December 2026 holiday · Grade 8
Grade 8 holiday homework, ready to print or do online
- 9 learning areas
- 76 questions
- Answers with working
- PDF to print
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Checked by the CBC Guides team. These questions were written and checked by the CBC Guides team against the KICD Grade 8 curriculum designs (rationalised 2024). Spot an error? Tell us through the contact page.
This is a December 2026 holiday homework pack for Grade 8, for parents to use at home. Schools began closing for the long holiday on 15 October 2026, and learners are home until early January 2027, when your child enters Grade 9, the year of the KJSEA (Daily Nation, 18 October 2026, citing the Ministry of Education’s 2026 calendar).
That makes this holiday the best time to close gaps. Grade 9 assumes your child is comfortable with interest, simultaneous equations, the cell, elements and compounds, and the passive voice, all from Grade 8. This pack revisits those topics and more across all nine learning areas. Every question is new, written for this pack in Kenyan settings and matched to a strand in the KICD Grade 8 designs. Answers sit under each set behind a “Show answers” button.
Holiday Tuition Is Banned, Home Revision Is Not
Section 37 of the Basic Education Act, 2013 states that “No pupil shall be subjected to holiday tuition”, with penalties of up to KSh 100,000, a year in prison, or both. It is aimed at organised holiday classes. A teenager revising on their own at home, with a parent checking, is not holiday tuition. This pack is for that kind of home use only.
How to Use This Pack
- Forty minutes, three or four days a week. One learning area per sitting.
- Let your teenager own it. Agree a plan together, let them work and mark alone, then ask them to explain one question they got wrong. Explaining a mistake fixes it.
- Show the working in Mathematics. A calculator is fine for checking, not for doing.
- Mark online or on paper. Online, tick or cross each answer and the score is saved to the account. The printable PDF has the answers at the back.
Free sample
Mathematics
Strands covered: Numbers (integers, fractions, decimals and standard form, squares, ratio), Algebra (algebraic expressions, linear equations in two unknowns), Measurements (arcs and sectors, surface area, interest), Geometry (angles in polygons, scale drawing, the Cartesian plane) and Data Handling (mean, mode and median).
- Work out: (a) (−8) + 5 − (−3), (b) (−6) × (−4) ÷ 3. (c) The temperature at dawn on Mount Kenya was −5 °C. By noon it had risen by 12 °C. What was the noon temperature?
- Work out (2/3 + 1/4) ÷ 1 5/6.
- (a) Write the recurring decimal 0.272727… as a fraction in its simplest form. (b) Round 0.0045678 to 3 significant figures. (c) Write 45,000 in standard form.
- (a) Factorise: 6x + 9 and 4ab − 6a. (b) Simplify: 3(2x − 1) − 2(x − 4).
- (a) Solve the simultaneous equations x + y = 10 and x − y = 4. (b) Two pens and three exercise books cost KSh 170. One pen and one exercise book cost KSh 70. Find the price of each.
- (a) Increase KSh 450 in the ratio 5 : 3. (b) A school’s enrolment of 640 learners decreased in the ratio 7 : 8. What is the new enrolment?
- Take π = 22/7. (a) Find the length of the arc of a sector with angle 90° and radius 14 cm. (b) Find the area of a sector with angle 60° and radius 21 cm.
- Find the total surface area of: (a) a closed cube of side 5 cm, (b) a closed box (cuboid) measuring 8 cm by 5 cm by 3 cm.
- (a) Wanjiru borrows KSh 20,000 from a SACCO at 8% simple interest per year for 3 years. Find the interest and the total amount she repays. (b) KSh 10,000 is saved at 10% per year compound interest, added once a year. Find the amount after 2 years.
- (a) Find the sum of the interior angles of a hexagon. (b) Find the size of each interior angle of a regular pentagon. (c) On a scale drawing of 1 : 200, a classroom is 6 cm long. What is its real length in metres?
- (a) In which quadrant is the point (3, −2)? (b) Copy and complete the table for y = 2x + 1 for x = −1, 0, 1, 2.
- Ten learners scored these marks out of 10 in a quiz: 6, 8, 7, 8, 5, 9, 8, 4, 8, 7. Find the mean, the mode and the median.
Show answers: Mathematics
- (a) −8 + 5 + 3 = 0. (b) 24 ÷ 3 = 8. (c) −5 + 12 = 7 °C.
- 2/3 + 1/4 = 8/12 + 3/12 = 11/12. Then 11/12 ÷ 11/6 = 11/12 × 6/11 = 1/2.
