18 Christmas Activities for Preschoolers With Free Printables and No Reading

These christmas activities for kids preschool age run on big shapes, thick lines, and zero reading, so a three year old can work through them independently while you keep the room from imploding.

Ten sheets you can print tonight, eight hands-on ideas that need no printer at all, and every single one is built for the attention span of a child who still considers a cardboard tube a legitimate toy.

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1. Dot Marker Christmas Tree (dot marker page, one per child)

Each child gets one sheet showing a large, bold Christmas tree outline filled with big empty circles, each circle just the right size for a dot marker tip.

The child presses a dot marker into every circle to colour the tree, working at their own pace and in any colour they choose. No pencil grip needed, no colour rules, just satisfying blobs of colour landing exactly in the spots.

Print one per child on plain white paper. Each child needs one dot marker minimum, though a small tray of two or three colours per seat is more fun. The activity runs about eight to twelve minutes before most three year olds declare it finished and move on.

The biggest issue is dot markers bleeding through standard copy paper onto the table. Put a spare sheet underneath each child’s page and the table stays clean. If dot markers are not available, chunky round foam stamps and tempera paint work identically.

2. The Sensory Bin of Rice and Bells (no printing needed)

Fill a wide, shallow storage tub with uncooked white rice, then bury six to eight jingle bells and two or three small plastic Christmas figures, a snowman, a tree, a star, at different depths.

Children dig with their hands or with a large plastic scoop to find everything hidden inside. The bells make noise as the child shakes the rice around them, which doubles the appeal.

No printing needed for this one. Set the bin on a plastic tablecloth or tray to catch spills. One bin works for two children at a time; for a larger group, run two bins side by side. Supervision is enough, no instruction required beyond ‘find the bells.’

Rice gets everywhere regardless of the tray. Accept this and have a small brush and dustpan nearby. An alternative filler for children with sensory sensitivities is dried pasta or cotton wool balls, both quieter and softer underfoot when scattered.

3. Thick Line Colouring, One Big Bauble (colouring page, one per child)

The sheet is a single oversized bauble, drawn with a thick bold outline and divided into four or five chunky sections by thick internal lines.

Each section is large enough that a four year old holding a fat crayon can fill it without going outside the lines, which removes the frustration that thin-line colouring pages reliably cause at this age. The child picks any colours and fills each section.

Print one per child. Fat wax crayons or jumbo felt tips work best. The activity needs no explanation beyond pointing at the sheet, so it is excellent for settling children at the table before a structured session begins. Expect three to seven minutes of engagement per child.

Children who finish fast will want to draw extra decorations in the white space below the bauble. Leave the bottom third of the page blank deliberately so there is room for that. If you laminate one copy per table and put dry-erase markers out instead, the sheet becomes reusable across multiple sessions.

4. Painting With Cotton Buds (no printing needed)

Give each child a sheet of black or dark blue card, a pot of white and one of red tempera paint, and a handful of cotton buds.

The child dips and dabs to make snowflakes, dots for snow, or a row of red berries along a holly branch drawn in advance by the adult with a white chalk line. The result always looks intentional, which matters enormously to a four year old.

No printing needed. Set each child up with a small palette tray holding two colours maximum to keep mixing manageable. Cotton buds are cheap enough to give each child a fresh one per colour rather than rinsing between dips. The whole setup takes under three minutes per place.

Paint pots tip constantly at this age. Nest each pot inside a small lump of playdough on the table and it stays upright. Warn children that cotton buds are for painting only, which takes one reminder and then they mostly forget, so keep the reminder cheerful and repeat it once.

5. Cut the Straight Lines Only

The sheet shows five horizontal bands, each one a thick stripe patterned to look like a Christmas gift ribbon, a candy cane stripe, a row of dots, a zigzag edge, a green garland strip, a red stripe with stars.

Each band is separated by a thick solid black cutting line running straight across the full width of the page. The child picks up scissors and cuts along each line, turning the sheet into five strips.

Print one per child. Child-safe scissors with rounded tips are the only equipment needed beyond the sheet. This takes about six to ten minutes and builds the scissor control preschoolers need before curved cutting is introduced. Keep strips after cutting so children can glue them onto a second sheet to make a paper chain.

Some children hold scissors upside down or with two hands. Correct the grip once, gently, then let the cutting happen however they can manage it. The goal is straight-line practice, not perfect technique, and forcing a grip correction mid-task usually ends the activity entirely. A left-handed pair of scissors in the tray prevents the most common frustration.

6. Match the Big Shapes

The left column shows five large Christmas shapes, a star, a circle bauble, a Christmas tree triangle, a rectangle gift box, and a bell, each drawn as a solid bold silhouette.

