These spring cutting strips give young children the chance to practice fine motor skills in an engaging way. Be sure to add them to your collection of preschool activities for preschoolers.
Like most of my free preschool printables, these spring tracing strips can be used in more than one way. I share some suggestions below, but you and the kids can come up with your own ways to use the cutting pages, too.
You can grab your own set of the tracing sheets near the bottom of this post. I think they add a nice touch of whimsy to your spring fine motor activities.
Spring makes me think of insects and bugs, fluctuating weather, and gardens in bloom. So those play a major role in the spring tracing strips. Just a fun way to change things up for the kids.
I’m a big believer in hands-on learning for all things preschool, including fine motor and cutting skills. These printables don’t take the place of your planned hands-on ideas, but they’re a good supplement. Plus, you can incorporate hands-on materials while using the spring cutting pages.
Spring Cutting Strips
Now, let’s take a peek at the spring tracing strips! Like I said earlier, I share my ideas below. But keep in mind that these are how we’ve used the spring printable. If you have different ideas, feel free to incorporate them! (And then be sure to tell me in the comments so I can try them, too).
How to Prep the Spring Fine Motor Printable
You don’t have to do much to get the spring cutting strips ready for use. Nor do you need many materials. Here are some items you might want when it comes to prep:
- Printer
- Scissors or paper cutter
- Laminator (optional)
- Dry erase pockets (optional)
To prep, start off by downloading the printable file to your computer. (Remember, you can get your own copy at the bottom of this post.) Then open it in Adobe Reader and print the pages you’d like. There are 4 pages, with a total of 12 cutting strips.
Once the pages are printed, cut them apart into individual spring tracing strips. Then you can laminate the papers or place them in dry erase pockets.
Gather any additional materials you’d like to use in conjunction with the strips, and then you’re ready to go!
Using the Spring Cutting Strips
Now let’s chat about how to use the spring tracing strips with your students. I keep falling back on calling them cutting strips, but you can use them with more than just scissors. Here are a few materials you can use with them:
- Scissors
- Small, colorful pom poms
- Spring mini erasers
- Dry erase markers
- Stickers
- Dot markers
- Unifix cubes
- Rocks
- Flowers
First, of course you can use the spring cutting strips as cutting practice! The kids can maneuver their scissors along the dotted lines, cutting away. To make things a little different, let the kids add stickers to the lines first. And then let them cut through the scissors.
This gives the children a larger “target” to focus on, along with a slightly different feel as they’re cutting. Plus, it’s like a double whammy of fine motor skills practice.
The children can also use a wide variety of manipulatives to trace over the lines on the spring tracing strips. Small pompoms in spring colors are a great idea. They allow the kids to hone in on using their pincer grasp as they follow the dotted line from left to right.
Of course, it doesn’t have to just be pompoms. Natural items, like dandelion flowers or small pebbles, would be perfect for spring. Or grab some of the kids’ favorite math manipulatives. Unifix Cubes and counting bears can be helpful fine motor tools.
A Few Other Ideas
Scissors and manipulatives aren’t the only ways the kids can use the spring cutting strips. Dry erase markers are a favorite around here. Pop the tracing sheets in dry erase pockets and let the kids trace, erase, and trace some more.
Some more possibilities to consider:
- Use dot markers to trace over the dotted lines.
- Pair the spring cutting strips with sensory writing trays. The kids can make the patterns in sensory materials.
- Rainbow write over the lines using red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple crayons.
- Add glitter glue on top of the lines. Once dry, let the kids trace over the lines with their fingers.
So there are a ton of different ways to use these on-so unassuming fine motor sheets!
What Skills are Being Practiced with the Spring Cutting Strips?
Yes, these tracing strips are fun and they make the preschoolers feel like “big kids.” In addition to that, they let the children practice a variety of early skills. Here are a few of them:
- Fine motor skills, of course
- Scissor skills and the mechanics of cutting
- Left-to-right directionality
- Pencil grasp
- Patterning (if they make patterns as they trace)
- Color identification
- Visual discrimination
Now, it’s your turn! Let me know how you and your students end up using the spring cutting strips! Remember that you can get your own copy at the bottom of this post.
More Spring Printables
If you’re looking for more spring printables for the kids, I’ve got you covered. Click on the links for even more:
- Counting flowers printable book
- Insect theme prewriting practice
- Easter fine motor strips
- Rainbow lacing cards
- Printable ladybug letter puzzles
Spring Lesson Plans
Let Preschool Teacher 101 save you a ton of planning time with done-for-you preschool resources, like our spring lesson plans. They’re fully-developed so you can focus on teaching and living your life!
Our lesson plans come with printable weekly plans, detailed daily lesson plans, book recommendations, center plans, and coordinating printables. Click on the image below to get your own:
We have even more products to make your spring planning a breeze. Click on the images for more information about each of the resources:
Free Printable Spring Cutting Strips
This free printable is available to members of Fun-A-Day’s free email community. If you’re a member, fill out the form below and the download links will be sent to your inbox. If you’re not a member, you can join us by entering your information in the form. Then you’ll receive the spring tracing printable as a welcome gift!
If you can’t see the above form, you can open it in a new tab here.
Be sure to check out my printing FAQ page if you run into any issues.
The post Spring Cutting Strips Fine Motor Free Printable appeared first on Fun-A-Day!.