Halloween Fine Motor Invitation to Play
Last year, I bought Halloween cupcakes specifically to get the awesome rings that came with them 🙂 Noone actually liked the cupcakes, even the kids only took two bites, but the rings were absolutely worth it. We’ve used them for several sensory activities like Simple Halloween Sensory Bin, Halloween Surprise in a Muffin Tin or Halloween Preschool Predictions, and I couldn’t wait to pull them out again this year for this Halloween Fine Motor Invitation to Play!
(N was 2 years and 2 months old.)
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Materials for Halloween Fine Motor Invitation to Play
- Halloween rings. I couldn’t find the exact ones we have online (maybe Walmart is selling them again on top of cupcakes this year), but I wouldn’t have hesitated to order these if I’d seen them last year.
- Pipe cleaners in Halloween colors.
- Cookie sheet or tray to hold the materials. (This is optional, but for us, it usually means that the materials don’t get thrown around the room. It can also add an extra dimension to the activity like it did this time.)
The setup was very simple: I placed a cookie sheet with Halloween rings and a few orange, black, and white pipe cleaners on the coffee table.
N immediately started exploring the rings. It didn’t take him long to put one on his finger.
Pretty soon, he started working on putting as many rings as possible on both his hands. He was so proud 🙂
After a while he started incorporating the pipe cleaners. I’d hoped that he’d be able to do some threading with the large rings, and it worked very well.
He wasn’t interested in threading several rings on a pipe cleaner at the same time, but he decided to experiment with threading several pipe cleaners through the same ring.
When he was done with this, he carefully placed the pipe cleaners on the table before picking up the cookie sheet to make all of the rings slide to one side, then the other. He started lining the rings up on one side of the cookie sheet.
His idea gave me the idea to show him some simple patterns with the rings. We did an AB pattern with the ghosts and pumpkins, then some ABC patterns with the ghosts, pumpkins, and Frankensteins.
He didn’t really understand how to make a pattern like this, but it was a quick and simple introduction that we can build on in the future.
Are you looking for other simple Halloween activities? Try these!
Halloween Matching Game for Toddlers
Halloween Cloud Dough Sensory Bin
Halloween Math Games: Counting Ghosts by Where Imagination Grows
Halloween Threading Activity by Stir the Wonder
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