The right column shows the same five shapes in a different order, each as a thick outline. The child draws a line from each silhouette to its matching outline shape. No words appear anywhere on the sheet.

Print one per child, or laminate a small set so children can use dry-erase markers and the sheet wipes clean for the next group. Fat crayons or chunky markers work well for drawing the connecting lines. The task takes two to five minutes, making it useful as a quick settling activity or a transition filler.

Children sometimes draw lines to the wrong shape because the silhouette and outline look different to them at first. Drawing a large dot inside the star silhouette and asking ‘how many points does it have?’ before they start helps them look more carefully.

The answer key is on the sheet for the supervising adult, printed small at the bottom so it does not distract the child.

7. Playdough Snowmen (no printing needed)

Put out white playdough and a small tray of loose parts: googly eyes, short lengths of orange pipe cleaner for noses, black buttons, and tiny twigs for arms.

Each child rolls balls of different sizes and stacks them to make a snowman, then adds the loose parts as features. The open-ended format means every snowman looks different, which three year olds find deeply satisfying.

No printing needed. One fist-sized lump of playdough per child is enough. The activity runs as long as you let it, anywhere from eight minutes to the full session, and cleans up fast since playdough does not dry on surfaces if caught within the hour. Keep a damp cloth per table for sticky hands.

Pipe cleaner pieces and small buttons are a choking hazard for children under three. For a younger group, swap the loose parts for large craft pom poms, which are still small enough to serve as buttons but pose less risk. Googly eyes stay on playdough better than expected and become a favourite part of the activity without exception.

8. Count to Five Presents

Five rows sit on the sheet, each showing a different number of wrapped gift boxes from one to five, drawn large and bold. At the end of each row sits a chunky empty box.

The child counts the presents in each row and writes the number, or places a sticker, in the box. The numbers go no higher than five so every child in a mixed preschool group can complete the whole sheet.

Print one per child. A fat crayon or chunky pencil for writing numbers is all that is needed beyond the sheet. Children who cannot yet write numerals can circle the correct numeral from a printed row at the side, or the adult can scribe while the child points and counts aloud. The sheet takes three to six minutes.

Some children count the same present twice. Running a finger along the row while counting, one touch per box, reduces this almost entirely, and teaching it here builds a maths habit that transfers to other counting tasks. The answer key sits at the bottom of the sheet for the teacher, numbered to match each row.

9. Threading Big Beads (no printing needed)

Set out a bowl of large wooden or chunky plastic beads in red, green, and white, plus lengths of thick cord with the tip stiffened with tape to make threading easy.

Each child threads beads onto the cord to make a Christmas bracelet or short garland. The colour sequence can be free choice or the adult can lay out a simple red-green-red-green pattern card beside the bowl as a guide.

No printing needed. Beads need to be at least 20mm in diameter with a hole large enough for thick cord, which keeps this safe for three year olds under supervision.

The cord length for a bracelet is about 25cm; for a garland to hang on a small tree, 40cm. Tie a large knot at one end before the child starts to stop beads falling off.

Children pull the beads off again almost as often as they thread them on, which is fine developmentally. If you want a keepsake, tie the cord ends together the moment a child signals they are done rather than waiting. A finished bracelet placed on the child’s wrist immediately gives a concrete sense of completion that keeps them from unthreading it.

10. Trace the Fat Candy Cane Line

A single giant candy cane fills the page, drawn as one continuous fat curved line from the hook at the top down to the straight base. The child traces over this line with a fat crayon, following the curve from start to finish.

A small arrow shows where to begin and a star marks where to end, both large enough to spot instantly, so no instruction is needed beyond pointing at the sheet.

Print one per child. Any fat crayon or chunky marker works. The tracing line itself is printed in a mid-grey so the child’s crayon colour shows clearly on top of it.

This activity runs two to four minutes and is ideal as a calm opener or a quiet close to a noisy session. Children often trace it more than once in a different colour, which is fine.

The curve direction matters: the hook curves left to right for most children’s natural pencil movement. If a child traces from the bottom up rather than top to bottom, let them, the motor practice is equal in both directions at this age.

Printing the sheet slightly enlarged to A3 or tabloid size makes it much easier for children with limited hand control.

11. Musical Statues to Jingle Bells (no printing needed)

Play any version of Jingle Bells loudly while children dance freely around the room. When the music stops, every child freezes like a Christmas statue, arms out, one foot up, whatever position they land in. Start the music again and they dance. Repeat for four or five rounds, which is the natural attention limit for this age group.

No printing needed, and no elimination: at three and four years old, being ‘out’ turns the game into tears within two rounds. Keep everyone in for the full game. The only equipment is a device to play music and enough clear floor space for the group to move without colliding.

