With the onslaught of technology in our lives, teachers everywhere have noticed a steep decline in students’ fine motor skills. I honestly believe we are now seeing the full impact of screen time on our students, and the main impact has been fine motor skills. So I am always looking for ways to build those fine motor skills in the classroom. That’s where our torn paper names come in!
Fine Motor Skills: Torn Paper Names
At the beginning of the year, we, of course, work a lot on reading, recognizing, and writing our names. This art project is great for spelling and reading names, as well as for fine motor skills. And it’s a very easy prep!
You need:
black construction paper
white crayon
copy paper in the colors you want to use (I always match the copy paper to our room’s color scheme or theme!)
Prep the students’ names by writing them in large letters on black construction paper with white crayon. I use black paper as the background because it makes the colors pop!
Next, model how to tear small pieces of paper. We spend a lot of time modeling the right size for the paper. We don’t want big giant pieces, but we don’t want teeny tiny pieces, either! Plus, teeny tiny pieces would take forever!
Then we get to work! These torn paper names help with fine motor skills, and we are also learning about patterns! And we’re getting great practice using our glue sponges!
And the finished product:
We then cut around the names and placed them on a bulletin board in the classroom! This is where they stay all year! (Note: these are not all my students. We had several absent, so they will finish when they return!)
For more fine motor practice, grab these tools for your classroom:
