Here is a fun fine motor activity for preschoolers! This activity will give children the opportunity to work on hand-eye coordination, pencil grip, and other fine motor skills. You can use a bouquet of flowers if you’re trying this activity for Valentine’s Day or flowers from the garden if you are trying it during summer!
*If you love this post, check out 10 Nature Heart Activities for Kids!*
This fine motor sweeping activity is quickly becoming a favorite in our home and in my preschool classroom! Kids love the challenge of getting all of the flower pieces in the heart shape and this task keeps them busy for quite some time!
Ready to give it a try?! Here’s what you’ll need..
Supplies:
- Cut flower petals (These will need a day or so to dry. Fresh flower petals will stick to the cardboard box)
- Box lid
- Markers
- Paintbrushes
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RELATED: Check out A Heart Nature Weaving Craft to Try Today!
Here’s What We Did:
Step 1:
First, find a cardboard box lid and draw a simple heart outline on the inside part of the lid. I traced a heart from our Heart Nature Weaving Craft🙂
We ran out of box lids because we used our extras for the pine needle sweep and leaf sweep activities, so I headed to Office Depot to see if they had any copy paper box covers to donate to me. It was my lucky day!
You could always just draw a heart on a piece of paper or cardboard, but the lid helps contain the flower petals.
Step 2:
Then you will need to cut some flower petals. We used flowers from a bouquet since it’s the middle of winter and our plants are covered in about a foot of snow!
My four year old loved helping me cut the flower petals! It took us both about 10 minutes to cut enough flower pieces for the activity. You will need to let these flower pieces dry for a day or so in the box. Fresh flower pieces are difficult to sweep because they stick to the cardboard.
I suggest not adding too many flower pieces because it can be difficult to sweep all of them in the heart outline.
Step 3:
Once all of the flower pieces were dried, I swept them to the outside border of the heart and invited my son to sweep them in the outline to make a heart.
Leo got sweeping right away.
You can offer a variety of paintbrushes to try. As mentioned above, we did a similar activity with leaves and pine needles so I already know that Leo prefers the thicker paintbrush. They’re easier for him to hold and they sweep more flower pieces at one time.
Leo loves the challenge of getting every last flower piece in the heart! This was not easy with the dried flower pieces. They are light and airy, making them slightly more challenging than the leaves and pine needles. But I must say, it looks soooo beautiful when complete!
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I hope you give this pretty activity a try! I promise, your little nature lovers will love it as much as my boys.
∼Tara
