Tight Coil Stick Art

Ages:: Preschoolers (3 to 5)
Play time:: 10 to 15 minutes
Setup:: 2 minutes
Where:: Table

Why it helps

This fun craft provides great resistance, which is excellent for building finger strength. Tightly wrapping the pipe cleaners gives deep proprioceptive input, often called 'heavy work.' This strengthening is vital for endurance during fine motor tasks like coloring and cutting. Picking up and placing the small stickers requires precise pincer control and sharp visual focusing skills. This combined effort helps prepare little hands for managing a pencil or buttoning clothes.

Steps

Put the pipe cleaners and stickers in the plastic container. Show your child how to hold a craft stick up in the helper hand.
Ask your child to start about 1 inch from one end of the stick, bending the tip of a pipe cleaner around it.
Ask your child to wrap toward the other end, pressing each coil close to the last. When a pipe cleaner runs out, press its tip flat and start another.
Stop about 1 inch before the far end so both ends of the stick stay bare. Press the last wire tip flat against the stick.
Ask your child to peel small stickers from the sheet using the thumb and pointer finger.
Ask your child to press stickers onto the bare ends of the stick, front and back. Then make another coil stick and count all the stickers.

Safety tip: Fold in any sharp wire tips on the pipe cleaners. Stickers and small pipe cleaner pieces can be choking hazards, so stay close and keep them out of the mouth.

Make it easier

Start the first wrap for your child by bending the pipe cleaner around the stick.
Bend back a corner of each sticker before play so it is easy to start peeling.
Stand the stick upright in a lump of playdough so it stays still while your child wraps.

Make it harder

Wrap two colors together to make a striped pattern, like a candy cane.
Peel the stickers off the sheet using only the non-dominant hand.
Count the wraps on one stick, then try to fit even more on the next one.

What to watch for

Notice whether the helper hand turns the stick as the other hand wraps, or holds it still. Turning the stick usually makes wrapping easier.
Watch how your child starts a sticker peel. Lifting a corner with a fingernail takes fine control right at the fingertip.
If the scratchy feel of pipe cleaners bothers your child, wrap the stick with yarn or ribbon instead.

Where this helps in daily life

Wrapping something around a stick and peeling stickers use the same thumb and finger control kids need for winding up a cord, peeling an orange, and opening a bandage.

These activities are for home practice and don't replace the guidance of a licensed therapist.