Stickers are Awesome! Or, Sticker Play for Fine Motor Practice

One of L's very favorite things to do is play with stickers.  In addition to being a great art tool that has virtually no mess, stickers can be used to work on a wide variety of developing skills in kids.  Providing kids with stickers featuring shapes, colors, letters, numbers, and a large collection of various objects not only encourages those concepts, but also provides a fantastic opportunity for kids to practice language. But the best part is, stickers are AWESOME. Period. Stickers rock. They are tons of fun and with so many different types to choose from, they rarely get boring.


I encourage all of the above with L while we work with stickers, but another wonderful thing about sticker play is that it is great practice for fine motor skills. All of the precision required to pinch those flat little stickers goes a long way in helping prepare kids for the future task of gripping a pencil.  As a teacher, I know this to be true. As a mom, I just love it that my kid is having fun.

I like to offer L stickers featuring things she's already interested in, such as the dogs in this masterpiece.

I also encourage L to use markers or crayons along with her stickers for additional fine motor practice. This work of art featuring sea creatures was created after a trip to the aquarium.

A novel canvas is also a fun element to add to sticker play.  This piece of aluminum foil was anchored to L's art table for two days and as a result there was quite the eclectic party happening by the time we hung it up on her art wall.

Confession: I love sticker play as much as (maybe more than) the kiddo. I don't even mind when the back of my T-shirt becomes that novel canvas! Because stickers rock! Seriously!