These Christmas alphabetical order activities are just the thing to kick off the holiday season this year! Although they are perfect for teaching letter order, they are far more than that! There are a myriad of creative ways they can be used to meet your students’ needs.
Don’t miss the rest of my best Christmas activities in this post!
Christmas Alphabetical Order Activities
I couldn’t believe it! I finally had a break through with my preschooler who, despite my best lesson plans, was struggling to learn his letter names.
We were sitting in circle time, playing games with some alphabet cards and putting them in alphabetical order. My student got so excited when he found his favorite one. It was “C for Christmas”, which I found a little funny. His name was Jackson, so you’d think he would have grabbed letter J!
Nope.
He snatched up letter C and started talking all about his favorite Christmas traditions. So, we switched up the activity and continued putting the letter cards in alphabetical order, this time naming Christmas items as we did. We also sang the alphabet song and practiced starting the song, and letters, in difference places.
That was a few Novembers ago, and since then I have created these Christmas alphabetical order mats.
Before you grab the mats, let me explain why alphabetical order is good skill for preschoolers.
FAQ About Teaching the Alphabet to Preschoolers
What are the benefits of being able to take a set of 26 letters and place them in order from A-Z? Here are some things I found out:
~ Being able to put letters in order is a form of sequencing like “first, second, third” or “first, then, next.”
~ It builds letter knowledge fluency skills.
~ Ordering letters helps with letter naming and even sound retrieval.
~ It’s fundamental for dictionary work, which also means it’s a foundational skill for using an index or any other kind of alphabetized list.
It’s certainly not ordering a list of words! Instead, alphabetical order for preschoolers means sequencing all the letters of the alphabet according to alphabetical order. You start with A, then B, C, D, etc.
Start by teaching your child the alphabet song, or many alphabet songs. There are lots of variations. Start with the song because then when they do other letter activities, they can use the song to help them out. It’s important to offer your preschooler some letter manipulatives, too. And you can play lots of letter matching games!
Alphabetical Order Activities for Christmas
Remember my student Jackson who was struggling to learn his letter names? He really responded to ordering the letters, so I’m certainly keeping this activity to add to my other alphabet activities for preschoolers. In fact, it’s perfect for your Christmas literacy centers.
Materials
- free Christmas ABC order mats
- letter manipulatives
Letter Manipulatives
It’s ideal to have a set of letter manipulatives for this activity, but I’ll show you a way to do the same activities without one. But, here are our favorite letter manipulatives to use with my preschoolers. Any of these will work wonderfully.
The Set Up
Print the free cards, cut apart, and laminate for added durability. Then set out a set of letter manipulatives and invite your preschooler to find the “missing letter” on each card.
If you don’t have a set of letter manipulatives, you can just use an alphabet puzzle! But if you don’t have one of those on hand, I have another idea I’ll tell you about further down.
Now It’s Time to Order Those Letters!
You can see that each preschool alphabet card has five letters on it, the fourth letter printed in a very faint gray. (It’s a little darker in real life. I’m just not a great photographer).
But the second format I mentioned above has all five letters in black so that these cards can also be used as letter matching activities for your younger preschoolers.
I pulled out all the red and green letter beads, just to make it a little more festive. And I pulled out both uppercase letters and lowercase.
Select a card from the pile and ask your preschooler to say all the letter names. If they can’t, go ahead and say the first letter while pointing to it. “A, B…” and your preschooler will most likely say them along with you and fill in the missing letter. Have them search the letter manipulatives to find the matching letter.
The Christmas alphabetical order cards help with learning the alphabet by practicing basic sequencing and letter recognition skills. In fact, you can have your preschooler match all the letters like in the photo below.
Only lowercase letters are featured on the cards, but your preschooler can still practice uppercase letters by matching them like in the photo below.
Get All Your Christmas Preschool Centers Here!
These two math and literacy packs will take care of all your Christmas preschool learning activities. Consider your December lesson plans done.
Another Way to Use These Christmas Alphabetical Order Cards
So what if you don’t have a set of letter manipulatives? Or an alphabet puzzle?
Or what if you just want to get creative in the way you present your alphabet activities to preschoolers?
A super easy and fun activity is to slip these in a dry erase pouch and have your preschoolers trace the letters! I haven’t yet met a preschooler who doesn’t love using a dry erase marker.
Christmas Picture Books for Kids
You can never have too many picture books, especially before or after completing a literacy activity like this one!! Grab a few of your favorites and snuggle up in your home or classroom. They make a perfect Christmas circle time, or storytime treat anytime during the day!
More Christmas Literacy Activities for Preschoolers
I have loads of preschool Christmas activities, but here are some of my best Christmas alphabet printables. Grab them, and then don’t forget to come back and download your ABC order cards below!
Get Your Free Christmas Printable Here!
Think you want to add these ABC order cards to your Christmas literacy center? Just fill out the form below and the pdf will be delivered to your inbox.
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.
