Children will work on their fine motor development in this threading activity, one of my favorite spring activities for preschoolers! In this spring threading activity, children will use a mixture of familiar and novel items to create a work of art!
Welcome back to the last of our Spring Play Days! I’ve had fun sharing spring-themed activities with Fantastic Fun and Learning, Nothing if Not Intentional, Twodaloo, and Buggy and Buddy this week. Hopefully these ideas can tide us all over until spring finally arrives! Previous Spring Play Days included “stained glass” window art and a spring flower math game. Today’s post is a fun way to work on kids’ fine motor development.
threading with spring colors aids fine motor development
This week, the kiddos have enjoyed threading with spring colors. Originally, I’d planned this activity to last just two days. I’ve already been asked multiple times if we can do it again, though! Thank goodness I have extra supplies.
What We Used
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Round plastic canvases
Square plastic canvases
Colorful pony beads
Flower buttons
Brightly colored pipe cleaners
Embroidery/cross-stitch thread
Plastic sewing needles
How the Kids Played and Created
I set out the various materials and let the children come to me! They inspected the plastic canvases first, as I haven’t used them in class this year. I was using a sewing needle and thread to create designs on a canvas, so some of the children helped me. Unfortunately, the needles I have were a bit too large, so only some of us could push the needles through the canvases. I taped the ends of the threads to make threading easier for the children instead.
Related: Blooming Trees Spring Crafts for Preschoolers
One of my boys did his best to make an elevator using two canvases, a pipe cleaner, and some blue thread. He didn’t get it to move to his satisfaction, so he transformed it into a “climbing rope.” Another child just had a blast threading with pipe cleaners and thread. He was pretty happy with his end result!
A few of the students created necklaces and bracelets using thread and beads. I loved watching their intense looks of concentration as they threaded away! Many of them made the jewelry for their friends, family, and even me. 🙂 The flower buttons were a favorite, despite the fact that the holes in the buttons were rather small — making it more difficult to thread. The girls wanted the flower buttons, so they weren’t dissuaded by a little extra “work”!
We also had a few flowers made from buttons and pipe cleaners.
Even if the children didn’t have a specific “end goal” in mind, they enjoyed the creative process! I’m interested to see what they make during the rest of the week.
Skills Involved
- Fine motor development
- Problem solving
- Patterning
- Color identification
- Counting
Have you ever used threading activities to improve children’s fine motor development? What did you use? What did the kiddos think of the the threading and sewing?
Spring Play Days
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