Yarn Wrapped Sun Craft

If you are looking for a fun activity for your preschooler this summer that also incorporates learning, this yarn wrapped sun craft is perfect!  Kids will have fun strengthening their fine motor muscles by wrapping the yarn around their sun and also by pinching open all of the sun ray clothespins and adding them all around their sun craft. For a bonus learning activity, add numbers onto all of your clothespins and have them practice putting them on in order. Since my daughter is learning how to skip count by 2’s, we set up our activity for her to practice this concept.

How to Make a Yarn Wrapped Sun Craft

Supplies:
– cardboard
– 10 wood clothespins
– yellow yarn
– yellow washi tape (or yellow paint)
– scissors
– black marker (optional)

Directions:
1. Start by cutting out a circle from your cardboard for your sun craft. Then cut small slits around the edge of the sun to help with the wrapping. You will also want to get your clothespins ready for the activity. We covered them in washi tape because I wanted to use this craft with a learning component and the washi tape made it so I was able to remove it and re-do it again with different numbers and concepts throughout the summer. If you want to make this simply as a craft, I suggest letting your little ones have fun painting the clothespins.

If you want to add in the skip counting or other math component, write the numbers, letters, words, etc on your clothespins. My preschooler is learning all about counting by 2’s right now so I wrote the numbers 2-20 (skip counting) on the clothespins. You could write 1-10, or write letters, or even write sight words.

2. Cut a long piece of yellow yarn. Tape it to the back of your cardboard circle. Now your child can wrap the yarn around and around the sun craft until they reach the end of the yarn. This is amazing for working those fine motor muscles and it’s fun! Tape the end of the yarn down on the back of the cardboard.

3. Now your child can have fun adding all of the clothespins around their sun. Again, the pinching of the clothespins onto the cardboard is so great for fine motor skills.

My favorite part about this craft is how you can use it as a busy bag. You can take it apart and re-do it as many times as you’d like. You can even take it on a long car ride or road trip this summer to keep your little one occupied in the car with a fun learning activity.