About the Game 🎄
This "Christmas Musical Pursuit" game is perfect for Junior High School students and can also work well for low-to-medium-level high school classes. It's an easy-to-set-up activity packed with music, videos, and lots of interaction. Whether you're prepping for winter break or just want something different, this game has you covered!
Objective 🎯
Teams compete to earn points by answering questions from five Christmas-themed music categories.
Materials Needed 📝
- A computer with PowerPoint
- A TV or projector
- A whiteboard or blackboard for keeping score
- Small whiteboards and markers for each team
Game Setup 🔧
- Divide students into teams of 3-6.
- Provide each team with a whiteboard and marker.
- Open the “Christmas Musical Pursuit” PowerPoint and display it for everyone.
- Track scores on a whiteboard or blackboard.
How to Play 🎶
Introduction
Explain that students will answer questions from five categories. Each team writes answers on their whiteboards, and points are awarded for correct responses.
Categories
English Pop 🎤
Listen to snippets of popular English Christmas songs and fill in missing lyrics. Bonus points for identifying the song name and artist.Listen 🎧
Hear a Christmas song in another language. Guess the country or language it originates from.Words ✍️
Fill in the missing lyric from a multiple-choice question after listening to a short clip.Watch (Scene It) 📽️
Watch a music video or movie scene and answer a fun, simple question about it.
(Note: I made a full “Christmas Scene It” game with 8-9 movie clips—great for Elementary and Junior High School! Check it out in the sidebar.)Karaoke 🎤
Based on the karaoke melody of a famous Japanese Christmas song, name the song and artist (in Romaji or English).
Gameplay
- Teams take turns choosing a category and question value.
- ALL teams write answers on whiteboards and reveal them simultaneously.
- Points are awarded for correct answers; no penalties for wrong guesses!
- Rotate team selections until all questions are completed or time runs out.
Winning 🏆
The team with the most points wins. 🎉
Christmas Song List by Category 🎶
Each category features five festive songs that add variety to the game.
English Pop
- Santa Tell Me – Ariana Grande
- All I Want for Christmas Is You – Mariah Carey
- Last Christmas – Wham!
- It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year – Andy Williams
- Santa Baby – Laufey
- Santa Tell Me – Ariana Grande
Listen
- O Tannenbaum – Helene Fischer
- Happy and Merry – TWICE
- Petit Papa Noël – Céline Dion
- El Burrito Sabanero – David Bisbal
- Shchedryk (Carol of the Bells) – Mykola Leontovych (Sung by Eileen)
- O Tannenbaum – Helene Fischer
Words
- Mistletoe – Justin Bieber
- Underneath the Tree – Kelly Clarkson
- Winter Wonderland – Snoop Dogg
- Happy Xmas (War Is Over) – John Lennon
- The Night I Met Santa – Billie Eilish (SNL skit)
- Mistletoe – Justin Bieber
Watch
- I Believe in Santa – Meghan Trainor
- Let It Go – Various Artists (Frozen OST)
- Prep & Landing – Opening Scene
- Snowman – Sia
- Baby, It’s Cold Outside – Idina Menzel and Michael Bublé
- I Believe in Santa – Meghan Trainor
Karaoke
- Christmas Eve – Tatsuro Yamashita
- Christmas Carol no Koro ni Wa – Junichi Inagaki
- Christmas Song – Back Number
- Suteki na Holiday – Mariya Takeuchi
- Shiroi Koibitotachi – Keisuke Kuwata
- Christmas Eve – Tatsuro Yamashita
Download and Setup 🔗
This PowerPoint uses audio and video clips, so the file is large. Here’s what’s included:
Full version with embedded media (Updated December 6th)
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qNCJ9HDeaEZ6nEhTKMbruWimj666CuMY/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=113914641691941479397&rtpof=true&sd=trueSimplified version without video media
For those with ALTopedia premium but no access to GoogleDrive at school. I’ll provide the videos below for you to insert into the PowerPoint on your own PCs.
Why Your Students Will Love It ❤️
This game is all about teamwork, music, and holiday fun! Even if your students don’t know all the song names or artists, they'll enjoy the process of listening, guessing, and working together. Try it out, and let me know how it goes! 😊
Happy teaching,
CarpenterBee
Thank so much for putting so much effort into this. I know my JHS kids will love this
This is cool! Thank you so much for making this.
