fine motor skills Archives -Imaginations Running Wild-

Free The Very Hungry Caterpillar Worksheets

Who wants free worksheets for their preschooler? I’ve got a super cute pack of the The Very Hungry Caterpillar worksheets that are free to download. You can print them over and over again (for personal use) so that your child can practice writing their alphabet, numbers, and have some counting fun!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle is a children’s classic! This picture book is a favorite many times over! This is a must read if you haven’t read it yet. Borrow it from your local library, watch this read-aloud from Brightly Storytime, or buy it on Amazon so you can read over and over again.

I love theming my books with worksheets, so here are 9 very hungry caterpillar themed worksheets for your preschooler! Included are alphabet tracing ( 2 pages), number tracing, fill in the missing numbers, counting, I Spy, spot the differences, identify sizes; color fruits page, and follow the line worksheets.

All you need for learning with this very hungry caterpillar printable pack is:

the printable very hungry caterpillar worksheets PDF
printer
paper
crayons or markers

Preschoolers will love learning to count, practicing their ABCs, and working on their fine motor skills!

More Fun – Crafts and STEM!

Add some STEM fun into your little one’s learning with this adorable The Very Hungry Caterpillar Magna-Tiles set. This is the coolest building set! Children get to bring the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar to life while engaging their eye-hand coordination, understanding of magnets, and spatial awareness — plus they are stimulating their creativity. This building set is so much fun and perfect for families looking to add more STEM activities into their little one’s play as their are a lot of shapes and towers to be made!

Check out an earlier post about The Very Hungry Caterpillar that includes some fun fruit themed crafts to make with your preschooler!

The-Very-Hungry-Caterpillar-I-Spy.pdf Download

Animals

Spouting Whale Craft

November 27, 2022November 24, 2022 Jennifer

Use construction paper and tissue paper to make a spouting whale craft! This was pretty easy to make and lots of fun. Plus good fine motor skills development involved with scrunching up the tissue paper!

Supplies Needed:

white and blue construction paper
pencil
scissors
blue tissue paper ( 1″ x 1″ squares)
glue stick
white school glue
googly eyes

How To:

1. I drew a whale shape on the blue construction paper and cut it out.

2. My son used a glue stick to glue the whale onto the white paper. He made sure to leave some room under the whale so he could add the tissue paper water. Then he rubbed the glue stick all over the bottom of the paper and glued on the blue tissue paper squares to make the ocean water.

3. Together, we wadded up the blue tissue paper squares to make the water spout.

4. Using the white school glue, I added glue dots in the pattern of the whale’s water spout and then my son added the scrunched-up the tissue paper.

5. To complete his craft, my son added the googly eyes. He loves googly eyes and, in his opinion, no craft is complete without them!

Pair this spouting whale craft with Julia Donaldson’s The Snail and the Whale story!

I really like making tissue paper crafts with my son. We’ve made a lot over the years and I’ve shared some on my TISSUE PAPER CRAFTS page if you are looking for more ideas 🙂

STEM

Paper Plate Shape Weaving Activity

May 6, 2022May 2, 2022 Jennifer

This paper plate shape weaving activity is great for preschooler’s fine motor skills and shape recognition. Kids get to paint and wrap yarn! As they wrap the yarn, talk about how many sides the shape has and how many points it has. Ask you child what their favorite shape is!

Supplies needed:

paper plate
watercolor paints
paint brush
cup of water
scissors
yarn
tape

How To:

Pick a shape you would like to make. There are so many possibilities — square, triangle, heart, circle, a star, and more! My son made a star as part of our Learning Letter S Week.

Start by drawing a shape in the center of the plate and cutting it out.

Kids can paint the plate with a variety of watercolors; be creative! My preschooler loved using paints and had a lot of fun with this activity. Let your plate dry before wrapping it with yarn.

Pick out yarn or string to wrap around your plate. I had some of this rose colored yarn left over from a crochet project, so we used it for this craft. I suggest cutting a 36-inch piece of yarn. You can always cut off any excess yarn when your child is done weaving.

