and set a firm rule: feet on the floor, hands to yourself.
Every class has three children who were born for this moment.
6 Horse race
A 3D horse race on the board. Each team's device controls a horse, and the whole class screams for their table.
How to run it. Keep it for the energy dip after the party food.
Over in a couple of minutes, easy to understand and wildly loud.
7 Class awards ceremony
The team scoreboard finishes with a proper awards ceremony: special awards first, then the top three tables with confetti on screen.
How to run it. Invent a special award for every team so nobody leaves empty-handed: best singers, best tree, most festive jumpers.
It gives the last afternoon an ending, just before the bell and the coats.
The teacher drives
Everything is controlled from your laptop. Pupils never need a device of their own.
Teams, not individual phones
Four or five table teams share one device each, held by an adult.
Fits the classroom kit
Any projector or interactive board with an HDMI connection will do.
You write the questions
Build a Christmas quiz pitched at your year group, not someone else's.
Planning an afternoon, not a lesson
Most class Christmas parties run from after lunch to home time, roughly two hours with food in the middle. Plan forty minutes of screen games before the food and twenty after. The rest is eating, pulling crackers and the chaos of finding everyone's coat.
Start with the tree. It settles the room. Save the dance-off and the horse race for when they need to let off steam.
Devices and school rules
Plenty of schools don't allow pupils' phones in class, and younger children won't have one anyway. That's why the rounds here work with one device per team, held by the teacher or a TA, or none at all. Any device that joins a phone round needs internet, and the school network needs to let the site through.
Test it on the school Wi-Fi before the day, not at quarter past one with twenty-eight children watching.
Making it inclusive
Not every child celebrates Christmas, and classes are full of families with different traditions. Keep the quiz broad: winter around the world, snow, animals, festive food from different countries. A round about winter holidays in general works as well as a round about Santa.
For a child who finds noise difficult, give them a job at the front: holding the team device, reading out the score, pressing the button that reveals the answer.
Class names on screen
Put the class name on the splash screen when the children come back from lunch: "Merry Christmas, Class 4B" with snow effects or fireworks on top, and a photo from the nativity play if you've got one.
"Miss, that's us."
"It is. Sit down."
Using it for the rest of the year
The same setup works for end-of-term quizzes, review games before tests and the last day of summer term. Once you've built a Christmas quiz, building a science review takes ten minutes.
It also works for a school fair or a winter concert interval in the hall, with a bigger projector and parents joining from their own phones. The teacher is still the one holding the laptop; the audience just gets larger.
Before the last week of term
Open a free 3-day demo, no card required, on the laptop you'll use in class, and run the tree and the quiz once through the projector after school. The full version is a one-time license, no subscription, and the price is at pultevent.ru/en.
About the author
PULTEVENT was built by Ruslan Barashkin, who has hosted weddings, birthdays and office parties since 2014: over 500 events, best host of Moscow 2024 and of Saint Petersburg 2023 at the TOP 100 Awards. He made it for his own nights first. The rest is at pultevent.ru/en.
How to run classroom Christmas party games on the projector
- 1
A week before, check with IT that the site works on the school network.
- 2
Write a Christmas quiz and a true-or-false round for your year group.
- 3
Put the class name and a photo on the splash screen.
- 4
On the day, connect the laptop to the projector and give each table team a name.
- 5
Run the tree, the quiz and the charades, then break for party food.
- 6
Finish with the horse race and the class awards ceremony before home time.
FAQ
Do the children need phones?
What devices can the teams use?
Will it work on our interactive board?
What year groups is it for?
Is there a ready-made Christmas quiz in English?
What if the school Wi-Fi blocks it?
How much does it cost?
See also
Run brighter events — with PULTEVENT
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