fine motor skills Archives

Turkey Line Tracing Pages

November 10, 2023 By Deirdre

These Turkey Line Tracing pages will be fun to explore. Itfeature turkeys that need to move across a line and do a backbend. What fun it will be to use a pencil, crayon or marker to trace the turkey’s path! Actually the line could be traced with a feather or chopsticks.

Getting the Turkey Line Tracing Pages

irst, you will need to download the set.

Turkey Line Tracing Pages for Kids Download

Second, if you don’t have Acrobat Reader you will need to download it. The set is an Acrobat Reader PDF file.

Third, you will need to go to your download file and open the page. You may be asked if you want the file to open right after you download it. If you are, you won’t have to hunt for it in your download file.

Finally, when you open the calendar you will find hyperlinked activities. When you click on them, you will be taken to each of the activity’s locations on the web.

Making the Line Tracing Pages Reusable

If you plan on using the cards over and over again, you may want to laminate them. Below I have suggested products that you may want to use to cover them.

The links below are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. My Amazon Picks

Scotch Brand PRO Thermal Laminator, Never Jam…$54.68~~$128.93~~ (11154)

Scotch Thermal Laminating Pouches, 100 Count-P…$15.98~~$24.68~~ (63556)

Scotch Thermal Laminating Pouches, 200- Count-…$27.99~~$42.99~~ (23612)

Hammermill Printer Paper, Great White 100% Recy…$17.00 (4917)

Tracing Tools

Tools That Leave Marks

Pencils
Color Pencils
Washable Markers
Crayons
Paint Brushs with Watercolors

Tool That Don’t Leave Marks

Chopsticks with Pumpkin Seed
Feathers
Closed Pens
Dry Paintbrush

More Thanksgiving Activities

Thanksgiving STEM Challenge Building Mats (Available on my TPT site.)

Thanksgiving Tangrams

Color By Code Turkey Pictures (Available on my TP site.)

Tracing Lines on a Turkey

November 9, 2023 By Deirdre

These fine motor pages invite children to trace lines on a turkey’s feathers. Some of the lines will be easy to trace and others will be more challenging. Each line begins with a black dot. That should make it easy for children to know where to start. The tracing lines pages are full sized. That will make the line big enough younger children to trace.

Once children have traced all the lines on each turkey’s feathers, they can color the turkey. If you want your children to color the various parts of the turkey a specific color, you can have them place a dot of that color in the specific area.

Getting the Turkey Pages

First, you will need to download the set.

Tracing Lines on Turkeys Pages for Kids Download

Second, if you don’t have Acrobat Reader you will need to download it. The Second, if you don’t have Acrobat Reader you will need to download it. The set is an Acrobat Reader PDF file.

Third, you must go to your download file and open the page. You won’t have to hunt for it in your download file if you are.

Reusable or One Time Use

The pages can be laminated so that they can be reused. If you want to use them like a worksheet, just print them out and give them to your children to use.

Making the Turkey Pages Reusable

If you plan on using the pages over and over again, you may want to laminate them. Below I have suggested products that you may want to use to cover them.

The links below are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. My Amazon Picks

Scotch Brand PRO Thermal Laminator, Never Jam…$54.68~~$128.93~~ (11154)

Scotch Thermal Laminating Pouches, 100 Count-P…$15.98~~$24.68~~ (63556)

Scotch Thermal Laminating Pouches, 200- Count-…$27.99~~$42.99~~ (23612)

Hammermill Printer Paper, Great White 100% Recy…$17.00 (4917)AllAds by Amazon

Exploring the Tracing Lines on a Turkey Pages

While the pages can be placed in a center to explore, you may want to have your children work with a group to each trace a line.
The page can be turned until one lines horizontal. Children can trace each line horiztonally rather than vertically.

More Turkey Activities

Turkey Cup Stacking Challenge Cards

Thankfulness Turkey

Star-Themed Alphabet Tracing Mats

November 8, 2023 By Deirdre

Alphabet tracing mats are fun to explore. This set of tracing mats has a star-theme. There are three versions of each letters mat. First, there are uppercase letter mats. Next, there are mats that feature lowercase letters. The final set features both uppercase and lowercase letters.