Tape one end of the yarn to the back of the plate and then let your child start wrapping. When you are finished wrapping yarn, cut the yarn (if you have extra) and tape the end to the back of the plate.

You can repeat this paper plate shape weaving activity with other shapes and make a whole bunch. Be sure to make your favorite shape!

Looking for more shape ideas?

-Make shapes out of plastic cups and craft sticks: https://imaginationsrunningwild.com/2021/07/27/lets-make-shapes/

-Basic Shapes Penguin Craft: https://imaginationsrunningwild.com/2022/01/17/basic-shapes-penguin-craft/

-Worksheet — Matching Shapes: draw a line connecting all of the matching shapes.

-Worksheet — Shape Shadow Matching: draw a line from the shape to its matching shadow.

Spring

Earth Day Tissue Paper Craft

April 18, 2022April 11, 2022 Jennifer

Earth Day is celebrated every year on April 22. Add some Earth Day fun to your preschooler’s day with this Earth Day tissue paper craft. Ball up the tissue paper and glue in onto the Earth template!

Supplies Needed:

You don’t need very many supplies to make this! I love that I had everything on hand so we could immediately start crafting.

Earth template (free PDF)
blue and green tissue paper
glue stick

How To:

Print off your Earth template. We used regular printer paper. However, if you want it sturdier, use cardstock.

If your tissue paper is not already in small pieces, cut it into 1″x1″ squares. You will need a lot! My son and I decided to start with the water first. We both scrunched up the blue tissue paper squares together — great for preschool fine motor skills. After we had a lot of of tissue balls, my kiddo covered part of the ocean in glue and then glued on the tissue. We continued gluing the blue tissue until all of the water area was blue.

We repeated the process with the green tissue. The green areas took slightly less tissue balls than the water area. By this point, however, we were squishing them into little balls so fast! My son knows what city, state, and county we live in, but this project gave me a great excuse to talk about the oceans and the continents. I explained that we live in North America by the Pacific Ocean.

Once you have your land and oceans covered in tissue paper, let your project dry before showing it off.

STEM

Edible Cereal Rainbow Activity

March 15, 2022March 15, 2022 Jennifer

Make a rainbow out of Froot Loops for an edible cereal rainbow activity! With marshmallow clouds, who could resist this yummy activity. My coworker made one and showed it me and I had to try it with my son! We enjoyed making this together and redid our rainbow several times trying different color patterns. In addition to being fun and yummy, there are several educational applications to this activity– work on fine motor skills, color recognition, rainbow order or make up your own patterns!

Supplies Needed:

Froot Loops
2 large marshmallows
1 pipe cleaner (we used white)
scissors

How To:

First, cut your pipe cleaner in half. We used a white pipe cleaner. Pick whichever color you like, but keep in mind that you will see the pipe cleaner in-between the cereal pieces.

Then stick one end of the pipe cleaner into a marshmallow. Now it’s Froot Loops time! We dumped some Froot Loops onto a paper plate for my son to use for this activity. He did a fantastic job getting his rainbow colors in the correct order: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Carefully string each cereal piece down the pipe cleaner.

Leave a little bit of the pipe cleaner empty at the end so that you can stick into the second marshmallow. Carefully bend your pipe cleaner into a rainbow shape. Now your Froot Loops rainbow should stand freely on top of the marshmallows.

My son and I each made an edible cereal rainbow activity and I love how they turned out. We enjoyed munching on the Froot Loops and the marshmallows as we went along too! If you enjoyed this activity, check out our Froot Loops Tower and have more yummy fun.

STEM

Froot Loops Tower

March 8, 2022January 20, 2022 Jennifer

Incorporate STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) into your preschooler’s learning activities with this fun (and yummy) Froot Loops tower! My son really enjoyed this activity, so much so, that we’ve done it a few times. Not only is this fun to do, but it is great for for kids’ fine motor skill development too! While you are your child are making this tower, take the opportunity to talk about colors and making patterns with the Froot Loops. Patterns and sequencing are important math components for preschoolers to learn. By making Froot Loop Towers, they can experiment with patterns by putting the cereal on the spaghetti noodle in different sequences.

