Clothespins - OTPlan

Cotton Ball Rescue Clip

Steps:

Set up the activity by placing the empty egg carton on one side of the table and the bowl of cotton balls on the other.
Give the child one or two clothespins. Explain that the clothespin is a “rescue tool” used to pick up the cotton balls without using fingers.
Encourage the child to squeeze the clothespin open, grasp one cotton ball, and carefully transfer it into a cup of the egg carton. Try to fill every cup!

Safety Tip:
Ensure the child maintains good posture while sitting at the table. If they get frustrated with the resistance of the clothespins, try using larger, easier-to-squeeze kitchen tongs first before transitioning back to the smaller clothespins.

Clothespin Feather Match

Steps:

Prepare the ‘Clipping Creature’ by decorating the plastic container with markers.
Use index cards to draw and cut several long strips. These are your colorful ‘feathers.’
Draw small, matching colored dots on the rim of the container and on the ends of the clothespins (e.g., red dot on rim, red dot on pin).
Encourage your child to pinch open a clothespin. Clip a colorful index card feather onto it first.
Challenge them to clip the clothespin onto the container’s rim. The color on the pin must match the color dot on the container.

Safety Tip:
If the child is using scissors during step two, ensure constant adult supervision. Only use child-safe scissors.

Catch the Turkey

For this activity, you will need a brown construction paper, yellow construction paper, and an orange construction paper. If you don’t have any colored construction paper, you can use a piece of cardboard (an empty cereal box or any other dry food box can be used) and white paper.

On the brown construction paper or cardboard, draw half a circle. This will be the turkey’s body.

Use the orange construction paper and draw a circle big enough to be used as the turkey’s head.

On the yellow construction paper draw a small triangle, to use as the turkey’s beak. If using a white piece of paper, draw a circle and a triangle, and let the child color these shapes orange and yellow.

Ask the child to cut the brown half of a circle, the orange circle, and the triangle.

Have the child glue the orange circle in the middle of the half-circle. Then, provide the child with red tempera or finger paint, ask him to dip his pointer finger in the paint, and then stamp it in the middle of the orange circle. This will be the turkey’s wobble.

Next, use the glue to glue the yellow triangle on the top part of the wobble. Use the marker or crayon to draw the turkey’s eyes. You can also use googly eyes.

Using the clothespins, instruct the child to pick one clothespin at a time, pinch it, and place it on the curved part of the half-circle, stabilizing the paper (turkey’s body) with the non-dominant hand. Cover the turkey’s body with as many clothespins you can. These are the turkey’s feathers.

Grading Option

You can use specific colors of clothespins, draw matching dots of colors on the turkey’s body, and have the child match the color of the clothespin with the colored dot.

Cotton Balls Music

Have the children sit in a circle.

Give each child a clothespin and a cotton ball.

Instruct the children to pick up and drop the cotton ball on the lap of the child sitting to their right when the music starts.

When the music stops, each child should pick up his cotton ball using the clothespin and raise their hand.

You can make it into a game by giving an additional cotton ball to a child who raised their hand but did not have a cotton ball caught on his clothespin.

The child with the least number of cotton balls at the end of the game wins.

Game Variations:

Instead of using a clothespin, you might want to use tongs or tweezers.
If you are playing with 1 child, you may want to just use one cotton ball and see who has it when the music stops.
After a few times passing the cotton balls to the right, switch and have the passing go left.

Clothespins Butterfly

Body Shape

Take one of your clothespins and paint it with colors. This will be the butterfly body.

Wings

To make the wings, take some colored construction paper and fold it in half.

Draw a pair of wings on the folded side of the paper, and cut around them using the scissors.

Unfold the wings and you will have two sets that are exactly the same.

Draw colorful lines and patterns over the wings.

Assemble Everything Together

Pinch open the clothes peg and glue the wings onto the top prong.

It is best to clip the clothes peg onto something so that it doesn’t get glued shut.

Decorate the body of the butterfly with your buttons and beads, and stick the googly eyes onto the top of the peg.