In search of an item that will provide limitless activities to banish your kids boredom? You’ve found it! The solution is tape! It’s cheap, versatile and my kids just love it! Plus tape play is only limited by your imagination.
In today’s blog, I’m only showing 3 different ways to incorporate tape play into your daily repertoire, but I’ll add some extra ideas at the bottom!
Pick Up “Sticks”
For this activity, you will need a clean surface and masking or painters tape. To really have some fun, you could also use different colors of washi tape.
Start by layering multiple pieces of tape in different directions on your clean surface. You can take turns or time yourself peeling the layers of tape off without removing or ripping other pieces of tape. This activity is great for working on social skills such as turn taking, but it also targets fine motor skills and problem solving. You can also make easier patterns for younger children and trickier patterns for older ones.
Sensory Pompom Rescue
For this activity, it’s super simple. We only used tape, pompoms, a tray and tongs. You can mix it up by adding things like shredded paper or various objects for them to grab with the tongs.
Place your items in the tray or bowl. Create your web by taping strips of your masking tape across the center of the tray. The number of strips used can be determined by what you think your child can manage. The more tape strips added, the more difficult it will be for your child to navigate around them to rescue the pom poms.
This activity is great and so open ended. While they are getting practice with fine motor skills, ask questions about the colors and shapes of the objects they are picking up. Have them try to use different hands or to do it with their eyes closed. Make them count how many items they “rescue” and so on.
Window Webs
This activity is so versatile and can be used for multiple age levels. I chose to make a spider web on the window so the boys had a little extra support, but you can also make it in a hallway.
For Everett I made a simple web pattern and then had him place lightweight letters and numbers on the web. I had him identify each one and give me word examples for the letters. For Finn we did colors and shapes. He had to correctly identify each one before placing it on the web.
So not only did we work on motor skills, we also were able to sneak in some fun educational aspects.
For webs in the hallway, I recomend using small balled up pieces of paper (like tissue paper) and have them practice throwing them on the web. Whoever has the most stick wins! This is a great way to also work on motor skills and let them have some fun!
More Tape Ideas
Here are a few tape ideas to keep the fun going:
- Tape Tic Tac Toe
- Tape Obstacle Course
- Tape Maze
- Tape Letters & Numbers
- Tape Balance Beam
- Tape Hopscotch
- Tape Math
- Tape Roads
There are seriously so many ways to keep your kids entertained while using tape. What’s your favorite way? Any activities that you think we should try? Comment below and let us know!