Supplies Needed:

Froot Loops cereal
spaghetti noodle
Play-Doh

How To:

Start by making a mound out of your Play-Doh to use as the tower’s base. Then stick the spaghetti noodle into the mound. Make sure that you smush the Play-Doh around the noodle so that they noodle stands up straight.

It’s Froot Loops time! We dumped some Froot Loops onto a paper plate for my son to use for this project. He decided to make a rainbow tower. He did a fantastic job getting his rainbow colors in the correct order! Pick colors and a pattern you like. Now that you have a pattern in mind, take your Froot Loops can carefully drop each piece down the noodle, building a tower as you stack cereal pieces.

This looks like an easy activity, but little kids are still working on their fine motor skills, so getting the Froot Loops onto the noodle and building the tower is really work for them. And then add in making patterns, and they are really working hard. Fortunately they are having fun creating their tower and munching on the cereal as they go along!

For more ideas check out my STEM page: https://imaginationsrunningwild.com/stem/

Uncategorized

Cut the Vines Scissor Skills Activity

February 24, 2022February 6, 2022 Jennifer

Cut the vines and free the toy! This a fun scissor skills activity for preschoolers to practice cutting. Preschoolers love using scissors, so let’s give them constructive opportunities to practice cutting. I told my 3 year old son that the dinosaur was trapped in the vines and that he had to save him! I gave him scissors and told him to carefully cut the vines off and free the dinosaur. He really enjoyed this scissor skills activity and took his job of freeing the dino so seriously!

cut the vines and free the toy scissor skills activity supplies: plastic toy, green paper, scissors, and tape. — supplies

To do this activity you will need green construction paper, tape, safety scissors, and a plastic toy that won’t get damaged from scissors.

1. First cut the green construction paper into strips to be the vines. Mine were roughly 1/2 inch wide.

2. Wrap the vines loosely around the plastic toy and tape the ends of the vines hold them in place. I used a dinosaur because I like that it had legs and a tail that I could wrap the vine around.

3. Have your preschooler free the toy from the vines by cutting the vines off!

Yay, the toy is free! Great job using scissors!

Another scissor skills activity that I did with my son was a Paper Plate Hedgehog Craft. He got to use his scissors and cut the plate to the make the hedgehog’s quills! This craft was easy to pull together, but tons of fun.

Uncategorized

Salt Tray Writing for Preschoolers

February 21, 2022February 14, 2022 Jennifer

Salt Tray Writing Practice for Preschoolers

Salt tray writing is a fun way for preschoolers to practice making their letters and numbers! Little kids love to touch stuff, so let’s let them with this fun activity! All you need is a tray/pie tin/round cake pan and table salt. Several years ago I discovered this activity and immediately went out and bought way too much salt! You only need to cover the bottom of the tray and really didn’t take that much salt. I still have 2 unopened salt containers –oops.

We used a round cake pan for our “tray.” I dumped some salt until the bottom of the pan was completely covered. I asked my son if he could make the letter A and he immediately made an A. Then he asked if he could make other letters! Absolutely!!! I picked up the pan and gently swished it from side to side so that the A disappeared and salt covered the whole bottom again. My son started making lots of letters and liked being the one to swish to pan after each letter. We practiced uppercase and lowercase letters.

Now that I knew that making letters in the salt tray was something he enjoyed, I asked him to make numbers. He did a great job with his numbers! This activity was a lot of fun and added variety to learning letters and numbers.

In between salt tray writing practice, I kept the tray in a cupboard. When it started to look yucky, I dumped the salt, washed the pan, and then added new salt. As long as your kiddo washes their hands before this activity, your salt should be usable for a while.

