5 Easy Ways to Use Painter's Tape

This continues my series on "5 Easy Ways to Use..." common household items to work on developmental skills! Painter's tape is incredibly versatile and can be used for gross motor, fine motor, visual perceptual, and tactile processing skills, amongst many other things.

1. Practice shapes, forms and/or letters. A strip of tape can be placed in different orientations, practicing a vertical line, horizontal line, and diagonal lines, which can be difficult for children to progress to. Or they can place multiple strips to practice a square, triangle, X or plus sign. These are all foundational prewriting forms that are good for children to master prior to writing letters. It also works on the bilateral coordination to place the tape properly, which is also a good skill to work on! It's also easy to use to form letters that have lines only (i.e. A, E, F, H, I, L, T, etc).

2. Use the painter's tape to make an obstacle course! You can have the student walk heel to toe to balance on the line, jump from side to side to the end of the line, or jump with feet out and back in. This is great for working on balance, coordination and motor planning skills, and can be used in conjunction with other pieces of equipment or toys.

3. Make a target to throw items in. This is a good visual perceptual and motor skill, and works on grading the amount of force the child needs to use to throw it in the target. You can make the target as big or as small as you need for the "just right challenge"- not too easy, but easy enough that the child feels successful!

4. Rescue the Animals! Wrap up small plastic objects (in this case, animals) in pieces of painter's tape and have the child unwrap it. This works on fine motor skills and hand strength (holding and unwrapping the tape), bilateral coordination and visual perception (finding the end of the tape). Children have a lot of fun with this activity!

5. Make a race track! This involves ripping the tape with the tips of their fingers, and using the correct force and motor planning to tear it apart. It also involves visual skills to know to place spaces between the pieces (dashes) which is good practice for when children start to write and need to place spaces between words as well. The child can then "drive" their cars down the road after it is finished.

What are some of your favorite ways to use painter's tape?

For other posts in my "5 Easy Ways to Use.." series