My kids love playing with cookie cutters. You will often find cookie cutters strewn across the floor. Especially the alphabet and number ones (unsurprising, if you have a hyperlexic kid, like I do).
One day, while I was picking them up, I wondered if we could switch things up and try something new with them. That's when I spotted a box of pencil crayons nearby. I figured that I could pair the cookie cutters with the pencil crayons to do some drawing and tracing.
The result is this simple cookie cutter tracing activity. It works on fine motor skills, as well as prewriting skills. It encourages creativity and imaginative play too.
And, most importantly, my boys had a lot of fun drawing with the cookie cutters.
A version of this post originally appeared on the CBC Parents website.
Cookie Cutter Tracing Activity: What You'll Need
This activity is super easy to set up and requires zero prep. You simply gather up the following materials and you're ready to do some drawing with cookie cutters. Here's what you'll need.
- Cookie cutters, assorted - We have this Wilton set of 101 cookie cutters that we use for basically everything except for making cookies! You could focus on letters, numbers, or just pick a variety of shapes. Really anything goes!
- Paper - We're drawing and tracing and need something to write on.
- Colored pencils (aka pencil crayons), crayons, markers, or similar - Pick whatever works best for your child. In my opinion, pencil crayons are the way to go for this activity so that's what we used.
Simply set out some paper alongside some pencil crayons and that's it for the setup! All that's left to do is to see what the kids will do with the materials and what they will create.
Alternatively, you could trace one or two of the shapes onto a piece of paper as part of the setup.
Drawing with Cookie Cutters
For this activity, kids will be working on fine motor skills, practicing tracing, working on storytelling skills, exploring their creativity, and much more. For instance, if you're using alphabet or number cookie cutters, you could also be learning about numbers, identifying letters, or doing some spelling practice.
The idea is to place a cookie cutter down on the page and trace around the inside of the shape. Like so:
Then lift up the cookie cutter to reveal the shape.
At this point, your child could add extra details to the line drawing, if they wanted. For example, you can see my son added stripes to the football outline below.
Or they can go even further and add more details, such as a face, clothing, etc. as my son did below with the gingerbread man cookie cutter.
It's fun to simply sit back and watch what your kids will do with the materials. For instance, my five year old loved narrating while he drew. He told us a story about a man with an orange shirt and pink pants who was playing football with a fish. It was quite entertaining.
Meanwhile, my three year old mostly preferred to tell stories about the cookie cutters themselves, without drawing a single thing. It was almost as if my three year old was acting out a play with the cookie cutters as the actors. It was really cute!
This activity was a great way to keep the kids busy. And, honestly, some of the best-loved activities for my kids have always been ideas like this one where you just use materials that you already have on hand and then use them in new ways.
I hope your kids have fun with this simple cookie cutter tracing activity too.
