There’s nothing more fun than combining traditional alphabet activities with a fun theme like Christmas to get your preschoolers excited about learning their letters! That’s just what these beginning sound Christmas tree puzzles do. Read the entire post to find 10 Christmas alphabet activities for preschoolers!

***This post contains a free printable, so be sure to grab it from the end of the post.***

Christmas Alphabet Activities Using FREE Printable

Let’s face it: learning letter names and sounds is not always fun for preschoolers, but it’s an important part of literacy. In fact, if we’re being completely honest here, sometimes it’s like pulling teeth trying to get a three- or four-year-old to sit down long enough to get through a letter lesson.

If this is your preschool classroom, then I have to say…you’re doing it wrong.

All it takes is a little creativity to create crazy fun and engaging alphabet activities your preschoolers will love. And bonus, these are alphabet activities for Christmas! Who doesn’t love Christmas?

Since the preschool theme is Christmas, your little ones are bound to think they’re playing and they won’t even realize they’re learning – and isn’t that exactly what we want!?

I love that there are so many ways to teach the alphabet to preschoolers and kindergarteners. We follow my Preschool Literacy Curriculum in my classroom, and all those activities are active and hands-on letter learning activities. (Preschool teachers and parents are especially loving my hands-on preschool literacy centers). Then, I turn around and make some Christmas alphabet activities to supplement the awesome stuff we are already doing in the classroom.

Not because my program needs the supplement, but because there’s no better way to captivate a preschooler’s interest than by adding a Christmas theme to your alphabet activities.

Just trust me on this one.

The majority of this post is about about how to teach the alphabet to preschoolers using these Christmas tree beginning sound puzzles. But if you read to the end of the post you’ll find multiple ways I use this exact same printable to do all sorts of Christmas alphabet activities with my preschoolers. If you’ve been a subscriber for any length of time, you know how I love a printable that can be used a dozen different ways.

Christmas Tree 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.

Don’t forget to grab your free preschool printable at the end of this post and also read about all the different ways to use these puzzles!

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. These puzzles are going to get handled quite a bit and will receive a lot of love from your preschoolers, so if you want them to last, you’ll want to laminate them. Laminating them will keep them going all season long!

Cut each puzzle apart and separate the tops and the bottoms into two separate piles.

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.

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!

More Christmas Alphabet Activities Using this FREE Printable

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.

1. Use wiki stix, buttons, string, or pipe cleaner to form the letters on the puzzle pieces.
2. Place the puzzles in a dry erase pouch and have your preschooler trace over the letters.
3. Invite your preschooler to find real-life objects that match the beginning sounds in each puzzle set.
4. My preschoolers love it when I add puzzle sets like these in a sensory bin. When doing this, children will often communicate and work together in assembling the puzzles.
5. Tape one half of a set of puzzles to the wall and then invite your preschoolers to find the missing halves and match them. This can also be turned into a racing game.
6. 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). 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.
7. 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.
8. Use these puzzles as an informal assessment of letter knowledge.
9. And of course, they can be added to your preschool literacy centers!

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!)

LOOKING FOR MORE CHRISTMAS PRINTABLES?

My preschoolers loved these. And bonus: they’re free!

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NEED SOME PRINTABLE PRESCHOOL CENTERS?

These activity packs make your holiday planning a cinch…especially since we’re all so busy.