The star outline can be traced on the dotted line. Each letter can be trace on it’s perimeter or outline. It can aslo be draw or written inside the outline. You can decide what you want your children to do with each letter.

Deciding How to Use the Alphabet Tracing Mats

Each mat can be used like a worksheet. Your children can use a writing tool (a pencil, pen, marker, or crayon) to trace the star and the letter .
Each mat can be laminated or placed in a plastic sleeve so it an be used again. If you plan to use it again usin a washable crayon or marker would probably be best.

Getting the Alphabet Tracing Mats

First, you will need to download the set.

Star Themed Alphabet Tracing Mats Download

Second, if you don’t have Acrobat Reader you will need to download it. The set is an Acrobat Reader PDF.

Third, you must go to your download file and open the page. You won’t have to hunt for it in your download file if you open it right away.

Making the Tracing Mats Reusable

If you plan on using the mats over and over again, you may want to laminate them. Below I have suggested products that you may want to use to cover them.

The links below are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. My Amazon Picks

Scotch Brand PRO Thermal Laminator, Never Jam…$54.68~~$128.93~~ (11154)

Scotch Thermal Laminating Pouches, 100 Count-P…$15.98~~$24.68~~ (63556)

Scotch Thermal Laminating Pouches, 200- Count-…$27.99~~$42.99~~ (23612)

Hammermill Printer Paper, Great White 100% Recy…$17.00 (4917)AllAds by Amazon

Exploring the Alphabet Letter Mats

There are a number for ways to explore the mats. The mats can be placed in a writing center. The mats can be explored in a small group. While the mats don’t have place for your children’s name, they would write their names on them and use them for morning work.

More Letter Activities

Building Letters with Crayons

Learning Letters with Plastic Eggs

Butterfly Letter Tracing Activities

November 7, 2023 By Deirdre

Butterfly letter tracing activities focusing on uppercase and lowercase letters are in this set. There are half sheet mats for each of the alphabet letters. Two versions of each mat are in the set. The first version has a colored border. The second version has a black and white border. It will be up to you to decide which version you want to use.

While the set focuses on alphabet letters, the butterfly displayed also has tracing lines. It will be up to you to decide if you want your children to trace the butterful too. Parts of the butterfly may be hard for younger children to trace. You may want your children to trace just the wings or the body of the butterfly.

Getting the Butterfly Letter Tracing Activities

First, you will need to download the set.

Butterfly Letter Tracing Activities Download

Second, if you don’t have Acrobat Reader you will need to download it. The algorithm page is an Acrobat Reader PDF file.

Third, you must go to your download file and open the page. You may be asked if you want the file to open right after you download it. You won’t have to hunt for it in your download file if you are.

Making the Butterfly Letter Tracing Actvities Reusable

If you plan on using the tracing activities over and over again, you may want to laminate them. Below I have suggested products that you may want to use to cover them.

The links below are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. My Amazon Picks

Scotch Brand PRO Thermal Laminator, Never Jam…$54.68~~$128.93~~ (11154)

Scotch Thermal Laminating Pouches, 100 Count-P…$15.98~~$24.68~~ (63556)

Scotch Thermal Laminating Pouches, 200- Count-…$27.99~~$42.99~~ (23612)

Hammermill Printer Paper, Great White 100% Recy…$17.00 (4917)AllAds by Amazon

Exploring the Letter Tracing Activities

Once you have decided on the letter and version of the tracing activity you want to use, you can get started. If you choose to use the pages as worksheets you print out enough for each of your children to use. However, you can use them as tracing mats in a writing center or with a small group. There really isn’t a wrong way to explore them.

More Alphabet Activities

Building Alphabet Letters

Click Clack Alphabet Learning Laptop Activity - This activity was created to go along with the book Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type. It includes a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and alphabet letter cards.

