Christmas Fine Motor Center

It’s always so fun to plan Christmas centers for preschool. This Christmas fine motor center is one your preschoolers are sure to love.

Fine motor skill development is important during the preschool years because it prepares children for not only writing but also for everyday tasks, like tying shoes or buttoning a shirt. While there are literally thousands of activities designed to help preschoolers develop those skills, preschoolers really thrive from life-like scenarios.

That’s one reason why preschoolers are drawn to this center, but there’s much more.

Not only is it Christmas themed, but preschoolers get to use tape and scissors, as well as brightly colored wrapping paper and boxes with lids. What’s not to like about this kind of fine motor practice?

I’ll tell you…not much. My preschoolers look forward to it every single year, but they don’t see it as fine motor practice.

Rather, the preschoolers see it as a gift wrapping center, but honestly, isn’t it appropriate for a preschool in December?

Christmas Fine Motor Center

The set-up is simple and you only need a few materials to create a simple Christmas fine motor center.

Materials

• small-ish boxes of various sizes, with lids
• wrapping paper
• clear tape
• Christmas bows
• scissors
• items to put into boxes for wrapping

The Set-Up

Ste out the materials in a pleasing manner that is inviting to the children. I placed the Christmas bows in a white ceramic bowl and several sets of jingle bells in a wooden tray. The jingle bells were for the children to wrap up.

The Christmas Fine Motor Activity

I began by modeling for the children how to properly wrap a gift. We talked about what size box to choose based on how big the bells were.

And the preschoolers quickly learned that the larger bells required larger boxes. this came about by some trial an error as many of the preschoolers tried stuffing as many bells as possible into a single box only to realize that they couldn’t fit the lid back onto the box.

Have you checked out these other Christmas activities?

Jingle Bell Drop – a Fine Motor Activity

Jingle Bell STEM Activity

FREE Christmas Prewriting Cards

Red and Green Pom Pom Size and Color Sort

The children carefully wrapped and taped up their gift boxes full of jingle bells. As they worked, they played a bit of pretend and share who they were giving their gifts to and what was “actually inside”. It was precious to hear how thoughtful they were.

The students showed off their gifts and left them on the table for the next set of preschoolers to unwrap, another fine motor activity. the wrapping was not perfect, and I did not correct the children, but only helped when asked. My purpose for this Christmas fine motor center was not to force the children to produce perfectly wrapped gifts but more for them to practice on their own all the skills associated with gift wrapping.

Finding and matching boxes with lids, cutting long lengths of paper, pulling off and cutting tape, folding paper, taping down the paper folds, and so on and so on.

Looking for More Christmas Activities?

Your preschooler is sure to love this Christmas Activity Pack!

Christmas Activity Pack for Preschoolers

This pack is also available at my Teachers Pay Teachers store.