Christmas Matching Worksheet

Matching pictures to the words that name them is one of the first real reading jobs a Kindergarten student takes on, and a holiday theme makes it feel like play. This christmas matching worksheet asks children to look carefully at a picture, hold its name in their head, and then find that word printed on the page. Doing that over and over builds the picture-to-print connection that early reading depends on: a child learns that the letters t-r-e-e are not just marks but a word that says the very thing they are looking at. Seasonal nouns like tree, stocking, candy cane, Santa, gift, star, and elf are perfect for this work because most children already say them out loud every December, so all of their attention can go to the printed word instead of to the meaning.

This preschool christmas worksheet has two parts and takes about ten minutes. In Part A, children draw a line from each picture to the word that matches it, with the words deliberately shuffled so the answers cannot be found by simply going straight across. In Part B, children look at three more pictures, find each one’s word in the word box, and write it on the solid handwriting line below. One extra word in the box is a distractor, so children have to read all four choices instead of using the last one left over. Print it as a December morning warm-up, a literacy center activity, an early-finisher page, or a quiet activity for the days right before winter break.

What’s Included

• 1 print-ready PDF worksheet
• Answer key
• 4 picture-to-word matching pairs and 3 write-the-word items with a word box

There are three reasons this christmas matching worksheet helps children learn. First, it pairs a picture with print, which is exactly how beginning readers attach meaning to letters instead of guessing. Second, the shuffled word column and the extra word in the box mean a child must actually read to answer, so the page checks real word recognition rather than pattern-following. Third, Part B moves children from recognizing a word to writing it, and copying a short word letter by letter strengthens both spelling memory and handwriting control at the same time.

Teachers and parents can stretch this activity in simple ways. Read the words aloud together first and have children clap the syllables, or hide the picture and see if they can find the word by itself. Write the same words on index cards and lay them face down for a memory-matching game, or tape them around the room for a word hunt. Ask children to draw their own Christmas picture and label it with one of the words. Family readers can point out the same words on cards and packages at home, which shows children that reading happens everywhere, not only on worksheets.

Related Resources

• Christmas Words Matching Worksheet
• Christmas Words Worksheet
• Christmas Words Word Search Worksheet
• Valentine’s Day Song by Have Fun Teaching (YouTube)