Click Clack Moo Alphabet Letter Laptop

Alphabet Match with a Spider-Theme

Preschool Tracing Activities

November 5, 2023 By Deirdre

This series focuses on preschool tracing activities. Although the series features the word preschool, any of the activities could be used by older children. Tracing is a great way for children of all ages to work on their fine motor skills. Holding a pencil or any other writing tool can be challenging. Focusing on the lines you are trying to stay on is also challenging.

Writing tools like pencils, crayons and markers designed for each of your children’s abilities are traditional tracing tools. Q-tips or paintbrushes dipped in watercolors and held like a writing tool would also work. A small object like a pumpkin seed held between chopsticks would also work.

Preschool Tracing Activities in This Series

There are 12 different animals featured on the Fine Motor Practice Animal Tracing Pages. This set will give children a lot of time to practice tracing. Young preschoolers may find it challenging to trace all the lines in one sitting. If you choose to use it with them, they could work on one section at a time.

Butterfly Letter Tracing Mats will be printed out on half sheets. Each page of the set displays two letter mats. This set of mats gives children the opportunity to work on uppercase letters, lowercase letters, and the features of a butterfly. Children could just work on the letters on this page if they like.

Star-Themed Alphabet Tracing Cards are available in three different layouts. The set includes uppercase and lowercase letter mats. There is also a layout that features uppercase and lowercase letters together. It will be up to you to decide which layouts to work with. While children can write the letter inside the outline, children could just trace the outline if they like.

Tracing the Lines on Thanksgiving Turkeys would be fun to do during November. Children can trace the lines on the turkey feathers and then color the turkeys.

These turkey line tracing pages invite children to lead a turkey across the lines and to the other side. This is probably the easiest tracing set in the series. It might be fun to trace the lines with a feather rather than a pencil.

More Tracing Activities

Ghost Tracing Pages

Letter and Number Literacy Webs

Fine Motor Easter Craft

March 19, 2015 By Deirdre

This fine motor Easter activity uses an old cereal box cut into an egg shape and various line shapes for children to use to create and decorate an egg. The front and back panels of the box were the perfect size for the eggs we would need to create the templates. If you would like to replicate this Easter activity for your children at home or school, there are only a few things you will need to do.

How To Create The Easter Activity Templates

We started by cutting an egg shape out of white paper.
Then the front and back sections of the cereal box were cut out of the box. After the front and back sections were off the box, the flaps were cut off of their tops and bottoms.
The white paper egg shape was then traced onto the front and back sections of the cereal box. It was important to have the egg templates both be the same size.
One of the sections was left whole. The other section was cut out like a puzzle. The puzzle pieces had wavy, pointed and squared lines. When all the pieces were cut out, they could be slide back together like a puzzle. I wanted to make sure that children could place the puzzle pieces inside the egg and trace them it they wanted too.

Doing the Easter Activity

The first part of the activity is to trace the egg template onto a piece of white paper with a crayon.
Then the puzzle piece templates can be traced onto the outline of the egg. Children could use the puzzle piece that fits in that section of the egg or another piece if they like. They really isn’t a right or wrong way to add lines to the egg. Children could actually add horizontal lines rather than vertical lines. The idea is to add lines to decorate the eggs.

The link below is an affiliate link.

Hints:

If your children are having trouble gripping round crayons, you may want to try having them use Crayola Anti-Roll Triangular Crayons. They are easier for some children to color with. A pencil grip on a crayon might help too.

The egg we created doesn’t have the area between its lines colored in, but the egg would look great colored in.

The wax from previous tracings tends to smear onto the paper off of the puzzle pieces when you use the brown cardboard side of the box face down. The waxy side of the box with words and pictures doesn’t seem to smear as much or very little.

I have just shared a few ways that you could this activity. I bet you can come with a number of unique twists you can add to it to make them your own. If you do, please leave me a comment below or leave me a comment on my Facebook page.

If you are looking for some more learning based Easter activities, you will want to check out the following activities.

