Encouraging children to build up their fine motor skills is important. Poor fine motor skills can affect the legibility of their handwriting, which contributes to the development of their literacy / communication skills. The stronger their fine motor skills, the easier it will be for them to manipulate and control a range of materials and tools.

How to make a Black and White Collage

Materials:
black cardboard
white paper
marker / pencil
scissors
glue

1. Draw several lines from the top to the bottom of the paper. These lines could be straight or curved.

2. Cut the white paper on the marked lines.

3. Spread out the white strips across the black cardboard.

4. Glue the white strips in place.

Fine Motor Skills Promoted

This fine motor activity, creating a black and white collage, provides children with opportunities to develop their fine motor skills with the actions of gripping, holding, cutting, squeezing, patting and pasting.

Their fine motor skills are also developed as they use various tools: scissors, markers and glue sticks.

In this particular activity, they are working with different surfaces: paper and cardboard, some wet and some dry. The variety of surfaces provides further scope for developing their fine motor skills.

More Activities for Preschoolers

Three to Five: Playful Preschool is stuffed to the brim with tried, tested and loved playful learning ideas for preschoolers. There are 25+ ideas for preschoolers, ten printable resources and additional links to over 50 more activities. A great resource for parents. Download your copy here.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment; I’d love to hear from you. If you are new here, you might like to receive updates direct to your email. We have many fun ideas to share.

The post Fine Motor Activities: Black & White Collage by Pauline appeared first on Lessons Learnt Journal.

We love play of all types, but I make it a point to write about our short and simple play because it’s just that – it’s so simple to set up, and thoroughly engaging. (Exactly what I am on the look out for).

This collage on sticky-back paper has got to be one of our all time favourite short and simple plays. We have been creating collages on sticky-back paper ever since N&M were toddlers. Now Miss K is reveling in her own sticky-back paper collages.

How to set up for sticky-back paper collages:

You’ll need some sticky-back paper (or as we call it here in Australia, contact paper); sticky tape or masking tape, collections of bits and bobs of your choice to collage.

Remove the sticky-back paper from its’ paper backing. Using the masking tape or sticky tape, adhere the sticky-back paper to a surface of your choice, e.g. horizontally on a table, or vertically on a wall or window.

Provide your child with a collection of materials to create their collage with. I have used a handful of things our bits and bobs box.

Miss K loved creating her collage – to stick stuff onto the sticky-back paper, only to remove them, and rearrange them then remove them again. With her, the possibilities were endless.

Miss K was having such a great time that her older brothers cottoned on to this playful space. They started to create collages too and brought extra materials to create with. They loved adding stickers to their collage. M created some robots and drew in some facial features using our extra chunky crayons.

If you wanted to keep the final collage, simply add another layer of sticky-back paper on top of the existing layer to seal it all up.

More Activities for Babies and Toddlers

Zero to Two: The Book of Play is full of fun activities for babies and toddlers. There are 25 ideas for babies and toddlers, with additional links to over 50+ activities. A great resource for parents. Download your copy here.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment; I’d love to hear from you. If you are new here, you might like to receive updates direct to your email. We have many fun ideas to share.

The post Collage with Sticky Back Paper by Pauline appeared first on Lessons Learnt Journal.

Materials:

Contact paper
Masking Tape
Coloured paper or cardboard
Various bits and pieces of scrap to collage

Method:

1. Remove the contact paper from it’s paper backing.

2. Using masking tape, stick the contact paper to the table with the sticky side facing up.

3. Stick bits and pieces to the contact paper.

4. Finally, stick coloured paper or cardboard onto the contact paper.

We used our quick stick collages as Christmas wrapping paper. 

N&M: 3 years, 7 months
E: 1 year, 6 months

This post was shared in the following linky parties:

It’s Playtime
Today at Play
For the Kids Fridays
Baby Play Friday
Play Academy

The post Quick Stick Collage by Pauline appeared first on Lessons Learnt Journal.