If
you’re like me, as you’re wrapping Christmas presents, you keep little scraps
of wrapping paper because you MIGHT
use them later. Well, if you didn’t use those little scraps up, check out these
fun ways to let your children play and learn with them all while building fine
motor muscles.
Wrapping
Paper Fine Motor Activities:
Ripping & Pasting
Ripping
wrapping paper (even the cheap stuff) can be difficult if they don’t do it
right. Initially, Lily, my 2 year old wanted to grab a fist full in each hand
and pull the paper apart. Even my 4 year old, Caleb, wanted to rip the paper by
pulling it in opposite directions. After a little instruction and some practice,
they got the hang of it. I told them to pinch the paper front and back making
their thumbs kiss in the front and their pointing finger kiss in the back.
Then, I had them hold one hand still while the other twisted forward and down.
Ripping is definitely an important skill to learn. Even as adults, we rip paper
out of notebooks, checks out of the checkbook, and when you don’t have scissors
around (and let’s face it… you can never find a pair when you need it) you rip
coupons out, a phone number off a paper, the wrapping paper off a present, or a
package of chicken nuggets out of your freezer.
Have
you ever ripped the bar code off a coupon or ripped right through the phone
number you just wrote down? Frustrating Huh? At this point, I’m just having my
kids rip, but eventually, they’ll practice ripping in a straight line or later
around objects. It’s a helpful skill to be good at.
I
had my children keep their ripped paper in a small basket. When they were
finished, I gave them ½ a piece of construction paper and encouraged them to
make a picture. Their picture ended up more like a collage, but it was still a
lot of fun. If you have older children, you might encourage them to rip around
the images on the wrapping paper you provided them. For example, our paper had
pictures of snowmen, snowflakes, candy canes, and Santa Claus. Children could
practice ripping around those images without ripping through them and then glue
them to the paper to make a scene. They might glue a family of snowmen with
snowflakes falling around them and Santa Claus handing out candy canes. When
finished, it would be fun to have your children turn their artwork into a
story. Encourage them to write about what is happening.
Cutting
It’s
not necessary, but the best paper to use for this activity is the paper that
has the dotted lines for cutting on the back. If your wrapping paper does have
the lines, encourage them to follow the lines across. Initially, Caleb wanted
to cut straight and then turn to cut out each square. To make things easier, I
taught him to cut all the way across in one direction and then cut the strip in
the opposite direction to create the squares.
If
your paper does not have the dotted lines, I recommend encouraging your
children to cut around the images on the front. Have them cut out the snowmen
or birthday cakes or dinosaurs. Again, you could have them paste the pictures
to a piece of paper to create a scene that they can write about in their
journals. If you wanted to do something different, you might have them create a
pattern with the pictures that they cut out.
Hole Punching
Hole
punching is tough for little hands, but with practice it can get easier. I can
already tell my two are getting better and better, which means their little hand
muscles are getting stronger and stronger! For our hole punching activity, I
had my children cut the wrapping paper (that had dotted lines on the back) into
strips of about 6 squares. Then, they used the hole punch to punch one hole in
each square. This is good for learning one-to-one correspondence as well!
A
fun activity for older children would be to have them roll a dice and then
punch that many holes in the first square. Then, they would repeat the process
for the other squares on the strip. From there, students could count or add up
how many punches they made in all and compare their total to a friend’s to see
who had more, less, or equal!
Do
you have lots of extra wrapping paper? It’s a pretty cheap resource that you
can use in many ways. Check out10 Creative Things to do with Wrapping Paper for more fun ideas to learn! Also, feel free to share what you do with others in the comments
below or find me on Facebook or Twitter! I always love to hear from my readers!
God
Bless You on Your Learning Journey ~
HEY! Are you interested in more ways to practice fine motor skills with your children? Check out these great resources!