This is something I dreamed of making, but couldn't because of my inadequate computer skills. Thank you for making it so much easier for us! It is a refreshing departure from the randomized scoring systems such as Super Mario. Uploaded this at a perfect time too because some of my classes would be scheduled earlier this December. Thanks again!
My students just had their chorus contest, so songs are fresh in their minds right now. This will be the perfect Christmas activity for them, and a perfect capstone activity for me to end my time at my current school (Going on Ikukyu). This is so well put together, and even includes a PREVIEW! I'm very thankful for this!
This brilliant! Thank you so much for sharing it.
You're cooking this Christmas woww
You're awesome and cool!
This is fre*king awesome!! Thank you so much for sharing!!
Thank you so much!
wow this is amazing, thank you so much!
Thanks for the amazing activity! Just one thing I noticed, Céline Dion sings in French but she's Canadian so technically the answer is C) Canada.
Amazing work as always. Just wanted to point out Slide 8 having two 3)s. Thanks again for all the hard work you put into all your activities.
@all Thanks so much for all the kind words! This is one of my favorite games to play~ If your students liked this Christmas version, don’t forget to check out the regular J-pop and Anime versions too!
@patfree Oh wow, I didn’t even realize Céline Dion is Canadian! Thanks for pointing that out. Since the song in question is "Petit Papa Noël," and the slide asks "What country is the song from," I think I’ll leave the answer as France, since the song itself originates there. But I totally get why you'd want to lean into her Canadian roots and move the little red answer box! #CelinesVersion 😉
@stnnom89 Nice catch on the double 3)s on Slide 8! That completely slipped past my checks—plus, not a single class has noticed either 😂. It’s fixed now on the site, so anyone grabbing the game moving forward will have the update. Thanks for keeping me on my toes!
This is so awesome! I wish I could follow your page for when you update because your games always look so good. Keep it up and have a nice holiday
So amazing. The students and even the teachers got really into it! I will check out the others you made too
This game looks super fun and all of the teachers are very excited to play this! I can't imagine how long it took you to construct this masterpiece. I did have a question. I want to change some of the songs in the "Karaoke" category but could not figure out how to enable object action in action settings. How did you go about setting the triggers and etc.?
Just wow! Thank you for sharing such an amazing material! Many students will love it!
@narara I made a little walk-through folder for you. It's called "Editing Karaoke Section". Download it from ALTopedia (above) > extract the elements > follow the PDF. If you have any more questions shoot them my way~
Thanks a lot for sharing this! I'm going to try it out next week. Just one question. The directions for the inputs included in your description on the slides do not match my inputs, which is no big deal because I figured them out on my end. The only thing I can't seem to find is the "grey music box." Is that meant to be something on the slide, or in the controls in presenter view? I'm also using the US version of PPT if that helps. Thanks again for sharing!
Thank you so much for your help! Everything was very detailed and helpful. It worked perfectly and I couldn't be happier!
@itsfantastic95 Oh! You’re absolutely right—just opened the file and checked the notes section. In the English Pop category, it does say "grey music box," but it should actually say "[brown] click for music"! Thanks for catching that! I’ll update it when I have a free moment~
A little behind-the-scenes of my planning process: when I originally made the PowerPoint layout and notes, it was months before I finalized the designs and input boxes. The first draft of the PPTX was back in September/October, and at the time, the grey music box seemed like a good idea—but it ended up blending in too much with some of the backgrounds. That’s how we ended up with the quirky brown reindeer/music note box instead. 🦌🎵
Thanks again for letting me know, and I hope your students have a blast playing the game next week!
@narara Glad you got it to work!
The 3rd graders who got the chance to play this Listening Game today somehow enjoyed it, thanks a lot @CarpenterBee! I
ll definitely use this in my remaining classes before Winter Break. Also, Youre Amazing! :*Oh my wow! This is superrr! Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful work CarpenterBee! Merry Christmas!
Thank you for this wonderful activity! Where do you get the music and videos from?
This is really helpful! Thank you so much!
@PriscillaMurari I get them from Youtube. I have a couple free websites/softwares that I use to download everything. Dirpy.com for cutting small audio clips and 4kvideodownloader for getting the videos with subtitles.
@CarpenterBee thanks again! Your great work helps me improve my ppt skills, too. I am very grateful for your kindness to share.
This was so much fun!!! Thanks so much!
I looked at it read it and its so good but i think its too complicated foe me but i will try. I want to that the creator for such a marvelous activity the time and effort placed into this is very much appreciated.
Thank you SO much! This is absolutely AMAZING!