Cool Math for Kids- Easter Egg Learning

Dolch Sight Words- Unscrambling Eggs

Carrot Number Writing Activity

How to Make Spider Web Eggs

Letter and Number Literacy- Fine Motor Webs

September 24, 2014 By Deirdre

Working on letter and number order with learning webs is a simple way to work on letter and number literacy. It is also a great fine motor activity for kids. I love it when I come up with an activity that works on a variety of skills. It is like being able to layer learning.

Letter Literacy Web

I started out creating a letter web. Some of the children I work with in school are struggling with the alphabet. I find them singing a letters of the alphabet as we work with letter order. Why not create a learning tool that would work on letter literacy and fine motor weaving I thought? They could sing while they worked on it, but they wouldn’t have to. More than anything it would help put the alphabet in their visual and muscle memory.

When I thought about putting the web together, I decided that I could write the letters on the small white paper plate and my son could use the hole punch to place a hole beneath each letters. That would give him a fine motor exercise to do. ( He just loves using a hole punch!)

With holes under the letters it was time to try weaving the yarn up and down through the holes. This literacy weaving activity is a little tricky. Sometimes you push the yarn into the holes under the letter and sometimes you have to push the yarn up through the holes. We found it was easier to push the yard down into the holes than it was to push it up into holes as we moved through the alphabet.

When we reached the end of the alphabet, we tied off the yarn. We were left with a really cool letter and web design that I think spiders and kids would love.

Number Literacy Web

The letter literacy web was such fun. We decided to create a number literacy web on a paper plate. We used the numbers up to 20. This gave us a little more space between holes. (The letter literacy web had to have 26 holes.)

I tried to write a number under one of the holes and then turn the plate 90 degrees and write the next number in number order. I did well in some cases and poorly in others. The web would have been prettier with more diagonal numbers or vertical ones. The horizontal numbers created straight lines in the web.

We followed the same weaving steps we did with the letter literacy web. Yarn was woven up and down through the holes beneath the numbers in number order.

Both web ended up being pretty. Both literacy webs worked out to be good ways to review number or letter order. I plan on sharing them with the kindergarten teachers I know.

If you are looking for more web activities, you might want to check out my sight word tape web.

Spelling Activities- Trace and Write

September 2, 2014 By Deirdre

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post (Practicing Spelling Words with a Place Mat), I am featuring activities you can do in your classroom or a home that work on spelling words this week. Today’s spelling activity is called Trace and Write. I decided to make it after looking at an amazing glass message board on the Better Homes and Gardens For Home Pinterest board. It looked like a fun place to write things down. I loved that when a message was no longer needed it could be erased. Why not create a writing space on glass for my son to use for spelling activities I thought after looking at the message board? I could easily go to a big box store and get one for a dollar or two. Finding one that would hold a piece of paper that was 8.5″x11″ wouldn’t be hard.

Better Homes and Gardens painted the back of their glass a pretty shade of green. Why not place a printable under the glass instead I thought? The printable could have lines that children could easily see through glass and use when they were writing their words.

Spelling Activities

Once I got thinking about creating a printable with lines, my mind went to the idea of having a child or adult write the words on a printable neatly before placing it under the glass. Children could then trace the words on the lines in the first column. Then they could write the words on the lines in the second column. Children could then work on spelling and handwriting at the same time.

Wait! I thought more about it and decided that you don’t have to write the words in the first column of the printable if you don’t want to. Children can write the words in both of the columns on the glass. After more thinking, I decide that there are three ways to have them write the words in the two columns. Both versions involve several spelling activities.

Way One

The child will trace over the words you have written on the printable. Then they will copy the words on the lines opposite them. In this spelling activity, they just trace and write. It is the simplest of the spelling activities.

Way Two

This second way uses a blank printable. First, you will need to decide if you are going to call out the words to your child or have them copy them off a spelling list. Once you have decided, your child can write the words in the first column and trace over the words they have written. ( If they have misspelled the word, they can wipe the word away and try it again.) Then they can write the words again in the second column to complete the spelling activity.

