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Halloween Clothespins and Pattern Sticks

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Woohoo it is Fine Motor Friday again! I'm wearing a sweater and eating soup so fall is officially here. I already saw pumpkins in the grocery store so I suppose it is time to get planning for Halloween!

Fun Halloween Fine Motor Skills Activity Using Pattern Sticks and Clothespins - those are so cute!

Last week we had a fun Halloween Printable that was great for working on visual scanning and fine motor skills. Today we have a Halloween craft & activity that do the same! I actually was not sure what to call this one because the crafts sticks are a craft, but the clothespins make it an activity. So. It's a two-in-one! Bonus!

I don't put our activities INTO bags necessarily but I think this would make a super cute Halloween Busy Bag Activity or even a Halloween Playdate activity.

It kind of came about in a roundabout way, I didn't plan it from the beginning but now that we have done it, you could totally plan it! Haha! Here is what we used for the whole thing:

Halloween Clothespins & Pattern Sticks Fine Motor Activity Tutorial on Lalymom.com

One day we were looking for something to do and I thought we could revisit the pattern sticks craft that we did during for Piet Mondrian Art for Kids post. I grabbed some Halloween colored paints (for some reason our set of washable paint didn't have black so I just grabbed a bottle of black paint and went on with it!) and some craft sticks (sent to us by CraftProjectIdeas.Com) and showed my daughter how to make a pattern with the paint. We let them dry over night and were sure to show LalyDad what beautiful patterns we painted. I don't have any pictures of painting because I did not really think I'd be blogging about it! But if you just want to paint pattern sticks, that is all there is too it. You're done!

We used the foam brushes which made the painting go really fast…we could have blown through a lot of craft sticks. If you want stretch it out a bit…find the tiniest paintbrushes you can! Haha!

The next day after little brother's nap we needed a quick activity so I grabbed the pattern sticks and some store-bought Halloween clothespins. We practiced clipping the clothespins to the matching colored parts of the patterns. (Note: I bought the clothepins last year at Michaels…you could also make your own using felt and googly eyes or try these (affiliate link) Halloween colored miniclips from Amazon.)

Halloween Clothespins and Pattern Sticks Fine Motor Skills Activity on Lalymom.com - so cute and easy!

My four year old liked doing it exactly by the pattern but she also loved using the clothespins for pretend play. In fact they miiiight have ended up clipped to the box of her Cupcake Party game, where she maaay have served them all cupcakes. 🙂

My two year old knows all of his colors but he just liked clipping the clothespins off and on. He called them puppets and would say, “La, la, la…I a ghost! Booo!” So THAT was all sorts of cute.

Toddler & Preschooler Halloween Fine Motor Activity- CLothespins and pattern sticks on Lalymom.com

This was an easy little activity to do with the kids and although it doesn't seem like there is much to it, they both spent a lot of time playing with the clips.

I will say that you should supervise your kids with this activity, as always. The pinch strength of clothespins vary from one brand to the next so you wouldn't want your kids to get one stuck on them, not to mention that if they twist the clothespins juuust right they will come apart and there is a small metal part left behind…not cool! Luckily we were doing this all in the same room and I knew to count up all the clothespins in case any fell onto the floor!

Do your kids like more open ended activities, like painting the sticks, or do they like some direction as with clipping the clothespins on to match? I'd love to hear about it in the comments! If you like this activity, please do pin it! Also check out these posts for similar ideas!

Fine Motor Fridays

Fine Motor Fridays Collaborative Weekly Series from Lalymom

It is Fine Motor Friday again so you know the drill! Check out my FMF co-hosts for more fresh, playful fine motor skills activities!

Spider Craft for Toddlers from Craftulate

Five Little Monkeys Fine Motor Play from School Time Snippets

Apple Wooden Beads Sensory Bin Fine Motor Math from Little Bins For Little Hands

Glow in the Dark Spider Webs from Still Playing School

Connect the Stickers from Powerful Mothering

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