Freebie Friday! Christmas Clothespin Wheels

This week, I was perusing the internet in search of some new and fun fine motor activities to do with my daughter when I found this cool clothespin activity at Preschool Printables..and another one at Story Time Standouts and then I found these ADORABLE clothespin reindeer on 2 Teaching Mommies…so I decided to combine the three and make my own clothespin wheel activities with a Christmas theme!

These fine motor clothespin wheels can be used to target the following:

• Christmas vocabulary
• Letter ID and matching
• Counting
• Color ID and matching
• Answering and asking “wh” questions
• Describing skills
• Fine motor and visual motor skills

Christmas Letter Match Up

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reindeer Food Counting & Reindeer Color Matching

 

 

 

 

 

 

Directions:

• Print out the pages on card stock, cut out, and laminate for durability
• You will need 8 clothespins for the Reindeer counting/color activities. Make these reindeer like we did below. Write the numbers 1-8 on them and give each reindeer a nose of a different color (that matches the colors on the wheel)
• For the Reindeer counting: Have your child count the carrots in each section of the wheel and attach the corresponding clothespin number.
• For the Reindeer Color matching: have your child match the reindeer nose color to the colors on the wheel.
• Other activity idea: Print out two sets of each wheel, cut out each individual “slice” and use them for a memory card game or a “go fish” game. To make it more difficult, instead of just asking for the objects by name, have your child describe them.
• Other activity idea: To work on describing skills, you can take turns playing “I Spy” by describing the different Christmas objects on the two wheels. When the other player figures out which object it is, he/she can place the clothespin on it.

We had a great time with these..I hope to do them often in the next week and a half leading up to Christmas. I could tell it was a good fine motor activity when my daughter told me her fingers were “too small to do it” (her way of saying tired/hurting) after a while!

So first, we made the clothespin reindeer from 2 Teaching Mommies. We made eight of them, originally just for the counting activity I had made….but then when we were making them with the different colored noses (because those were the only kind of pom poms we had! HA!) I realized that we could also do a color matching wheel with their noses! So I headed back to the computer and made that one too 🙂

Also, you could do a describing activity using just the reindeer…especially if you make them with different sized eyes like we did! (And of course, the making of the reindeer is a learning activity as well…following directions, colors, fine motor, turn taking…)

Here are our Reindeer friends!

And the reindeer were very very hungry. They wanted to eat some carrots! Let’s see how many carrots each reindeer wanted to eat…

Oh no! the the reindeer want to eat some colors! they want to eat the same color of their noses…

(By the way, my daughter thought the reindeer “eating” the paper was hilarous! She would actually open and close the clothespin over and over like the reindeer were actually chewing! 😀 It was adorable…and GREAT for fine motor!)

Now that the reindeer are nice and full, they are going to take a nap while we do some letter matching. Here are our letters all set up on the basket.

Now we will match them up while we talk all about the different Christmas words! We are learning new words today! (Like Kris Kringle…my daughter said “No mama, that’s Santa” ha ha ha). Another variation: Rather than letter ID/matching, you can print out two copies of each wheel and cut out and glue one copy of the images to a clothespin and have your child match the pictures (this is great for little ones who are not yet ready/interested in letters).

To make this a language rich experience, be sure to have conversations about the pictured items. Talk about where we see it (do you have this in your home? where?), who might have it, what we do with it, what it looks like, what it feels like, what it smells like, what it sounds like, how BIG or SMALL, etc.

Another idea: Go for a Christmas scavenger hunt! How many of the items can you find in/around your house? Attach a clothespin for each item you find. If you can’t find an item, where might we find it?

You can download the four Christmas Clothespin Wheels HERE (graphics thanks to Office Images) You will just need to get the clothespins! 😉 (And the supplies for the little reindeer, you know you want to make them now too!).

Have a fantastic weekend! Cheers!