Clothespin Activities for Kids
Wait, what? Clothespin activities for kids? You may be confused. You thought clothespins were for hanging clothes outdoors right?
Well guess what? They are a great tool to work on finger and hand strengthening, fine motor skills and eye hand coordination for children. Occupational therapists and Montessori teachers will tell you how often they use clothespins to work on fine motor skills.
Of course you can use clothespins for their traditional use with children: practice hanging up clothes on a line or wash and dry doll clothes. They are super helpful for kids to hang sheets to make a fort. If you are looking for more non-traditional clothespin ideas, read on!
Clothespin Activities for Kids – Free Printables
Let’s start with some easy clothespin activities that you can just print and be all set to go to help children work on their fine motor skills.
Ninja Clothespin Ideas
Ninja Clothes Pin Clip Activity – find the matching Ninja, move your body like the Ninja and clip the Ninja to the circle. You can download the clothespin activity here.
Seasonal Clothespin Matching Wheels
Clothespin Printable Funny Faces
Here are some FREE printables to make these fun clothes pin silly faces. Print the download. Add some clothes pins and let the children create their own silly hair. It would be even more fun if you had some hair extension clips that you could add. They encourage strengthening of the fingers and hands and eye hand coordination. Plus, they are just plain cute!
Hand Strengthening Exercises PDF Bundle for Children
Clothesline Numbers
Children can use this FREE printable for hand strengthening exercises. Just print on cardstock and cut apart the cards. Clip on the correct number of clothespins based on the number of socks hanging on the line. Small clothespins work the best. Get the FREE printable here.
Do a Dot Printable Alphabet, Numbers, Lines and Shapes
Hatching Birds
Create these cute hatching birds to play 2 games: Find the Bird and Bird Memory. Get your FREE download here.
Clip Cards for Hand Strengthening – 9 Page Free Printable
Clip cards are task cards for children to mark the correct answer using a clothespin. The opening and closing of the clothespin encourages hand strengthening. In addition, academic material can be reviewed such as colors, letters, numbers and letter sounds.
This 9-page FREE pdf printable digital download includes 52 clip cards for hand strengthening and learning beginning letter sounds. Download it here.
Clothespin Letters and Number Activities
Here are several clothespin learning activities to encourage literacy and math skills. They are perfect for Occupational Therapists to toss into a busy bag to take on the go.
Clothespin Clip Names
Write the student’s name on a large craft stick. Write each letter of his/her name on each clothespin. The student has to clip the letters to the correct location to “write” his/her name.
Weekly and Daily Sign In Sheets for Early Writers
Match up the numbers
Write numbers on a craft stick and the matching clothespins. The children can match the numbers up. The is a great clothespin activity for preschoolers.
Match the numbers to the correct number of dots
Draw dots on the craft stick or cardboard. The student can count the dots and clip the correct number.
Complete math problems
Add clothespins to your math centers. Write the math problems on the craft sticks and the answers on the clothes pin. Students can solve the problem by clipping the correct answer.
Match upper case to lower case letters
Write uppercase letters on the craft stick and lowercase letters on the clothes pin. Students can clip the lowercase letter to the uppercase letter.
Adapted Handwriting Paper: Highlighted for Dysgraphia, Motor Control Issues, Fine Motor Delays, and Perceptual Motor Challenges
Create and record word families
If students are working on word families for early reading practice, create a clothes pin busy bag with the list of words and the clothes pins with letters to make the words.
Clothes Pin Counting
Here a child has index cards with numbers on them. Using clothes pins, the child is hanging the cards in the correct numerical order. Then the child presses the clothes pins to drop the cards. Hanging the line next to the wall helps to control the clothes line and makes it easier for the child. Watch the video.
Clothespin Games to Play with Kids
Sometimes kids need more motivation and novelty than a busy bag. This digital download collection of Visual Perceptual Clothespin Games includes 4 games to print and play to encourage hand strengthening, visual discrimination, form constancy, visual motor and math skills. Match up the dinosaur shadows, move along the number clothesline, hang up the patterned socks or give the spiders 8 legs. You will need clothespins and a coin to flip or a die to play the games.
