Christmas Worksheets for Second Graders: Free Reading PDF

These free Christmas worksheets for second graders are all reading pages. Your 2nd grader sorts vowel teams onto cookie trays, fills in bossy r words on Christmas sweaters, builds compound words and reads a winter story and a Christmas story.

Read train. Hear the long a. Glue the cookie on the long a tray.

Our free Christmas reading PDF for 2nd grade has 10 pages. The answer keys sit at the end. No signup, no email. In the list at the top of this post are four more free PDFs, a Christmas vowel team board game, a Christmas tree writing page, a Letter to Santa writing pack and an If I Were an Elf writing page.

Three pages show winter, not Christmas. You can still use them in January.

You’ll also find all five PDFs in our printables library.

Jump to: what’s in the PDF · vowel teams and bossy r · compound words and endings · passages · game · writing · FAQ

What’s in the free Christmas reading PDF for 2nd grade

Eight activity pages come first, then the answer keys.

Page	Activity	Skill
1	Bake the cookies	Vowel teams ai, ay, ee, ea, oa and ow, sorted by sound
2	Fill in the sweaters	Bossy r with ar, or, er, ir and ur
3	Snowy compound words	Compound words
4	Split the syllables	Two- and three-syllable words
5	Add the ending	-s, -es, -ed and -ing, drop the e, double the last letter
6	A Snow Day	Reading and questions, fluency
7	Eight Paper Stars	Reading and questions, fluency
8	Read and follow	Following written directions, then coloring
9 and 10	Picture names and answer keys	For grown-ups

Pages 3, 4 and 6 have no Christmas symbols. They show snow, a snowman and everyday things.

Print at 100%. Black and white is fine. You’ll need scissors and a glue stick for page 1.

Christmas vowel team and bossy r worksheets

Pages 1 and 2 practice the two big spelling jobs of 2nd grade, vowel teams and bossy r. A lot of classes treat these as review by December.

Bake the cookies: a vowel team sort (page 1)

Three baking trays are labeled long a, long e and long o. Nine cookies get cut out. Each cookie has a picture and its word. Your child reads the word, listens for the vowel sound and glues the cookie on that tray.

Train and hay both go on the long a tray, even though one is spelled ai and one is spelled ay. Snowman and bowl join goat on the long o tray. Sort by sound, not by letters.

Say the word. Then point to the two letters that make the vowel sound. Our vowel teams guide lists every team with example words.

Fill in the sweaters: bossy r (page 2)

Each Christmas sweater has a picture and a word with the bossy r part missing. Your child says the picture’s name and writes the missing letters. Star and car take ar. Corn and fork take or. Those two are easy to hear.

Bird, shirt, tiger and turtle are harder. Er, ir and ur sound the same, so those four sweaters print all three spellings to circle. Write it, then ask if it looks right. Our bossy r words guide explains why er, ir and ur sound the same.

Christmas compound words, syllables and endings

Pages 3, 4 and 5 work on long words. Those are the kind that fill 2nd grade books.

Snowy compound words (page 3)

Two short words make one long one, like snow and man. Your child draws a line from each first word to its second word. Then they write the compound word under its picture. The six words are snowman, snowball, cupcake, teapot, pinecone and raincoat. Snow cone is a word too. The picture shows a pinecone, so cone goes with pine. You’ll find more in our compound words list.

Split the syllables (page 4)

Each picture has a word with two or three beats. Clap it first. Then draw a line between the parts and write each part in its box. Ro-bot, can-dy, win-dow, pil-low and chim-ney have two parts. Pa-ja-mas has three. Our closed syllables guide explains where the line goes.

Add the ending (page 5)

Each Christmas sentence has a word in a box and a blank. Your child adds -s, -es, -ed or -ing and writes the new word. Two rows drop the e, like bake to baking. Two rows double the last letter, like wrap to wrapped. Read the whole sentence aloud to check it.

Our second grade spelling words lists have a week for each rule.

Christmas reading comprehension: two short stories and a fluency strip

Pages 6 and 7 are short Christmas and winter stories. Each one has a picture and four questions.

In “A Snow Day” on page 6, Ivy and Leo build a snow fort and a snowman, then warm up with hot cocoa. Words like snow, treat and fort use vowel teams and bossy r. One question asks why they went in. The story gives clues, not the answer.

In “Eight Paper Stars” on page 7, Theo and his gran fold gold paper stars for the tree. It adds endings like folded, cutting and shining.