Children who freeze and then immediately giggle and move are not breaking rules, they are four. Praise the freeze rather than policing the wobble.

If the group is very energetic, make the statues themed: ‘freeze like a snowman’, ‘freeze like a star on top of a tree’, which adds vocabulary and keeps attention sharper across more rounds.

This pairs perfectly with these Christmas games for toddlers if you are running a longer session.

12. Sort by Colour, Red and Green

The sheet shows two large square boxes side by side at the bottom, one outlined in bold with a thick red border, one with a thick green border.

Above the boxes, eight large Christmas object drawings are scattered across the page: four that are clearly red (a red bauble, a red stocking, a red gift ribbon, a red berry) and four that are clearly green (a green Christmas tree, a green holly leaf, a green bauble, a green gift box lid).

The child draws a line from each object to the matching colour box, or cuts and glues each object into its box if scissors are available.

Print one per child. A fat red crayon and a fat green crayon are the only tools needed for the line-drawing version. The sheet works equally well as a cut-and-glue task if the group has already done scissor practice, which makes it a natural follow-on to activity three in this list.

Children who are still developing colour recognition sometimes sort by shape rather than colour. Pointing to the red border and asking ‘what colour is this line?’ before they begin redirects attention to the sorting rule without telling them the answer. The answer key sits at the bottom for the teacher.

13. The Feely Box With Three Christmas Objects (no printing needed)

Cover a shoebox or medium cardboard box with Christmas wrapping paper and cut a hand-sized hole in one end. Place three familiar Christmas objects inside: a jingle bell, a small plastic star, and a mini gift-wrapped box.

One child at a time reaches in without looking, feels one object, and says what they think it is before pulling it out to check.

No printing needed. The box takes three minutes to prepare. Run this as a small group station with four or five children waiting and taking turns, which gives everyone enough rounds without the wait becoming too long. Three objects is the right number for this age: more choices create confusion rather than challenge.

Children who are nervous about the box, and a few always are, can watch two or three rounds before joining in. Never force a turn.

Swap the objects after every child has had one go to refresh interest: a piece of ribbon, a pinecone, and a rubber duck wearing a Santa hat work just as well and extend the activity by another full round.

14. The Sticker Placement Page

The sheet shows a large bare Christmas tree outline and six labelled placement zones inside it, each zone a thick black circle or square with a simple visual cue above it: a star shape above the top zone, a circle above the middle zones, a square above the lower zones.

Each zone has the shape drawn large inside it as a guide. The child places one sticker of the matching shape into each zone, reading the cue by shape alone, no words needed.

Print one per child. Provide a sheet of mixed Christmas stickers that includes stars, circles, and square shapes, widely available in pound and dollar store packs. The task builds shape recognition and one-to-one correspondence simultaneously, two curriculum targets in one five-minute activity.

Stickers at this age often go on sideways, overlapping the lines, or in entirely the wrong zone. That is completely expected and fine. The motor challenge of peeling a sticker and placing it deliberately is the developmental win here, not accuracy. Children who finish fast can add extra stickers anywhere they choose in the white space around the tree.

15. Sticking Cotton Wool for Snow (no printing needed)

Each child gets a sheet of blue or black card with a simple winter scene drawn on it by the adult beforehand: a hill, a bare tree, a rooftop.

Provide a small pot of PVA glue with a spreader and a pile of cotton wool balls.

The child pulls the cotton wool apart into fluffy pieces and sticks them onto the scene to make snow on the hill, snow on the roof, and snow on the branches. The result always looks properly wintry and the tactile pulling is deeply satisfying.

No printing needed. Prepare the card sheets in advance with a thick marker or paint. PVA glue in small pots, one per child or shared between two, is the only consumable. Cotton wool balls are cheap enough to put out generously.

The activity runs eight to fifteen minutes depending on how much snow each child decides the scene requires, which is always a lot.

PVA at this age goes everywhere including hair. Roll sleeves up, put aprons on before the glue pots open, and keep a damp cloth per table. Cotton wool that has been glued and left to dry overnight is surprisingly robust and the finished scenes make excellent window displays in a classroom.

16. Glue the Shapes Onto the Snowman

The sheet is split into two halves. The top half shows a large snowman outline, three stacked circles, with dotted outlines inside it marking exactly where six shapes belong: two circle eyes, one triangle nose, three circle buttons, and a rectangle scarf.

The bottom half has those six shapes printed large and bold, ready to cut out. The child cuts each shape and glues it into its matching dotted outline on the snowman.

