Hanukkah Connect the Symbols Pre-Writing Activity

We had so much fun with our Rosh Hashanah Connect the Symbols Activity that I knew it would not only be an important skill-builder, but also a good time, to do a Hanukkah Connect the Symbols Pre-Writing Activity for my preschooler. This Hanukkah Connect the Symbols Pre-Writing Activity is a wonderful and simple way to review the Hanukkah symbols and practice pre-writing and cutting skills.

What You’ll Need

Hanukkah Connect the Symbols Pre-Writing Activity free printable
Crayons (we love rock or egg crayons for early writing learners!)
Scissors
Optional extension activity: kraft or poster paper, Hanukkah stickers

Putting It Together

Print Hanukkah Connect the Symbols Pre-Writing Activity free printable.
Invite your child to connect the symbols by tracing the lines. Talk about each symbol as they trace.
Invite your child to cut along the lines from symbol to matching symbol.
If you’d like to flip this activity vertical, you can also create a Connect the Hanukkah Stickers activity. Tape a large piece of kraft or poster paper to the wall. Stick matching symbols on the paper. Invite your child to connect the stickers by making a line from one sticker to the other one that matches it.

Finished & Loving It!

When my preschooler saw that this Hanukkah Connect the Symbols Pre-Writing Activity printable on our kitchen island, he immediately grabbed it and asked to do it! What a fabulous start! I set him up with some of my favorite crayons for early writing learners: rock crayons. Have you ever seen these? My oldest’s preschool teacher told us about them when he was in preschool struggling to perfect that pincher grasp (oh my gosh, that was about seven or eight years ago!). The rock crayons or egg crayons force kids to hold them in a pincher grasp, by their fingertips, so they get used to writing and drawing like that. These crayons are also so smooth and just really wonderful for kids to work with. I highly recommend them!

If you want the same benefits without buying special crayons, you can also break regular crayons in half so that your child needs to use their fingertips to keep it steady. This is an awesome hack!

Observing my preschooler during this activity showed me we really should be doing short and simple pre-writing activities like this every day. He’s comfortable and confident with the straight line but gets frustrated with the zig zag. It will be really easy to print out more copies of the Hanukkah Connect the Symbols Pre-Writing Activity printable so he can continue to practice these tracing skills.

The symbols in this activity match the other Hanukkah activities we’ve done this month. I use the same images in my activities to provide that helpful consistency and repetition. I love the confidence the kiddos demonstrate when they excitedly identify and describe these symbols.

Since I bought some new Hanukkah foam stickers, I decided to also turn this activity into a vertical experience. This was also a super easy set up; the longest part was peeling the backing from the stickers! My daughter also joined in the fun of connecting the symbols. Doing this activity on the wall has additional benefits. It lets my preschooler focus on just making the lines between the matching symbols. He doesn’t have to worry about holding the paper steady. That is of course an important and necessary skill which he had to practice with the print out, but it’s nice to have different opportunities to just focus on the pre-writing skill sometimes too.

Because he didn’t have to follow a line he could make his own. He was much more confident when doing this. And making his own line still helped him practice holding the crayon properly and drawing lines, all important pre-writing skills.

I always love doing vertical activities because they also strengthen different muscles and just feel less worksheet-like. When they are holiday themed they also function as an additional decoration!

This Hanukkah Connect the Symbols Pre-Writing Activity printable is the last (planned) printable activity for Hanukkah this year. And since Hanukkah is just one week from when I’m sharing this post, I’m doing a countdown to Hanukkah sale on ALL my products in the With Love, Ima Shop! From today (November 21st) until the first night of Hanukkah (November 28th), you will get 18% off your entire cart when you checkout using the code “Hanukkah18”. I hope you add some Hanukkah activities and maybe even some others (it’s always fun to learn our Torah stories!). Let me know if you try any of them!