Valentine's Day

Preschool Valentine Crafts

February 14, 2022February 13, 2022 Jennifer

Not only is love in the air, but so is creativity! My son woke up and immediately began crafting. Before I was even properly caffeinated, he’d made this cute little love bug out of construction paper, heart stickers for wings, and pipe cleaners for antennae. It is so cute! He made it almost all by himself–he needed a little assistance with cutting the pipe cleaner. He used more heart stickers to hold the pipe cleaners onto the back of his paper. I love that he felt inspired to craft and came up with this cute little Love Bug idea! While he has enjoyed making Valentine crafts with me, he was really happy with how his own Valentine creation turned out.

The other day, my son saw the cupcake wrappers and while he was holding one, said it looked like a butterfly wing. He then ran to the craft supplies box and took out a jumbo craft stick and his crayons. Using his favorite color, blue, he colored the craft stick to be the butterfly’s body. Then he added the cupcake wrapper wings with glue dots to the back of the craft stick. After a little help with cutting the pipe cleaner from me, he bent the pipe cleaner piece into a u-shape and attached it to the back of the craft stick with a glue dot too. It’s kind of hard to see, but he also drew a face on his butterfly! He asked me to put this on my website so other kids would see it and want to make one 🙂

More Preschool Valentine Crafts

Heart Dog Craft: print off the template, color the hearts, and assemble them to form a dog.

2. Wooly Sheep: Say “I Wooly Love You” with this cute pom-pom sheep craft!

3. Valentine’s Day Wand: a super cute heart wand to sprinkle love all around.

4. Fingerprint Heart: make a heart shape design with your little one’s fingerprints and a paper heart stencil.

5. Lacing Heart: work on fine motor skills with this fun lacing heart craft.

6. Heart Hedgehog Craft: make an adorable little cardboard hedgehog with heart quills!

7. You Make Me Smile: a mosaic smiley face craft to give to someone special.

8. Bee Mine: make a cute little bee with heart wings for Valentine’s Day.

9. Beaded Heart Craft: make a beaded heart out of 2 pipe cleaners and pony beads.

10. Owl You Need is Love: create an adorable owl out of construction paper and cupcake wrappers!

I hope you enjoy making these preschool Valentine crafts as much as we did!

Valentine's Day

Lacing Heart Craft

January 29, 2022January 29, 2022 Jennifer

My son loves to use stickers as I’m sure your kids do! We have lots of sticker crafts, sticker-covered drawings, sticker books, and stickers stuck on just about everything. As much as I wanted my son to be able to use stickers, I also wanted something that was a little more involved so we made this Lacing Heart Craft together! He liked getting a chance to use my yarn and he did a fantastic job of weaving the yarn through the holes and around the heart!

Supplies Needed:

cardstock or construction paper
hole punch
yarn
tape
scissors
stickers

Lacing Heart How To:

Cut a large heart shape out of a piece of cardstock or construction paper. My heart took up most of the page.

Next, punch holes around the heart shape. Start with one in the middle and then work your way around the making, making the holes about an inch apart. I made a total of 15 holes. Having an odd number of holes allowed for the yarn pattern to end with both string ends in the same hole so I could tie them in a bow.

I suggest cutting a 36-inch piece of yarn. You can always cut off any excess yarn when your child is done lacing. Wrap a small piece of tape around one end of the yarn so that it looks like the end of shoelace. This will make it so much easier for your child to weave the yarn through the holes because you won’t have to worry about the yarn getting fuzzy.

We started with the center hole. I gently held one end of the yarn and wove the other end up through the hole to get the project started. Then my son took over the yarn. He laced it through the next hole so that the yarn appeared on the back side. Next, he laced through the following hole so that the yarn ended up on the front. He continue this all the way around the heart. Once he was finished lacing, I tied the two ends into a bow. You can tape down the ends and make this the back instead if you’d like.

Now that the heart was laced, my son decorated it with heart stickers! We bought some foam heart-shaped stickers at Target. Putting the stickers on the heart was definitely my son’s favorite part of this activity 🙂

More Valentine’s Day Crafts:

Heart Dog Craft: print off the template, color the hearts, and assemble them to form a dog.

Wooly Sheep: Say “I Wooly Love You” with this cute pom-pom sheep craft!

Fingerprint Heart: make a heart shape design with your little one’s fingerprints and a paper heart stencil.