Christmas Spot the Difference: 5, 7 or 10 Changes

It is the evening before Christmas. The scene has a cottage with a chimney and a round attic window, a tall pine tree topped with a star and hung with round ornaments, and two wrapped gifts waiting underneath. A snowy bush sits by the door, and the sky is full of stars and snowflakes. Picture A shows the scene as drawn. Picture B, printed below it, has been changed in small ways, and the puzzle is to find each one.

Counting the ornaments is a good habit here, because their number changes on more than one level. Children aged 3 to 5 get the 5-difference page, where a couple of objects are added, two others grow and a count changes, so every difference is easy to point at. On the 7-difference page for ages 6 to 8, two things disappear, a gift shrinks, the attic window turns into a heart, an ornament comes off the tree and two stars appear. Snowflakes move and a gift vanishes on the 10-difference page for ages 9 to 12, which also draws stripes on a star and shrinks the snowy bush, so it takes a careful eye. Each level downloads as a two-page PDF: the puzzle, then an answer key with every difference circled, numbered and described in a line of text.

How children play

On their own, children scan the sky, the tree, the house and the ground in turn and circle each change they find in picture B. With a partner, each child takes one picture and describes it aloud. The pair only marks a difference once both have seen it.

December brain breaks

In the busy weeks before the holidays, the 5 and 7 pages make a calm ten-minute break between lessons. Students who finish early can color the scene, since the line art doubles as a coloring page. Ornaments and snowflakes are small shapes that keep their drawn size when the A4 or US Letter PDF prints at 100 percent. The Letter file only has slightly different margins.