Way Three

The third way has the same initial steps as the second way does. You once again have them write the words in the first column. This time the words are called out and then they will trace the words they have written. Next, they can place a piece of paper over the first column and write the words a second time in the second column. With the third way, the words won’t even have to be called out in the same order. You can call them out any way you would like. This version of the spelling activity doesn’t allow children to look back at how they spelled the words the first time. They will have to remember how each word is spelled. This will make this the most challenging of the spelling activities.

Here is a copy of the Spelling Page if you would like to print it out.

Here are the writing tools I recommend:

washable markers
window markers
washable crayons

You will find more reading and spelling activities on my Learn to Read Pinterest board.

Follow JDaniel4’s Mom’s board Learning to Read on Pinterest.

Preschool Activities with Bugs-The Sunday Showcase

August 2, 2014 By Deirdre

As I scrolled through the amazing collection of activities shared last week on The Sunday Showcase, I noticed that many of them had to do with bugs. My son just loves searching for, learning about, and creating bugs. I decided that I just had to share them with you in this round up. If you have a bug lover at your house, I know they are just going to love them.

Preschool Activities with Bugs

40 Awesome Preschool Printables by Powerful Mothering

Grouchy Ladybug Craft from Buggy and Buddy

The Grouchy Ladybug Hand print from A Little Pinch of Perfect

Bug Themed Lunches also from A Little Pinch of Perfect

This week I have been featuring a series of posts that feature preschool activities and kindergarten activities that have to do with turtles. I thought you might enjoy looking them over:

Learning Games for Kids- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle

Science Experiment for Kids- Turtle Balancing

Educational Games- Color Sorting Turtles

Kids Crafts- Potato Print Turtles

The Sunday Showcase is hosted on the following blogs:

Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas
Here Come the Girls
Inspiration Laboratories

We each feature different posts that have linked up, so be sure to check everyone out! We’ll also be pinning our favorites to our Pinterest board.

If you are here for the first time please read this informational post on Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas’ site for the full details. Anything kid friendly and/or child centered is welcome! You are welcome to share more than one post, but we don’t accept links for giveaways, shops, or downloads for purchase, etc. They will be deleted.

An InLinkz Link-up

Games for Children- Landing Spot On

July 7, 2014 By Deirdre

Simple household items and office supplies can be used to create games for children that will have them working on fine motor skills and having tons of fun. These Landing Spot On games will allow your kids to do just that.

Supplies for Landing Spot On Games for Children

Platter size paper plate
Colored dot stickers
Large drinking cups (4)
Button
Chopsticks*
Pom poms (colors that match the dots)

*If you want chopsticks like ones we used, there are available on this affiliate link Zehhe Cheater Training Chopsticks for Children . I couldn’t find the chicken chopsticks, but the sheep is available.

How to Put the Game Together

This game board is so easy to put together. You simply place dot stickers an equal distance across and down on the plate. I ended up with four rows and five columns. You could easily arrange the dots any way that you would like. Your children might enjoy creating their own game board design on the plate.

Once you have the dots arranged on the plate, it is time to set the plate on top of the four drinking cups. You can arrange the cups close together or spread them apart so they are more like table legs.

Games for Children

Landing Spot On- Buttons

The goal of this game to get the buttons on the dots. There are several ways you can get the buttons of the dots. The way you have your children try to get the buttons on the spots will depend on how well your children have developed their fine motor skills and their eye hand coordination.

They can:

Place a button on a spot
Drop a button onto a spot
Underhand toss a button onto a spot
Overhand throw a button onto a spot
Frisbee toss a button onto a spot

Landing Spot on- Pom Poms

In this version of the game you are working with pom poms. Pom poms tend to be light and hard to throw so, for this version of the game children can use chopsticks. The chopsticks will give children a little more control of the pom poms.

You can do the same actions that I listed for the buttons. We found the dropping the pom poms or placing them to be the easiest. Frisbee tossing didn’t work well for us, but you may find that you really like frisbee tossing.