It’s just after Christmas, and I have the cutest activity to share with you, but don’t think this is just for Christmas! Scroll down and I’ll show you how you can use this at any time of year.

Somehow, the Christmas season always gets BUSY. It’s hard to fit things in. I usually start my December imagining all of the beautiful Christmas crafts and ornament making that we will do in our homeschool…and then the days fly by and I haven’t done one of those things!

This year I chose to keep it super simple. I didn’t in advance (besides choosing our advent study), and I threw things together as they fit into our day. One of the things we did was add a simple self-check tool to mix up our lesson and add a little festive fun to our day.

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This simple self-check activity can be done with practically ANY subject.

It’s a way for your child to check their own work and correct as needed. I love doing this, because it means I don’t have to check over as much that day (yay!) AND it provides my child with an opportunity to problem solve when they can’t find their answer. Let me explain.

You need just a few things to put this together…and maybe about 2 minutes of prep time.

Grab a pencil, scissors, green construction paper (although any color works!), a pen/marker, and dot stickers (dot markers work too! Or, even simpler…just color in the circles. Don’t sweat this!)

Cut out a simple Christmas tree from the construction paper. Choose an activity from one of your workbooks that you want to use and select 8-10 problems. I chose the math lesson for the day and picked about 8 addition problems from a section in the lesson.

Draw that many circles on the tree and write the answer (Yes, the answer!) inside the circles.

As a problem is completed by your child, he/she will look for the answer on the Christmas tree and cover it with the dot sticker.

Don’t see your answer, time to try the problem again. When all the circles are covered, the problems are solved correctly AND you have a cute Christmas tree with sticker ornaments. I even used mine to decorate the school room!

This is something you can do with all AGES!

Answer math problems, read sight words, match capital and lowercase…the options are endless! I love an activity that can work with something I already have, and that’s exactly what this is. Use it with any subject!

This doesn’t just have to be for the Christmas season. See below for ideas for any month of the year:

Simply sketch one of these images below and cut it out of construction paper. All of these can be quickly drawn and easily cut.

January: Snowman

February: Hearts

March: Clover

April: Flower

May: Sun

June: Beach Ball

July: American Flag (4th of July) – It would be so fun to color code this one with red, white, and blue

August: Big Pencil

September: Apple

October: Pumpkin

November: Turkey (keep it simple here! Think a circle for the head and body and some big feathers surrounding it.)

December: Christmas Tree

Have fun self-checking at any time of year. Share your self-check activities with me on social media. (@simply.learning.together)