Print one per child. Child-safe scissors and a glue stick are the only equipment. This combines scissor practice with shape recognition and spatial placement, which is a lot of curriculum in one sheet without feeling like formal work. Expect seven to twelve minutes per child, longer for those who are thorough with the glue.

The triangle nose is the hardest shape to cut at this age because of the corners.

Pre-cut the triangles for children who find it frustrating, or round the corners slightly in the template design so it becomes more of a teardrop, which is much easier to cut.

Glue sticks run out fast when four year olds apply them, so keep two spares per table.

17. Rolling Baubles Across the Floor (no printing needed)

Place a strip of painter’s tape across the floor as a starting line and another strip about one metre away as the target line.

Give each child two or three large plastic baubles, 8cm diameter or bigger, and ask them to roll each bauble along the floor so it stops as close to the target line as possible.

No throwing, only rolling, which limits the chaos to a manageable level.

No printing needed. Large plastic baubles from any Christmas decoration set work perfectly. Clear a strip of floor about two metres long and one metre wide. The game runs as a free-play station rather than a competition, with three or four children playing side by side. Replace baubles that crack with ping pong balls if needed.

Baubles roll in unexpected directions on most floors, which is half the fun.

If the floor is very slippery and baubles shoot past the target every time, lay a strip of carpet offcut or a yoga mat as the rolling surface, which slows them down enough to stop near the line.

Keep the energy level predictable by reminding children it is rolling only, not bowling at each other, which will otherwise happen within three minutes.

18. Four Piece Shape Puzzle

The sheet shows a large, simple Christmas image, a star, a gift box, or a snowman, divided into exactly four pieces by two thick straight cutting lines, one horizontal and one vertical. The image is bold and colourful with thick black outlines.

The child cuts along the two thick lines to produce four pieces, then mixes them up and reassembles the picture. Four pieces is the developmentally appropriate piece count for a three to four year old working independently.

Print one per child on card if possible, or on standard paper and mount onto thin card before the session so the pieces have enough body to handle. Child-safe scissors, a flat table surface, and nothing else. The cutting takes two to three minutes; the reassembly takes one to four depending on the child.

Children who assemble it fast want to do it again immediately. Prepare two different images so fast finishers get a second puzzle without waiting. Print on card and laminate a class set for a reusable puzzle station that costs almost nothing.

If a child loses a piece during cutting, print a second copy and cut a replacement piece rather than spending time searching, it is faster and keeps the session moving.

For more ways to keep this age group busy, see these preschool Christmas party games that use the same low-prep approach.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which of these christmas activities for kids preschool age need no advance preparation?

The eight no-printing activities need very little prep. The sensory bin takes five minutes to fill. The feely box takes three minutes to assemble. Musical statues, rolling baubles, and playdough snowmen need only the materials gathered and the space cleared.

Cotton bud painting needs paint poured into trays, which takes two minutes per table. Threading beads and sticking cotton wool are equally fast to set up.

What is the right number of activities for a preschool Christmas party session?

For a 90-minute session, choose four to six activities. Rotate children through two or three stations running simultaneously rather than asking everyone to do the same thing at the same time.

This keeps wait times short and means children who finish fast can move on without disrupting those still working. Four activities across two stations is a comfortable ratio for one adult to supervise.

Can three year olds use scissors safely for the cutting activities?

Yes, with child-safe rounded-tip scissors and an adult present. Three year olds cut straight lines before they can manage curves, which is exactly why the scissor skills sheet uses straight lines only and the puzzle uses two straight cuts.

Supervise closely, correct grip gently once, and accept that the cut will not be perfectly on the line. The motor practice is the goal, not a tidy result.

How do you keep preschool Christmas activities from becoming chaotic with a large group?

Run stations rather than whole-group activities. Set three or four tables with different tasks and rotate groups of four or five children every ten to twelve minutes. Printable sheets anchor children at a table long enough to settle.

Active activities like musical statues or rolling baubles go at the end of the session when energy needs an outlet, not at the beginning when it is still manageable.

Are these activities suitable for children with special educational needs?

Most are adaptable with small changes. The dot marker sheet, sticker placement page, and sensory bin need no adaptation for most children with additional needs. Scissor activities can be modified by pre-cutting pieces.

The feely box can be shown open first for children who are sensory-defensive. Threading beads scales down to very large wooden rings on thick dowel for children with limited hand control. The key across all of them is no reading and no timed pressure.

Can these sheets be used in a nursery classroom as well as at a party?

Yes, they are designed for exactly both contexts. The printable sheets work as individual seat work, small group tasks, or take-home activities. The no-printing activities work as continuous provision stations that children can access freely. Nothing requires formal instruction, which makes them practical for a mixed-age or mixed-ability room where children arrive and leave at different times.