With so many Christmas and holiday countdowns, Advent calendars, and more to choose from these days, it can be a bit overwhelming deciding what to commit to. So we've decided to do things a little differently. We've pulled together all our resources from the last three years of doing Christmas Holiday Countdowns - including games, puzzles, art and craft activities, and our Finn Finity Christmas Mystery puzzle story - to create a "Pick & Mix Your Own Countdown".
Choose your favourite activities based on curriculum level, age or type of activity.
Use our countdown planner to keep track of which activities you want to do on which day.
Print off the countdown cards for the activities you are planning to do - you could hang these up in a classroom or at home, so children know what to expect, or pop them in envelopes for a daily reveal to add a bit more suspense to your holiday countdown. Or just use the planner without the cards to save on printing, it's entirely up to you.
Click on your chosen activities below to download all relevant tutorials, templates etc.
Activities Overview
Please note, the Level/ age recommendations are just a guidance as to which levels and ages the activities are best suited for, but feel free to pick and choose any activities you feel are suitable for your children or class.
For something completely different, why not read along with our Christmas puzzle mystery if you missed it last year (or if you're a teacher and have a different class this year). Finn Finity and the Great Christmas Maths Mystery is an interactive story that you can read together, either in class or at home as a family. There are 15 chapters in total, plus a prologue and an epilogue, spread over three weeks.
Here's what one of the schools who did the Christmas Mystery last year had to say about it:
“As Pupils Support Officer, I used the Christmas Mystery resource with our Breakfast Club.
Each school morning in December, we opened an envelope pegged onto our advent string to find a clue to help solve the mystery.
Working together as a mixed age (P2-P7) and mixed ability group, we solved each clue and plotted our way through the museum, tracking Finn's journey.
It was a precious time indeed with kids looking forward to the next puzzle each day! It helped with reading skills, turn-taking, speaking and listening as well as maths. The sense of achievement each day as we were able to cross off more and more suspects was fabulous.
Thank you for the great resource. We can't wait for more!”
The puzzles are aimed at Second Level, so P5 to P7. However, younger or older children may enjoy the story and the puzzles too. If you are taking part as a family - or, as above, a school club - with a mixed age group, then you can do the puzzles together.
If you like the daily suspense, follow along on our Countdown page, where one chapter + puzzle will be released daily on weekdays, starting Monday 1 December.
Or, if you're a teacher and like to plan ahead, head over to our planning post from last year, and download your teachers pack with all chapters already included (plus teachers notes and slides for your whiteboard).
Whatever you choose to do, we hope you all have a maths-tastic countdown to the holidays. And don't forget to share some photos with us of the activities you do - you can find us on Facebook, Bluesky and Instagram.
To celebrate Book Week Scotland, we are delighted to announce the finalists and winners of our Maths Tales 2025 story-writing competition, run in partnership with Read Write Count with The First Minister.
We are delighted to also announce the winners of our Finn's Wild Maths Adventure Contest! Well done to everyone who entered, we really enjoyed going through all the different creative submissions.
