With the days getting shorter and colder, it’s important to find ways to keep students occupied with fun, educational activities that help build key literacy skills in early childhood development. This blog post will provide you with six printable winter activities for preschoolers that can be used as part of your preschool literacy activities this January.
These engaging and interactive exercises are sure to bring a smile to the faces of all your little learners while helping them get ready for kindergarten.
Preschool Winter Theme Ideas for Literacy
From gross motor activities in the the freshly falling snow to winter dramatic play, and of course math and literacy activities, there are so many inspirational things to add to your winter preschool lesson plans.
But these winter learning activities are not your average winter activities for kids featuring just snowmen and mittens. This cozy winter theme is all about having fun with furry winter friends who are dressed up in their finest winter clothing. From chunky knit sweaters and fur lined snow boots, these furry friends are having loads of fun in the snow!
Come along and join the fun with these preschool printables for winter theme.
These printables feature all the pre-literacy skills needed to prepare preschoolers for learning to read. There are four components of early literacy, which are:
Early childhood experts are consistently emphasizing their importance in preschool, so when planning your fall theme preschool lesson plans, it’s critical to include each component.
These printable activities can be used in small group work, circle time, or as independent preschool centers for your preschool winter theme activities.
Related Reading
These Literacy Activities for Winter are All Fun Learning
These furry-friended winter literacy activities are printable, so you can add to your winter preschool centers, and best of all, the six printables also cover the components of early literacy in a fun, engaging, and age appropriate way. Add these to your winter lesson plans.
Winter Friends Letter Matching
These furry winter friends are all bundled up from playing in the snow. Some are ice skating; some are snowboarding, but all are having fun! Help them find their way back to the warm cabin by completing this winter alphabet activity. These furry (or feathered) winter animals are just too cute!
Preschoolers or kindergarten students simply match the upper case letter cards with the lower case cards. If the entire alphabet is too difficult for your preschooler, just select a handful of letters to work on at a time.
Winter Clothes Word Tracing (Letter Formation)
No winter themed lesson plans would be complete with some time learning about winter clothing! These word tracing cards will take your preschooler through the warmth of the winter season. They include words like: mittens, sweat pants, socks, snow boots, ice skates and more! The word cards offer a font that teaching letter formation, so preschoolers know what order to make the strokes when writing.
Cozy Winter Rebus Reader Cards (Print Awareness)
Rebus cards offer a comfortable way for preschoolers to learn print awareness concepts like one to one correspondence in words and under sweep.
Read aloud the sentence, inviting the preschoolers to fill in the picture words.
Acceptable answers are any word that makes sense in the sentence. Additionally, when added to a preschool reading center, preschoolers might make up their own sentences as they “read” the text. This is ok. Encourage preschoolers to point to the words as they “read”.
Snowman Rhyming Mats (Phonological Awareness)
This cute snowman mat includes nine sets of rhyming cards for preschoolers to match up. Rhyming skills are important for preschoolers to learn because they not only teach children to listen closely to a word but rhyming activities also teach preschoolers to listen for different parts of words.
With this activity, preschoolers simply make rhyming matches on the snowman mat. Kick this up a notch by adding the cards to a winter sensory bin filled with foam balls, pom poms, or cotton balls.
Winter Fun Beginning Sounds Mats (Phonemic Awareness)
In preschool, children master letter recognition skills and sounds, and they also learn how to listen for beginning sounds in words. This winter fun game is a learning activity that teaches preschoolers how to match beginning sound pictures with their corresponding letter.
Winter Friends Word Building (Phonemic Awareness)
Preschoolers can cozy up to the joy of learning with winter-themed word building cards! Preschoolers practice building words related to all the warm and cozy winter things by using the provided letter tiles or by using letter manipulatives. By the end of your winter unit, these words will be like sight words to your preschoolers!
They can also be used in a salt tray for extra writing practice.
Children’s Picture Books About Winter
One of the most special things about planning a winter preschool theme is all the children’s books about snow, ice and all things winter to include. This is a book-list featuring books about the quiet and magic of winter. Dim the lights in the classroom, have your preschoolers snuggle up with some blankets while you read these books aloud to them.
Get all Your Winter Literacy Activities Here
Think these winter alphabet and literacy activities are a must-have for your winter preschool theme? Grab them below!
I’m Sarah, an educator turned stay-at-home-mama of five! I’m the owner and creator of Stay At Home Educator, a website about intentional teaching and purposeful learning in the early childhood years. I’ve taught a range of levels, from preschool to college and a little bit of everything in between. Right now my focus is teaching my children and running a preschool from my home. Credentials include: Bachelors in Art, Masters in Curriculum and Instruction.
