Clothespin Game: A Small Motor Activity

I’m a sucker for things like pipe cleaners, brand new pencils, pom poms in every shade of the rainbow, school glue, popsicle sticks and clothespins. I buy these random things without plans for how they will get used. I just know that at some point an idea will strike and Maddy and I will be in for some fun. You can imagine the supplies I have stashed all over the house I am sure.

Armed with my package of clothespins and a few other simple supplies I have managed to make a few fun games that keep Maddy busy, learning and having fun. These simple to make clothes pin games are great for children to work on small motor skills, hand eye coordination, patience and focus.

Supplies needed to make your own Clothes Pin Games

• cardboard
• scissors
• clothespins
• markers
• stickers
• ruler

How to make clothes pins games

Step 1. Cut out a cardboard shape for your game board. Rectangles and circles are both easy shapes for little hands to hold on to.

Step 2. Decide how many colors you want to have on your game board. For our boards I used 6 colors. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. Once you have decided on the number of colors divide your game board into sections. For a circle I suggest dividing as you would a pie and for a rectangle I suggest stripes. Or use your imagination and divide the shape in another way. Keep in mind that you will need at least one clothespin for each section.

Step 3. Using your markers color in the game board sections. *see below for additional ideas

Step 4. Using your markers color one flat side of a clothespin to match each section of your game board.

Now it is time for the matching fun to begin!

To play have your child work to clip the colored clothespins to the matching section of the game board. Blue to blue, yellow to yellow and so on.

*A few other fun ideas for game boards:

• Write out the color name in the corresponding color and have your child match colored clothespins with the matching words. You could also do this in reverse by writing the color names neatly on clothespins and coloring the game board. Then your child would match the clothespin with the color name to its matching color on the board.

• Place stickers around the edges of a board. Instead of coloring clothespins place matching stickers on one flat side of the clothespin. Have your child clip each clothespin onto its matching sticker on the game board. We used stars but any set of stickers will do as long as there are at least two of each sticker, one for the game board and one for the clothespin.