Fine Motor Fun: Leprechaun Edition

March is such a fun month for Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations! Who doesn’t love to celebrate and bust out all the green for one day! In the preschool world, we are all about using our imaginations and have gotten the kiddos pretty excited to try and catch leprechauns! There are so many cute ideas out there to try and catch the tiny green leprechauns by building your own leprechaun trap! The children absolutely love creating their own models.

It is very easy to find things around the home to have your child construct and design their own trap. Allowing your child to build their own trap independently is so beneficial to their fine motor and creative development. Here are a few of the materials we had around the house that I gave my preschooler: paper, tape/glue, an old box, rubber bands, paperclips, and scissors. Get creative! Find fun things around the home that they could use to recycle into their trap!

Using all these materials will strength their fine motor skills, which are crucial for improving their writing abilities. Using scissors to cut, gluing independently, and drawing are all fine motor skills that are important to have when entering kindergarten. While at preschool, we practice these actions daily! Adding in fun projects like this, gives them the opportunity for additional practice at home.

Allowing your child to create on their own design gives them the chance to go through the artistic and design process. They will run into stopping points where something might be a struggle, they will have to work through the process of problem solving to get an end result. I set out the materials for my preschooler on the table and told him to use what he wanted to make something that could possibly catch a little leprechaun. He has read the book How to Catch a Leprechaun and really loved the idea to build his own.

While building, he did come to some areas of the process where he got frustrated. For example, when he was trying to think of a way to get the lid to shut, he tried glue a paperclip to the box to make a hook. As he found out, the glue would not hold. He then asked me what to do and if I could help him. I walked him over to our sliding door and showed him how the latch was a hook and he noticed how some of the end had a curve to it. I explained that he should try to recreate that for his trap. At this point he surprised me by bending the paperclip (so it matched the curve as the door hook) and got very excited! We kept talking and making connections before we worked out a plan to stick the paperclip through the box to make the hook catch the rubber band. It was so awesome to talk it out with him and find a solution together!

Creating fun projects like a leprechaun trap from simple items around your home is an easy way to keep your preschooler busy, make fun memories, and build upon their fine motor skills in an entertaining way! We can’t wait to set the trap up, set out the paper gold coins he cut, and see if this is the year we trap a leprechaun!

-Ms. Whitney
Curriculum Coordinator
Lead Pre-Kindergarten Teacher