Category: Fine Motor

Pumpkin Seed Transfer

10/27/2020

We love working with pumpkins seeds ... there are so many things your can do with them!! I set this activity up in our math center using two pumpkin bowls that I purchased from Target. You can use any kind of bowl or container that works for you. I put the pumpkin seeds in one of the bowls and set out a pair of jumbo tweezers along with dice.

The children rolled the dice and then used the tweezers to transfer the same number of pumpkin seeds into the empty bowl. They continued to roll the dice until all of the pumpkins seeds had been transferred. This activity can also be done without the tweezers and/or the dice.

You can see a video of this activity by clicking below:

4 Comments

Pumpkin Spice Paint

10/27/2020

5 Comments

Pumpkin Spice Paint For Toddlers and Preschool

I recently attended a make and take session and one of the things we made was pumpkin spice paint. It is super easy to make but I felt the recipe we used was a bit too runny so I modified it a little.

To make the paint I put three packets of unflavored gelatine into a jar along with 1 cup of boiling water and mixed the two together until the gelatine was dissolved. I added yellow and red food coloring and stirred until I had an orange color I was happy with.

The last step was to add the pumpkin pie spice into the paint. I just continued to shake some in until I got the scent that I wanted. Everyone loved how the paint smelled and were very excited to paint with it.

I let the paint cool down which also helped to thicken it. The children then painted large circles on cardstock paper. When they painted they could see the specks of pumpkin spice. We let that paint dry and cut out the circle and glue it on to a sheet of colored cardstock paper. The children cut out a leaf and stem and glue that on the pumpkin. They then glue pumpkin seeds on for extra fine motor work.

You can see a video of our pumpkin spice paint below:

5 Comments

Giant Scarecrow

9/29/2020

14 Comments

giant scarecrow craft project for preschool and kindergarten

This is one of our favorite fall craft projects to make!! We do it over a span of two to three days but you can adjust it to fit the needs of your early learners. We use large sheets of construction paper (usually sold right next to the regular sized construction paper) but if you do not want to make giant scarecrows you can scale the project down to make smaller ones.

You can either have the pieces already cut out for younger children to put together or have guide pieces set out for the children to use as a reference for cutting their scarecrow pieces.

You will need to have a head ... hat ... pants ... shirt body ... sleeves ... straw ... eyes and a nose. You will also need to have various colors of tissue paper that has been cut or torn into squares.

Once all of the pieces have been cut out it is time to put them all together. You can put them together any way you wish but I found that we had the most success starting with the head and working our way down.

The hat gets glued at the very top of the head and the shirt body on top of the bottom of the head. You want to make sure to leave enough room to make a face on the head.

The sleeves the next to get glued on and they should be glued behind the shirt body. The sleeves can be angled in any direction.

The pants are glued under the bottom of the shirt. We used three inch long strips of yellow paper glued to the bottom of the hat ... arms ... and legs to represent straw.

We glued the eyes and nose on the scarecrow head and also drew a mouth with a marker. The last step was to glue the tissue paper squares on the scarecrow.

You can see a video of this project below:

14 Comments

Fall Fine Motor Wreath

9/21/2020

10 Comments

Fall Tissue Paper Wreath Preshool and Kindergarten Art Project

Once of our favorite super cute fall craft projects is a tissue paper wreath. These are super easy to make but really great for fine motor development. We cut the centers out of paper plates (those just starting to use scissors may need some help). The next step was to cut or tear fall colored tissue paper in to small squares or rectangle shapes.

Fall Tissue Paper Wreath Preschool and Kindergarten Art Project

Children can sort the tissue paper by color if they wish but we just put all of the tissue paper into bowls. The children applied glue to the paper plates and then scrunched up the tissue paper pieces and press them on to the glue.

You can see a video of this activity by clicking below:

10 Comments

All About Me Book

8/14/2020

20 Comments

all about me book for preschool and kindergarten

During the first week of school we make "all about me" books and read them at circle time so the children can get to know each other a bit better. With the covid-19 pandemic I know some children will not be attending an in person classroom environment so feel free to share the completed books with other students through your home or virtual classroom.

The book includes the following pages:

cover page - child colors person to look like them

my name Is - write and decorate name

this Is my picture - glue picture of child

this Is my handprint - trace around and color or paint and press

my favorite colors - color in the three circles

I know these letters - cut and glue letters child can identify

I know these numbers - cut and glue numbers child can identify

I know these shapes -cut and glue shapes child can identify

I know these colors - cut and glue colors child can identify

this Is my family - draw and color a picture of family

my favorite foods - cut and glue images (magazine or internet search)

my favorite animals - cut and glue images (magazine or internet search)

You do not need to complete all of the pages of the book especially with younger children. I intentionally left out a page for the child's phone number as well as an address page to protect the child's identity in case the book gets lost. You can grab the book pattern below:

all about me book

20 Comments

Paper Plate Ladybug

7/6/2020

4 Comments

Paper Plate Ladybug Craft For Preschool and Kindergarten

We made paper plate ladybugs this week and they turned out super cute. We did this project over a two day period to make sure we had enough time for the paint to dry.

To make the lady you will need red paint ... glue ... scissors ... black construction paper ... wiggles eyes ... and paper plates. We used the thicker chinette brand for our paper plates.

ladybug paper plate craft for preschool and kindergarten

The first step is to paint the back of the paper plates red. You can do this by using a paint and paint brush or a paint dauber. After we painted the plates we let them dry for the rest of the day.

We cut head shapes out of black construction paper and glued them on to the bottom of the paper plates.

The next step was to glue wiggle eyes on the heads. If you do not have wiggle eyes a different color of construction paper such as yellow or blue cut into small circles will work fine.

paper plate ladybug for preschool and kindergarten

We cut circle shapes out of black construction paper and glue them on to the painted paper plate. You can put as many or as little spots on the ladybugs as you want.

We cut black construction paper into 3-4 inch lengths and folded them back and forth (accordion style) for the legs. We glued three on each side of the paper plate.

We hung our ladybugs up around the room. The children got lots of fine motor practice through the use of scissors and gluing pieces together.

You can see a video of this project below: