For as long as I can remember, my youngest son has been interested in tools that encourage fine motor development, namely scissors, wooden clothespins, and paper punches.
As a young toddler, he would spend countless hours just cutting and punching out paper. Or clipping clothespins to different objects.
Now, as a four year old, he still loves scissors, clothespins, and paper punches.
Well, this Valentine's Day fine motor activity is a great way to play and learn using his beloved clothespins. Plus, it's low prep for you, making it a quick boredom buster for cold winter days.
What You'll Need for this Valentines Day Fine Motor Activity
Like I mentioned, this Valentine's Day heart activity is low prep. All you need are a couple of items from the dollar store (items that you can reuse for lots of other activities, by the way!). Here's what we used:
- Large felt hearts - I found these at Dollarama, but you could substitute large foam hearts or even cut out your own heart shapes from felt or paper.
- String, yarn, or ribbon - Use whatever you have on hand.
- Wooden clothespins - You'll notice that ours have numbers on them due to another recent activity we've done.
The only clothespins that I could locate in my house recently were labeled with the numbers 1-10 (just write on them with permanent marker). So, I set out the numbered clothespins and ten hearts. Then I tied a piece of string to a chair and a railing to create a clothesline. Feel free to tie them to two chairs instead. And that's it for set up.
Working on Fine Motor Skills with Numbered Clothespins
Since our clothespins are numbered, the hearts could be hung in numerical order like below, making it a great math activity as well.
Practicing Fine Motor Skills with Hearts & Clothespins
However, my four year old preferred to hang his hearts up in a random order, which is perfectly fine, since the main objective of this activity is to work on fine motor skills.
Yet, he still worked on some number skills on his own. For instance, as he picked up the clothespins, he would identify the number and count out loud to that number. Then he would pin the hearts to the string.
He also liked to hang the hearts upside down.
You could adapt this activity further by exploring patterning with the hearts. Simply alternate the colors of the hearts as you clip them to the string. Then once you're done with this activity, you can reuse the felt hearts for some fun gross motor games.
Overall, this Valentine's Day fine motor activity was a huge hit for my son. He had a lot of fun using the clothespins. Much like I expected he would!
This activity is part of the Fine Motor Fridays series, where me and my co-hosts share some fun fine motor activities for kids. Here are other ideas from this week's roundup:
Snowball & Craft Stick Process Art Sculptures from Stir the Wonder
Heart Flower Cards from Powerful Mothering
