Christmas Cracker Template - Paper Craft Activity

How do you make a Christmas cracker out of paper?

Our fun and festive printable Christmas cracker template is ready to use instantly in the classroom or at home, helping you to save valuable time on planning and preparation during this busy time of year. Simply click on the green 'download' button and print to begin using!

This resource includes a lovely festive printable Christmas cracker template and detailed instructions on how to make your own crackers for the big day.

Encourage children's creativity in the classroom or at home by getting them to come up with their own designs to personalise the printable Christmas cracker template. Then help them follow the instructions to make their own cracker!

Children will love colouring and drawing on this fun printable Christmas cracker template. Once their designs are complete, follow the simple instructions to assemble the crackers.

You could even ask them to come up with their own Christmas-themed jokes to hide inside the cracker. Or use this lovely pre-made resource.

If you're using this festive cracker template at home or in the classroom, why not encourage children's creativity by putting some fun surprises inside? You could get children to put in a fun or surprising fact about themselves - when the crackers are pulled, the other children have to guess who wrote which fact.

Alternatively, tailor the crackers to different subjects: e.g., put in a maths problem for children to solve in a maths lesson or ask children to write a Christmas-themed poem to put in their cracker during an English lesson.

More like this printable Christmas cracker template:

Enjoyed this printable Christmas cracker template? We have plenty of fantastic related festive resources ready to download across our website! For some ideas on what to try out next, see our selection of top recommended resources below:

• This lovely Christmas craft pack contains over 20 fun craft activities for children to complete - perfect for keeping your little ones entertained and learning during the holiday season!
• Try out our Christmas Drawing Activity for some more engaging fun.
• Develop spelling skills with this fun KS2 Christmas Anagrams Quiz PowerPoint. 
• Or, to view our complete collection of Christmas resources, head over to our Christmas resources page: it's filled with engaging games, crafts, display resources, and more!

Plus, all of our resources are teacher-made, meaning you can rest assured that the learning material you are providing for your children is high quality, accurate, up to date, and in line with National Curriculum guidance.

Where did the tradition of Christmas crackers come from?

A Christmas cracker is a cardboard paper tube, wrapped in brightly coloured paper and twisted at both ends. There is a banger inside the cracker, two strips of chemically impregnated paper that react with friction so that when the cracker is pulled apart, the cracker makes a bang. If you are going to try creating your own crackers with this printable Christmas cracker template, you might want to learn more about the history of this fun festive tradition.

Christmas crackers are a much-loved tradition that is popular in the UK and were first made in about 1845-1850 by a London sweet maker called Tom Smith. He had seen the French 'bon bon' sweets (almonds wrapped in pretty and decorative paper) on a visit to Paris in 1840. He came back to London and tried selling sweets like that in England and also included a small motto or riddle in with the sweet.

The paper hat was added to the cracker in the early 1900s by his sons and by the end of the 1930s, the love poems had been replaced by jokes. The contents of the fun Christmas cracker has remained largely unchanged ever since!