Add these vegetable cutting strips to your collection of themed cutting strips today. Colorful and engaging, this activity will reward your preschoolers with the confidence they need to master a vital skill!
I think the veggie line tracing printables are a great addition to your next food theme. You can add them into a nutrition or cooking unit, too. No matter when you try them, your preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten students will have fun practicing tons of early learning concepts.
In addition to their engagement possibilities, the vegetable-themed cutting pages are super low-prep. You can have them ready to use with the kids by tomorrow morning! Plus, they’re super versatile – both in terms of usage and related materials.
Related: Free Preschool Printables
Easy to prepare, simple directions to follow, multiple uses, and free! Not too bad for a simple veggie printable! Make sure to scroll to the bottom of this post to get your copy.
Vegetable Cutting Strips
There are bunches of ways to use these themed cutting strips in your preschool classroom! Read below for prepping tips, as well as a few ideas for how to use the printables with your students.
How to Prep the Vegetable Fine Motor Printables
Where to start? There are just a few supplies to gather before you set your preschoolers loose for fun and skill building. Below is a list of what I tend to use (I may get commissions for purchases made through the links in this post):
These are the basics you will need to get the vegetable cutting strips all prepped. Here are some supplies you can use as part of the fine motor fun:
Let those creative juices flow. Check your existing supplies and see what you can whip up!
Related: Carrot Garden Sensory Bin
Once you have your materials, it’s time to prepare the tree cutting strips. Here’s what to do:
- Print as many copies as you’d like.
- Next, cut the pages apart into individual vegetable fine motor strips.
- Finally, laminate them if you’d like them to be reusable. Otherwise, leave them as is.
How to Use the Vegetable Cutting Strips with Your Students
Put your aprons on and let’s start this yummy vegetable cutting practice! Kick things off by modeling how to hold the scissors correctly. Then show the children how to hold the paper with one hand and cut with the other, moving from left to right following the lines.
Related: Corn Color Sorting Mats
Next, have your students take a shot at it! Encourage them to give it a try, even if it’s not done exactly the way you modeled. If your preschoolers finds this too great a challenge at the moment, try adaptive scissors or some hands-on assistance.
And remember, you can always bring in more hand strengthening activities like playdough or slime. Then build back towards practicing with the themed cutting strips.
A Few More Ideas for the Vegetable-Themed Cutting Practice
Transform the vegetable cutting strips from cutting to tracing by laminating these sheets or placing them in dry erase packets. Offer different colors of thin dry erase markers to entice children to practice pre-writing skills.
Model for your preschoolers again correct grip (try grip adapters if needed) and trace lines from left to right. You will be amazed at how much practicing tracing strips likes these improves their dexterity and prepares them to write.
Want more ideas? Here are a few my preschoolers loved:
- Place the strips in the bottom of a shallow tray. Add a thin layer of sand or dirt on top. Then let the kids use kitchen or garden tools to trace the patterns into the sand.
- Pair this fine motor activity with edible items such as peas, green beans, red pepper strips, or baby carrots. Children place them along the lines on each strip.
- Use vegetable-themed manipulatives to trace the lines on each vegetable fine motor strip. If you have more than one type of manipulative, challenge the kids to make patterns along the way!
- Have the children add stickers along the longs before cutting. This gives them more fine motor practice and adds a different feel to the cutting practice.
You could even try pairing this activity with a taste test of small bites of the vegetables featured here.
Don’t bury your amazing ideas. Please share how you use the vegetable cutting strips in the comment section below.
Why Use Vegetable Cutting Strips in the Classroom?
I have given you plenty of examples of how fun the vegetable fine motor printables can be. Now, let’s take a look at some of the skills children are practicing while immersed in this activity:
- Left-to-right directionality
- Scissor skills
- Fine motor skills
- Hand strengthening
- Pencil grasp
- Patterns
- Counting
- Color identification
Each of the skills listed here are planting the seeds for writing, reading, and math skills that will continue to grow as preschoolers transition to kindergarten.
Water the seed of preschool skills by scrolling to the bottom of this post to get your free vegetable cutting strips today!
More Fine Motor Activities for Kids
Fine motor skills are essential for our preschoolers. We all know that practice makes progress and builds confidence! Here are a few more ideas to try:
I think these are some great activities to try after using the vegetable cutting strips with your kids.
Food Tracing Strips Set
Planning lessons and activities to keep your students’ little minds active can be draining. My sister site, Preschool Teacher 101, has got you covered. Our fully developed curriculum (including lesson plans, dramatic play sets, circle time songs, math games, teacher guides, and even more resources) allows you to relax and focus on enjoying your precious students.
Click on the image below to get more food tracing strips to keep your preschoolers practicing their fine motor skills:
Would you like to grow this idea into a more all-encompassing lesson plan? Click on the images for more information about each of the resources:
Dig into The Pack as a member of Preschool Teachers 101 and take full advantage of all our resources available to you. Our pack members get steep discounts on all of our products.
Get the Vegetable 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 printable vegetable line tracing sheets as a welcome gift!
Be sure to check out my printing FAQ page if you run into any issues.
The post Vegetable Cutting Strips Free Printable appeared first on Fun-A-Day!.