Wednesday, July 03, 2013

Tape Letters: A Fine Motor Alphabet Activity for Kids

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Tape letters make for a fun alphabet activity for kids. Even your toddlers and preschoolers will have a blast making masking tape letters.

This activity was completely initiated by my oldest son J. And it all started with a single roll of tape.

While I was upstairs, the boys found some green painter's tape and were playing with. They had managed to rip a long piece off and it was now stuck to K's belly. Of course, both boys thought it was hilarious! I mean you should have heard their giggles and seen their faces.

Anyway, J pulled the tape off K's belly and stuck it to the mirrored doors in our dining room. Then he started forming the letter A using another piece of tape that they had ripped off. Next thing I know, we are taping the entire alphabet on our mirror.

And that's how this tape letters activity was born.


Tape Letters: What You'll Need

For this alphabet activity, you'll just need some tape and a large blank space to work. We used green painter's tape, as you can see, but washi tape would be lots of fun. Regardless of what you use, make sure that it won't damage whatever surface you will be taping to.

While we used large mirror doors and worked vertically, you can try this activity on the floor, a wall, or wherever else you think it might work instead. Get creative or just let your kids lead and see where it takes you.

Depending on your child, you might also want to consider using scissors for this fine motor literacy activity. Especially if your child has trouble ripping the tape on their own.

Let the Tape Letters Project Begin!

My kids decided to work through the alphabet in order from A to Z. You can just focus on spelling a few letters or maybe spelling your child's name together. There are no rules here. Anything goes!

Here are some photos of the tape letter versions of the first few letters of the alphabet:








Then fast forward a bit to the letter S made out of tape...


Twenty minutes later we had an alphabet mirror in our house, which we left up for a good week and a half. They worked so hard on it after all!


J made these tape letters all by himself except for when he needed some help ripping the tape. My toddler K, on the other hand, was happy to "help" by identifying the letters as J made them.

Now, if you are familiar with my blog at all, you'll have noticed that my son J has the uncanny ability to turn any material into a letter or number. Turns out, it's called hyperlexia - who knew! Regardless, both boys had a blast with this tape letters activity.

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