Under each story, your child finds and circles three ee or ea words on page 6 and three words that end in -ing on page 7.

Begin with page 6. If that reads smoothly, page 7 is the stretch.

At the bottom of each story, your child reads it three times and colors a star after each read. The third time should sound smoother than the first.

For a story a week after the holidays, our reading comprehension for 2nd graders stories go by phonics skill.

Read and follow: the Christmas window (page 8)

Seven short sentences tell your child what to color in a Christmas picture, like “Color the star on the tree yellow.” The picture only comes out right if every sentence is read. The word color is tricky to sound out, so read it together the first time.

Christmas activities for 2nd graders: a vowel team game and December plans

In the Christmas vowel team game, players roll a color cube. Each side has one color and one vowel team. Roll blue and you move to the next blue space. Then read its word out loud, like boat. Whoever gets to the cabin first wins. Play with 2 to 4 players.

Arrows on the board show the way to go. Rows 2 and 4 run right to left. You cut out the cube on page 3, fold it and glue the tabs. Cardstock makes the cube roll best.

Each color is one spelling. Rain is on a red ai space and play on an orange ay space, even though they sound the same.

• Centers. Put the game at one table and the cookie sort at another.
• At home. Try one page a day, about 10 minutes, from December 1 to the break.
• Early finishers. Page 8 is a quiet coloring job.
• Laminate the board for dry-erase markers.

Younger kids can join in with our Christmas worksheets for kindergarten. Our Christmas color by number pack has adding pages for little ones.

A Christmas ornament tree writing page

The Christmas ornament tree writing page is a free 3-page PDF. A Christmas tree holds four big ornaments. Each ornament has the start of a sentence and four long lines. Your child finishes the sentence inside the ornament. There is nothing to cut.

• I am grateful for ___.
• My favorite Christmas food is ___.
• At Christmas I like to ___.
• My favorite gift to give is ___.

Page 1 is in color. Page 2 is a black and white tree to color, with four more starters, like When it snows, I ___ and My Christmas wish is ___. On page 3 the lines are blank. Your child writes their own sentence, or you write a prompt on the top line.

Four lines leave room for a reason. Ask for one, like “because it is warm.” Then your child reads the whole tree aloud.

A Letter to Santa writing pack

The Letter to Santa writing pack is a free 6-page PDF. Page 1 is a letter to Santa with sentence starters, like This year I and For Christmas, I want. Page 2 is an open letter with a word bank of gift pictures. Then come a wish list, how to build a snowman (cut out the pictures and glue them in order), the best Christmas treat, and a story that starts One snowy night.

Every page mixes writing with pictures. There are treats to circle, gifts to draw and a box for the story picture.

If I were an elf

Our free If I Were an Elf writing page starts with a big elf that has no face yet. Your child draws their own face on it. Then they finish four sentences, like my name would be and My favorite treat is, with an elf word bank for spelling. The bottom has lines to write about a day at the North Pole. There are two elves to pick from, one in a tunic and one in a dress.

FAQ

What are fun Christmas activities at home?

Do one page a day before the break. Read a story three times by the tree. After dinner, play the vowel team game. Fill in the ornament tree on a quiet afternoon. That’s reading and writing practice that feels like the holidays.

Are these Christmas worksheets for second graders free as a PDF?

Yes. The main PDF has 10 pages. The vowel team game and the ornament tree writing page are two more free PDFs. No signup, no email. Print them at home.

What Christmas words can a second grader read?

In 2nd grade, tree, green and treat use vowel teams. Star and card use bossy r. Snow and bowl use ow. Eight uses eigh, one of the last spellings of the year. Page 7 has it as a stretch word. Cookie and gingerbread use spellings that come later, so read those together.

Is this too easy or too hard for my 2nd grader?

Try page 6. If snow, fort and treat are easy, go on to page 7. If they are hard, do pages 1 and 2 first. The 1st grade pages in this series make a good warm-up too.

The takeaways

• The PDF is free and all reading. It has 10 pages and answer keys, with no email.
• Pages 1 and 2 cover vowel teams and bossy r.
• Pages 3 to 5 build long words with compounds, syllables and endings.
• Two short stories come with questions and a fluency strip.
• The vowel team game and the ornament tree writing page are two more free PDFs in the list at the top.
• Download the free Christmas reading PDF for 2nd grade.

In our reading games, kids hear every letter sounded out when they tap it, and they build words from letter tiles. Print a few of these pages for the holiday break. They are screen-free.

Sources

• Carnegie Mellon University. The CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (word and sound checks).