Christmas Tracing Printable Fine Motor Practice for Preschoolers
These Christmas tracing worksheets give preschoolers a bell, a bow, a candy cane and 12 more holiday pictures to trace. Each page has one big picture made of dashed lines and a short sentence to trace at the bottom, like “I can make a bell.”
Every picture comes as a black-and-white outline and as a color page. Start with color for kids who need a little more support, and move to the outlines when they are ready.
Why Tracing Comes Before Writing
Before kids can write letters, they need control over a handful of basic strokes: straight lines up and down, lines across, curves, circles and diagonals. Letters are built from those same strokes, so tracing pictures is writing practice without the pressure of getting a letter right.
The pictures in this set cover all of them. The gift is mostly straight lines and corners. The bell, the ornament, the bow and the wreath are curves. The star topper is all diagonals and sharp points, where the pencil has to stop and change direction. Santa, Mrs. Claus and the reindeer mix everything together.
The Sentence at the Bottom
Each page ends with a sentence in dotted letters, like “I can make a Christmas tree.” Tracing it gives kids practice forming real letters, and the picture right above it helps them read the last word.
For kids who are not ready for letters yet, skip the sentence and read it to them instead. They can come back to it later.
Setting Kids Up to Succeed
A few small things make tracing go a lot better:
- Trace with a finger first. Running a finger along the dashed line shows kids where the line goes before they pick up a pencil.
- Hold the paper with the helper hand. Kids who keep their other hand flat on the page have far fewer slips.
- Go slow. Tracing is about staying on the line, not finishing first. It is fine to stop and pick up again.
- Try short crayons or broken crayon pieces. They are hard to hold in a fist, which nudges kids toward holding them with their fingertips.
Going off the line is part of learning. The goal is getting a little closer each time.
Making It Easier or Harder
Start with the color pages. The colored picture gives kids a clear shape to follow, so the dashed lines are easy to see. When that feels easy, move to the black-and-white outlines, which have nothing to lean on but the dashes.
Pick the order of pictures, too. Start with pages that have long, simple lines, like the gift, the candy cane and the star topper. Move on to curves, like the bell and the ornament. Save the busiest pictures, like Santa, Mrs. Claus, the reindeer and the wreath, for last.
For kids who need more of a challenge, have them trace each line twice in two different colors, then color in the outline pages when they finish.
Ways to Use Them in December
- A fine motor center for the weeks before winter break, with a few pages out at a time.
- Morning work. Each page takes just a few minutes.
- A reusable center. Slide a page into a sheet protector and trace with a dry-erase marker so it can be wiped and used again.
- A winter break take-home packet with a handful of the color and outline pages.
What’s in the Set
- 15 pictures: bell, bow, candy cane, Christmas light, gift, Santa’s hat, holly, Mrs. Claus, ornament, reindeer, Santa Claus, star topper, stocking, Christmas tree and wreath
- A black-and-white outline page for each picture
- 17 color pages, including the Christmas light in two colors and Santa in two skin tones
- An “I can make a ___” sentence on every page
Grab the Printable
All 32 Christmas tracing pages come in one printable PDF.
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