An easy winter project to make with your toddlers and preschoolers – torn paper snowflake collage. This simple winter process art project works wonders for fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, concentration and other skills young children need to conquer before they start attending the school!
My younger daughter was delighted when I invited her to sit down with me to make a snowflake collage with paper scraps. She really loved shredding paper into small pieces! Probably all kids do! We used this opportunity to talk about winter and how snowflakes are formed as well to comment on process as she made her collage.
Learning Opportunities for a Child
As child makes torn paper snowflake they work on several skills:
- fine motor practice – hand strengtening (tearing paper), gluing and pasting
- hand & eye coordination
- tactile sensory exploration (sticky!)
- concentration
- problem solving
- creativity and imagination
Read More >>> Sensory Play Activities for Sense of Touch
Supplies for Torn Paper Snowflake
You will need to prepare in advance:
- blue cardstock
- white paper
- glue stick
- pencil
- tray
How to Make Torn Paper Snowflake Collage
Before you can begin making snowflake collage, invite a child to help you tear off pieces of paper from white paper. Prepare a bowl or a tray to put them aside until you have enough.
Tearing paper is an awesome strenghtening workout for little fingers and hands. Plus, it’s purely fun and children enjoy it! So, challenge them to tear as small pieces of paper as possible!
Use pencil to trace a simple snowflake outline on a blue paper. Or ask a child to do it. Preschoolers will be able to make their own snowflake outline while you will need to assist your toddler with the same.
Show your child how to apply a glue using glue stick – trace a previously drawn line with a glue stick. Let them try it. Once they apply glue, they can start placing white paper scraps to form a snowflake.
Explain why it’s not a good idea to apply glue all over the snowflake but one piece at the time. They don’t really understand how fast glue stick dries and because of this, they might try to apply glue at once.
As they add paper scraps, they will need to re-apply glue to fill in an empty space. This is tricky for children because as they apply glue, they cross over already glued paper pieces and glue stick picks them up. Show them how to unstick the paper from a glue stick and place it back.
As they are near completing their snowflake, ask them to add pieces of white paper where the flow is disconnected. And this is how they can make their torn paper snowflakes! Easy and fun!
Try this >>> Salty Snowman
Connect Activity with a Book about Snow
One cold day Mouse and Poppa venture into the clear white world. From sledding down hills, to skating across the ice, to meeting fluffy snow angels, Mouse finds that wintertime is full of surprises. And before it’s time to go home, Mouse just might have time to “make” a special new friend! Find the book here: United States | Canada | United Kingdom
Biscuit loves playing in the snow! There is soft, powdery snow everywhere! It’s the perfect day for snow angels, sledding, and snuggling up with someone you love. A sweet story about a girl and her puppy on a winter day. The illustrations are cute and cheerful. The corners are rounded and pages are thick and easy to turn. Find the book here: United States | Canada | United Kingdom
The Snowy Day features simple but timeless story about a boy waking up to discover that snow has fallen during the night. The little boy celebrates the snow-draped city with a day of humble adventures–experimenting with footprints, knocking snow from a tree, creating snow angels, and trying to save a snowball for the next day. Find the book here: United States | Canada | United Kingdom
Winter Activities To Try Next with Your Child!
If you have a toddler or a preschooler, they probably enjoy sensory play! Invite them to explore sparkly winter sensory bin with their senses! You can spend lots of time creating memories together during gloomy winter days with winter crafts from recycled materials. Or you can prepare few winter busy bags in advance for an independent play during quiet time.
As always, enjoy the play!
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