Halloween is great reason to encourage creativity and pretend play and to fill your house with fun crafts. In addition to home-made decorations, kids also love to make various costumes and accessories! Today, we created a magical wizard’s hat:
What you need:
- Blue construction or cardstock paper
- Marker
- Glue
- Pencil
- Tissue paper – yellow or any other color of your choice
How you do it:
- First you need to figure out how much paper you will need to create your hat. Most kids will need a larger piece or two pieces taped together in order to roll the paper into a cone that will fit their head. Go ahead and roll your hat so that it will fit your child’s head and mark where you want your stars (so that you don’t make stars in places that will not show).
- Unroll your paper and place it on the table; draw out the stars for your child.
- Have your child help fill in the stars, one at a time, with the glue. Squeezing the glue is a great way to warm up your child’s hands and get those hand muscles working. Be sure you place the glue AND put the tissue paper in the star before placing glue into the next star.
- Get out your tissue paper and get ready to work your child’s fine motor skills. Have your child tear the tissue paper into approximately 1 inch by 1 inch pieces. Tearing is a great way to promote grasping skills, dexterity, and bilateral coordination. Encourage your child to use their thumb and index finger to tear the paper. We started by using yellow tissue paper for our stars but then we decided to add a pink star too. Your child can use whatever color they prefer!
- Grab your pencil and continue to work those muscles in the hands by having your child gently wrap the tissue paper around the eraser of the pencil, again encouraging them to focus on using their thumb and index finger. Use the pencil to gently place the tissue paper into the stars. *The child below is also depending on his middle finger to assist, challenge your child to try to use only their thumb and index fingers.
- Allow your glue to dry and then tape or staple your hat together so that it fits your child’s head
***You can adapt this activity in a few ways:
- For younger kids, have them tear the tissue paper and then roll it up with their fingers to place in their stars.
- Roll up the tissue paper pieces and have your child use tongs to place the pieces into their stars.
- Tear and roll up slightly larger pieces of tissue paper and use a straw to pick them up and place them. Have your child suck through the straw to pick up the pieces and transfer them to the stars. This is a great oral motor and sensory activity that can be very calming and organizing to your child, helping them better attend and self-regulate!
***You can also adapt this activity to create a witches’ hat instead of a wizard’s hat by using green stars or any design of your choice on black paper.
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