Christmas Tree Puzzles: 10 Christmas Alphabet Activities
Bring the festive magic of Christmas into learning with these Christmas alphabet activities for preschoolers. These Christmas tree puzzles are perfect for practicing letter recognition and beginning sounds, making them some of the best Christmas preschool activities.
With engaging upper and lower case letter matching, these activities turn alphabet learning into flat out holiday fun for preschool kids. Explore this post to find 10 fun and effective Christmas-themed alphabet activities designed to get preschoolers excited about learning letters.
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As the holiday season approaches, it’s important to keep your preschoolers focused on learning despite the distractions of the holiday excitement. These Christmas tree beginning sound and alphabet matching puzzles are a must-add to your Christmas preschool lesson plans.
As your little ones match the upper and lower case letters and identify their beginning sounds, they aren’t just solving a puzzle – they’re developing crucial pre-reading skills, enhancing their problem-solving abilities, and most importantly, having fun!
Why delay? Let’s utilize this Christmas to offer a valuable learning opportunity that your preschoolers will appreciate.
At the end of this post we also share 10 engaging Christmas-themed alphabet activities using this exact printable! And they are all designed to maintain your preschoolers’ interest and enthusiasm.
Why Christmas Letter Recognition Activities?
Christmas letter recognition activities are an essential part of a preschool teacher’s curriculum for several reasons.
- They make learning engaging and enjoyable by incorporating the excitement of the festive season.
- This helps stimulate the children’s interest and attention, making them more receptive to learning.
- Such activities are crucial in teaching preschoolers letter recognition and beginning sounds, which are foundational skills in literacy development.
- Children who can identify letters are more likely to learn new words, which can help increase their vocabulary.
- A study from the University of Missouri Education found that learning letter names can aid in learning letter sounds, which benefits overall reading skills [Preschool Education Improves Alphabet Letter Recognition, Study Finds].
- Children who struggle with letter recognition also struggle with learning to read.
- These children will need effective letter recognition interventions in order to close the gap between them and their peers.
Christmas Alphabet Puzzles with Beginning Sounds
These Christmas tree puzzles teach both letter recognition and beginning sounds. Depending on the level of your student, you can choose to focus on either or both.
This printable pairs wonderfully with our other Christmas Alphabet Activities.
What’s included
This freebie include fifteen full color pages, each page hosting two alphabet puzzles.
Each puzzle has the upper case letter on the top of the Christmas tree and the matching lower case letter on the bottom, along with a corresponding beginning sound picture.
Materials
- printable Christmas tree puzzles
- various manipulatives (as mentioned in the extra activities below)
The Set-Up
Print these Christmas trees in color on heavy card stock and laminate for added durability. Cut each puzzle apart and separate the tops and the bottoms into two separate piles.
Christmas Alphabet Puzzles
Now, having the entire alphabet to learn can be overwhelming to some preschoolers. Twenty-six letters times two pieces per puzzle and your preschooler is looking at a stack of 52 pieces to put together.
I like to offer alphabet puzzles like these in smaller sets to avoid having my preschoolers feel defeated while putting them together. So consider making smaller sets like the following:
- the letters your preschooler already knows
- just the letters he or she will be learning soon (maybe the letters for the next month)
- the letters in his or her name
- the letters in the names of family members
- the letters of Christmas items, like elf, stocking, gift, etc.
What you don’t want to do is grab all the letters that look the same and have your preschooler differentiate them all at once. (This is assuming your preschooler doesn’t know these letters). Don’t choose letters that are easily mixed up, like d, b, p, and q.
If you’re not sure what alphabet letters your preschooler already knows, then use a letter recognition assessment to find out.
I love to use these as a review for the letters I’ve already introduced in my preschool curriculum, and we use them a ton during our “review week” in December.
But these puzzles are not limited to Christmas. You can cut off the stars at the top and suddenly they’re perfect for a forest or trees theme, too!
Alphabet Books for Christmas
One of the best ways to reinforce letter learning and alphabet recognition is by reading alphabet books to your preschoolers. Here are some of our favorite Christmas themed alphabet books.
- Used Book in Good Condition
- Hardcover Book
- Johnson, Florence (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 26 Pages – 09/27/2016 (Publication Date) – Running Press Kids (Publisher)
- Books, Holiday Kid (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 29 Pages – 12/03/2019 (Publication Date) – Independently published (Publisher)
- Arnold, Kelly D (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 79 Pages – 11/06/2022 (Publication Date) – Independently published (Publisher)
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Smith, Mary K. (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
Christmas Letter Activities
The best printables for preschoolers are not only free, but also have a lot of different uses. I love using my printables for a bunch of different activities so I can get even more use out of a single printing.
Check out these other ideas and then grab your free Christmas puzzles below.
- Use wiki stix, buttons, string, or pipe cleaner to form the letters on the puzzle pieces.
- Place the puzzles in a dry erase pouch and have your preschooler trace over the letters.
- Invite your preschooler to find real-life objects that match the beginning sounds in each puzzle set.
- My preschoolers love it when I add puzzle sets like these in a sensory bin.
- Draw a matching puzzle piece and show it to your preschoolers. The student standing on the matching piece gets to match the puzzle pieces together.
- This can also be turned into a racing game.
- When doing this, children will often communicate and work together in assembling the puzzles.Tape one half of a set of puzzles to the wall and then invite your preschoolers to find the missing halves and match them.
- Tape a set of puzzle halves in a circle on the floor and have your children walk around on them to some Christmas music (like a cake walk or musical chairs).
- Add velcro circles to the back of the puzzles and use them on a felt board bulletin board. Preschoolers can move them and match them during centers.
- Use these puzzles as an informal assessment of letter knowledge. In fact, we frequently use letter puzzles!
- And of course, they can be added to your preschool literacy centers or your Christmas writing center for preschoolers!
How else would you use these puzzles? Let me know in the comments below!
Grab Your FREE Printable Christmas Tree Puzzles Below
If you think your preschoolers would love these (and they will…because, you know, Christmas), then grab your free copy by clicking the image below.
Then keep reading for even more FREE Christmas printables for preschoolers. (Yup…I have even more freebies for you!)
Alphabet Activities for Christmas
Don’t let the alphabet learning stop with these beginning sound Christmas puzzles. Here are some other free Christmas printables worth saving.
- Christmas Tree “Alphabet Train”
- Christmas Letter Recognition Games
- Find & Stick Christmas Tree Alphabet Matching
- Christmas Small Pack Activities for Preschoolers
- Christmas Lights Letter Matching
- Find & Cover Christmas Tree Letter Game
- Christmas Letter Order Alphabet Cards
- Hanging Stockings Alphabet Matching
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.