Fine motor activities are a hit with many toddlers and preschoolers! I try to incorporate fine motor fun into my preschool classroom every day. Most fine motor activities are more like games or puzzles for little learners to solve, instead of work.
The Straw Flag Sticky Tray includes the colors red, white, and blue and is a great way to introduce little ones to the American Flag or the 4th of July.
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Creating the Flag Sticky Tray
Putting together the sticky tray just takes a few minutes! This activity can be done in a tray, on a table, or up on the wall. Decide what fits your area best! I like using trays for activities in preschool because they help define the designated space and easily show how many children are invited to play at one time.
SUPPLIES:
- plastic tray
- contact paper
- straws
- tape and scissors (I love colorful tape!)
I taped the contact paper (sticky side out) to the tray. The straws were cut different lengths depending on where they would end up on the flag. The blue straws and some of the red straws were cut to equal the length of the longest red straws. This makes it easier to create a flag shape, or a big rectangle.
In preschool, I encourage my students to pinch to write and pinch to pick up. In this flag activity, my preschooler pinched to pick up each straw. She even asked me if she should do this even though we were at home, and not in preschool. Of course! Using those pinching fingers (pointer and thumb) to pick up small objects helps strengthen fine motor muscles in little hands.
Using the sticky contact paper helped the straws not roll around once they were placed on the tray. This eliminated some of the frustration of using round objects that were rolling all around the table!
My preschooler created the flag a few times on her own. She was able to look at one of our mini American flags and visualize where the all the straw went. She knew that the long red and white straws belonged on the bottom and the blue on the top. I only included the correct amount of straws for each row.
Another way to play would be to draw lines with a permanent marker on the contact paper BEFORE taking the paper backing off. Draw 6 lines the length of the longest straws and then 2 sets of lines on each of the upper 7 rows to show the correct lengths of the blue and shorter red straws. These lines will act as a guide to match up the straws to the lines that are the same length.
To add more fine motor fun, let your toddler or preschooler use all different lengths of red and blue straws to create his own personal flag!
The straws can be placed and taken off the tray again and again. To save the tray for another play time, put the paper backing right on top of the sticky side of the contact paper!
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