Feed Santa Name Activity
Inside: This Christmas name activity helps preschoolers work on name recognition in a fun, hands-on way.

There are so many fun ways for kids to learn in December! Last year I made free Christmas Name Puzzles to share here on the blog. And we have loads of other Christmas activity ideas here too. This year I decided to get Santa Claus involved…
Santa Name Activity
Santa Claus loves cookies, but he wouldn’t want to eat a treat that belongs to a boy or girl on his “nice” list! Your students can help the jolly old elf by selecting just the nonsense names and feeding them to him.
Skills Covered
Your students will work on the following skills:
- Name recognition – and noticing nonwords starting with the same first letter.
- Letter recognition – paying attention to all the letters in their name, not just the first letter.
- Fine motor skills – see “How to Play” below for ways to add additional fine motor work to this activity.

What’s Included in the Free Printable
This freebie is 6 pages long:
- Name entry page – open in Adobe Reader and type in student names
- Feed Santa and instructions (1 page, color)
- Generic cookies for all students (1 page color, 1 page black & white)
- Personalized cookies (1 page color, 1 page black & white)
Preparation & Materials
All you need for this name activity is a small container, tape, and either scissors or a 2-inch circle punch.
This activity is easy to prepare:
- Open the file from Adobe Reader and type in student names. Look on the first cookie page at the bottom and fill in tricky nonsense names or even funny names – whatever your students need. Or, you can leave those blank.
Here’s what it looks like in Adobe Reader:

- Once you’ve entered names, print the Santa and cookie pages. You can type new names over the old ones and print again, or save the file with a different filename each time.
- Cut out Santa’s mouth. I used an Exacto knife and then trimmed a little more with my sharp small scissors.

- Next, attach the Santa frame to a small container. I just taped one side so that it’s easy to flap open and remove the cookies.

- Cut out all the cookies. You can use scissors of course, but these are sized so that if you have a fancy 2-inch circle punch you can use that to get the job done quickly. I only have a 1-inch punch here, so I cut mine by hand. The lines are fairly thick, so it’s easy to do quickly.

- Finally, if you printed the black & white cookies, you may want to color them or have your kiddos color them.
How to Play
I’ll start with the basic way to play with this:
The child will mix all the “cookies” together, and then pick up one. Is their name on it? If so, set it aside. If not, feed it to Santa! Repeat until all the cookies have been used.

To continue, or to give the next child a turn, flip the lid up, empty the cookies, and start again.

Extension Ideas
Here are a few other ways to set up this name activity:
- Put the cookies in a sensory bin and have the children pull them out with tongs. For bin filler, try shredded paper, Christmas cloud dough, or kinetic sand. If you use dough or sand you can also add cookie cutters and a mini rolling pin.
- Turn this into a cookie sheet activity. Students can lay the “cookies” out on a cookie sheet, and then use a spatula to remove each one. You can even add thin magnets before laminating to make it super cool!
- Make this activity a game for two students. Flip all the cookies upside down and have the children draw one cookie at a time. The first to find their own name twice is the winner.
Download the Santa Name Activity

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Happy teaching!
I am a teacher and I love all these activities. Thanks for sharing
You’re welcome. So happy to hear that you love these!