This snip and peel tape rescue is a great toddler fine motor activity idea.
Practice developing scissor skills with your toddler with this easy set-up snip and peel tape rescue activity.
Super simple to set up and you likely have the materials you need already at home.
This fine motor activity is perfect for developing fine motor strength and coordination that can be transferred to many of life’s tasks.
Snip and Peel Tape Rescue
Scissors are a tool that our toddlers see their parents and older siblings use that they long to have a go of too. These scissors are the ones that I always recommend for young toddlers.
I have found that starting with paper can be a bit tricky to navigate so I tend to start developing scissor users off with cardstock, playdough, or in this case, tape.
The tape adhered to the muffin tray gives the perfect tension for our young people to practice coordinating the scissors without having to also control what they are cutting.
The tape stays in place until it has been cut and then peeled away.
What you need to make a snip and peel tape rescue:
- Muffin tray
- Masking or painter tape
- Small toys
- Scissors
This fine motor snipping activity is extremely versatile.
Use your toddler's interests to captivate them and to invest their time in completing the task of rescuing their toys.
If your child loves farm animals, use farm animal figurines.
Do you have a nature lover? Use different nature items such as pebbles, seed pods and flowers.
Personally, my little one is obsessed with vehicles so we used his toy cars to keep his attention.
How to make a snip and peel tape rescue:
The beauty of simple toddler activities includes not only the execution of the task but also setting them up.
This fun fine motor activity can be set up and ready to play in minutes.
Place the small toys into the wells of the muffin tray.
They don’t need to be aligned perfectly; a tail poking out or a wheel overhanging is not a detail that will be noticed by your toddler.
Cut lengths of tape to cover the top of the tray and position them over the tops of the wells.
For younger toddlers you could start with just vertical strips of tape.
When we started this activity, I simply gave Mr 3 the scissors and asked how he could rescue the cars.
With a gentle reminder of scissor safety and the proper use of scissors, he was determined to rescue each of his cars.
We keep scissors use simple with ‘thumbs up, elbows in and watch out for our helping hand’.Said with a little music in our voice, Mr 3 now recites this before we begin all our scissorsnipping activities.
Repetition is a great way to help form safe scissor habits.
Once the tape over the well had been snipped, busy fingers got to work peeling the sticky-tape from his toys.
As your toddler masters the task, you could always add horizontal and vertical strips of tape.
Feel confident in using these proper terms too! Incidental learning and building vocabulary is an added bonus that can easily and organically be added to this activity.
To level it up yet again, the toys could be sorted by different attributes as they are being rescued.
For example, all the animals with 4 legs can be grouped together and the animals with wings can be grouped together, or sort cars by colour.
Snip and peel tape rescues are an activity that has been popular for all three of my children.
With its simple setup and loads of opportunities to develop and refine fine motor skills, I have no problems with keeping it in rotation. So what toys are going into your toddler's muffin tray?
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SOME MORE FUN TODDLER ACTIVITY IDEAS YOU MIGHT ENJOY ARE:
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About the Author
Dani is a busy stay-at-home Mum of 3 and an early childhood teacher in training who is passionate about play-based learning throughout early childhood. For educational play ideas that you can do at home and parenting tips visit Play Inspired Mum Check her out on Instagram andFacebook