Christmas Cursive Practice Sheets for Kids and Adults

If you are not sure where to begin, try the first word of Level 2 on a blank line. If it takes you under a minute and the joins look even, start at Level 2 or 3. If the letters wobble, start at Level 1. A beginner who has not yet learned the alphabet should first see the cursive alphabet and the letter-by-letter guides.

Print each PDF at 100% on US Letter or A4. Every page has the same layout: a gray word to trace, an empty row for your own copy, and a short tip at the bottom of the page.

Level 1 words were chosen because every join in them travels along the baseline: the pen leaves a letter at the bottom, flicks up and enters the next letter. The only r (in star) ends its word, so no join follows it, and none of the other letters leaves at the midline, so there is no high bridge to judge. That makes the movement the same each time, which is the right thing to rehearse first.

Nothing in Level 1 is easy to get perfect, but all of it is easy to repeat. Trace each word twice, then write it three times on the empty line without looking at the gray. When all three copies look alike, move to the next word. If your letters look uneven, our guide on common cursive mistakes explains the usual causes.

This is where cursive starts to feel like handwriting. The letters b, o, v, w and r leave at the midline instead of the baseline, so the pen travels across in a flat bridge before the next letter begins. In Level 2 every word contains at least one of these joins, plus loops, tails and, for three of the words, a capital letter that is written on its own. The table names each one.

The join pairs are worked out from the rule on the cursive joins page: a join leaves at the midline after b, o, v, w and r, and the capital at the start of a word does not count because it is written alone. A double high join, as in snowman (o to w, then w to m), is the toughest: the bridge must stay level twice in a row, so use the repeated pair ow as a drill before you write the whole word.

December and Rudolph are the two capitals most children will want next, since they are the start of a date and the best-known reindeer. If you want more capitals, see cursive capital letters and cursive days and months.

A sentence is a different skill from a word. Letters are inside words, but the pen also has to leave a clear gap between words, keep one slant across the line and place punctuation. The eight Level 3 sentences are short on purpose: the shortest, “Happy New Year!”, has 15 characters including spaces and punctuation, and the two longest, “Snow fell softly all night.” and “The tree is full of lights.”, have 27 each.

• Merry Christmas!
• Wishing you joy and peace.
• Snow fell softly all night.
• We hung the stockings.
• The tree is full of lights.
• Thank you for the gift.
• Silent night, holy night,
• Happy New Year!

Two habits help the most. First, leave a gap about the width of one o between words, so the words neither run together nor float. Second, wait until the end of the sentence to dot every i, cross every t and add punctuation, working left to right. For more sentence practice on different themes, see cursive sentences.

1. Warm-up (3 minutes). A line of rolling ovals and a line of upward loops on lined paper.
2. Trace (7 minutes). Two or three words from your level, tracing in pencil, then ink.
3. Copy (7 minutes). The same words on the empty rows without the gray guide. Compare each copy with the first.
4. One real thing (3 minutes). Write the sentence, the card message or the tag you actually need this month. Use the Merry Christmas sheet for cards and tags or the Santa letter template for a letter.

Short regular sessions work better than one long one. Four sessions of twenty minutes across a week are easier on a young writer’s hand than a single hour, and the printable pages are sized so that one page is about one session.

• At home. Print one level at a time. Use a pencil for tracing so mistakes can be erased. Have a child say the word aloud while they trace it.
• In a classroom. Level 1 and Level 2 make a station activity, and Level 3 works as a quiet-time sheet. All three are free to print for classroom use. For a suggested teaching order, see how to teach kids cursive.
• For adults. Adults relearning cursive often prefer Level 2 first, because the high joins are the main thing that has to be relearned. See cursive for adults.
• With a different school style. The letter shapes follow a simplified American school style. If your school teaches D’Nealian or Zaner-Bloser, the joins are the same, and this comparison shows where letter shapes differ.

For more worksheets, including the alphabet, numbers and names, browse the worksheets collection, or build your own sheet from any holiday words with the worksheet generator.