- (a) 0.2727… = 27/99 = 3/11. (b) 0.00457. (c) 4.5 × 10⁴.
- (a) 3(2x + 3) and 2a(2b − 3). (b) 6x − 3 − 2x + 8 = 4x + 5.
- (a) Adding: 2x = 14, so x = 7 and y = 3. (b) 2p + 3b = 170 and p + b = 70. Doubling the second: 2p + 2b = 140. Subtract: b = 30, so p = 40. Pen KSh 40, exercise book KSh 30.
- (a) 450 × 5/3 = KSh 750. (b) 640 × 7/8 = 560 learners.
- (a) 90/360 × 2 × 22/7 × 14 = ¼ × 88 = 22 cm. (b) 60/360 × 22/7 × 21 × 21 = 1/6 × 1,386 = 231 cm².
- (a) 6 × 5 × 5 = 150 cm². (b) 2 × (8×5 + 8×3 + 5×3) = 2 × (40 + 24 + 15) = 158 cm².
- (a) I = 20,000 × 8/100 × 3 = KSh 4,800; amount = KSh 24,800. (b) Year 1: 10,000 + 1,000 = 11,000. Year 2: 11,000 + 1,100 = KSh 12,100 (interest KSh 2,100).
- (a) (6 − 2) × 180° = 720°. (b) (5 − 2) × 180° = 540°, and 540° ÷ 5 = 108°. (c) 6 × 200 = 1,200 cm = 12 m.
- (a) The fourth quadrant (x positive, y negative). (b) x = −1, 0, 1, 2 gives y = −1, 1, 3, 5.
- Total = 70, so mean = 70 ÷ 10 = 7. Mode = 8 (appears four times). In order: 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 8, 9; median = (7 + 8) ÷ 2 = 7.5.
English
Strands covered: Listening and Speaking, Reading (comprehension, vocabulary in context), Grammar in Use (collective and compound nouns, reflexive pronouns, adverbs of frequency, conjunctions, active and passive voice) and Writing.
12 questions with answers and a marking guide.
Kiswahili
9 questions with answers and a marking guide.
Integrated Science
Strands covered: Living Things and Their Environment (the cell, movement of materials, human reproduction), Mixtures, Elements and Compounds (elements and compounds, physical and chemical changes) and Force and Energy (pressure, energy transformation), plus fire safety.
8 questions with answers and a marking guide.
Pre-Technical Studies
Strands covered: Foundations of Pre-Technical Studies (safety and first aid), Communication in Pre-Technical Studies (pictorial drawing), Materials for Production (wood), Tools and Production (holding, cutting and caring for tools) and Entrepreneurship.
7 questions with answers and a marking guide.
Agriculture
Strands covered: Conservation of Resources (soil erosion), Food Production Processes (mulching, transplanting, poultry) and Value Addition.
7 questions with answers and a marking guide.
Social Studies
Strands covered: People and Relationships (population, migration), Natural and Historic Built Environments (climate), Political Development and Governance (the Constitution, citizenship, the Bill of Rights, devolution, the African Union) and Disaster Awareness.
8 questions with answers and a marking guide.
Christian Religious Education (CRE)
Strands covered: The Bible, The Life of Jesus Christ, The Church and Christian Living. (Use the Good News Bible.) An IRE pack is planned separately.
7 questions with answers and a marking guide.
Creative Arts and Sports
Strands covered: Foundations of Creative Arts and Sports, Creating and Performing (visual arts, music, ball games) and Appreciation (Kenyan musical instruments).
6 questions with answers and a marking guide.
Getting Ready for Grade 9
Grade 9 ends with the KJSEA, which makes up 60% of the senior school placement score, with Grade 7 and 8 school-based assessment and KPSEA counting 20% each. Read school-based assessment explained, our guide to senior school placement and pathways and the Grade 9 hub. Your teenager can also take the free CBC pathways quiz to explore STEM, Social Sciences and Arts and Sports Science. For quick practice, try the Grade 8 CBC Challenge. More packs are on the holiday homework hub.
Sources
- Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development, Grade 8 curriculum designs (rationalised 2024): Mathematics, Integrated Science and English (checked strand by strand); Kiswahili, Social Studies, Pre-Technical Studies, Agriculture, CRE and Creative Arts and Sports.
- Constitution of Kenya, 2010, Articles 13–18 (citizenship), 53 (children) and Chapter Eleven (devolved government).
- Basic Education Act No. 14 of 2013, section 37 (holiday tuition).
- Daily Nation, “70 days without school”, 18 October 2026.