Printable Halloween Tracing and Cutting Strips

Young children can use these Halloween tracing strips to practice their fine motor skills in a variety of ways. What a great addition to the other Halloween activities for preschoolers you’ve got planned!

You can grab your own set via the form at the bottom of this post.

Related: Easy Halloween Activities Using Mini Erasers

If you’re a regular Fun-A-Day reader, you know how much I enjoy making printables for kids. I find that printables are significantly better than preschool worksheets for a few different reasons:

• You can usually pair printables with hands-on materials (like math manipulatives or loose parts).
• Children can use printables in more than one way.
• Printables help children practice skills in an engaging, multi-sensory way.

Couple that with how much I . . . I mean, the kids . . . love mini erasers, and you’re likely not surprised by these Halloween tracing sheets.

• Hands-on learning? Check!
• Engaging printable? Check!
• Mini erasers? Check!

Halloween Tracing Sheets

These fine motor strips can be used with preschoolers, kindergartners, and even elementary-aged kids. Basically, any child who needs to practice fine motor skills will benefit.

There are 11 tracing strips in the printable. Each one has a trick-or-treating child trying to get to the haunted house.

Each of the strips have a different tracing line from the costumed child to the house. This variety lets the kids practice different patterns, and it also engages their visual discrimination skills.

Materials to Make the Pre K Cutting Practice Strips

You don’t need much to get the strips ready to use with your students!

Here’s what we used:

• Printer
• Dry erase pockets
• Mini erasers (some of ours were from Target, others were from Amazon)
• Dry erase markers
• Scissors

We stuck with mini erasers as our manipulatives for the Halloween tracing strips. But you can definitely use other items if you prefer. I highly suggest using what you already have on-hand!

Here are some additional manipulative possibilities:

• Glass gems
• Pompoms
• Unifix cubes
• Small rocks (you could even paint them orange)
• Candy

How to Prep the Cutting Practice Strips

You don’t really need to do much to get the Halloween tracing pages ready for your students!

First, print out the pages that you’d like to use with your students.

Related: Free Printable Easter Fine Motor Strips

Then cut the pages apart into individual strips. As I mentioned earlier, there are 11 to choose from. This provides a bit of variety for the children. It also allows multiple children to use the strips at any one time. Perfect for small groups or center time.

Once the strips are cut apart, decide if they’ll be consumable or reusable.

If you want the fine motor strips to be consumable, leave them as is. Just make sure you have multiple copies for when the kids want more.

If the strips will be reusable, place them in dry erase pockets or laminate them. We put them in dry erase pockets this time around. Laminating them would make doubly sure that you can save them for Halloween next year, too.

Halloween Tracing and Cutting Practice for Preschoolers

Once the fine motor strips are ready to go, it’s time to let the kids use them.

Related: Orange Halloween Slime with Green foam Beads

The children can use a variety of manipulatives to trace, following the lines from the trick-or-treaters to the haunted house. The kids can use their fingers to do this, or you can challenge them to use tongs or tweezers to pick up the manipulatives.

Dry erase markers also pair well with the Halloween tracing pages. Encourage the children to hold the marker while tracing the lines from left to right.

Play dough is another idea! The kids can roll the play dough into “snakes” before placing it on the lines.

And, of course, these make great cutting practice strips! Let the kids cut on the lines from the costumed kids to the haunted house. Depending on the needs of your students, you may need to model and assist with the process.

Learning with Halloween Fine Motor Strips

I’ve touched on this a few times, but now I wanted to get into what the children are practicing with these tracing strips.

Even though this seems like a very simple activity, and it really is, that doesn’t mean the kids aren’t learning. As we know, hands-on play is learning for kids.

Here are some of the concepts the kids can practice with this activity:

• Left-to-right directionality
• Fine motor skills
• Visual discrimination
• Scissor skills
• Pen/pencil grasp
• Counting

The above list isn’t exhaustive. Watch your kids as they use the Halloween tracing pages. You’ll be able to note how each individual child interacts with the activity, as well as what the kids are working on.

How will you use these fine motor strips in your classroom?

Done-For-You Preschool Resources

Let Preschool Teacher 101 shave a TON of time off your planning time. (That way, maybe you can sit back and enjoy that book you keep meaning to read!)

While membership is definitely the best option, we’ve also got a huge variety of resources for preschool teachers. Click on the images below for more information:

Get the Free Printable Halloween Tracing Strips

You can get the Halloween tracing strips sent to you if you’re a member of Fun-A-Day’s free email community. Simply add your information to the form below.

If you’re not a member, you can join us by entering your name and email in the form below. You’ll receive the fine motor strips as a welcome gift!

If you can’t see the above form, click here to access it.

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