Ripping Paper Craft for Kids
Ripping paper crafts is an easy way for preschoolers to work on many essential skills. Fine motor skills are only the beginning!
Benefits of Ripping Paper Crafts
Fine Motor Skills
Ripping paper requires little ones to grip, hold, and pull apart a piece of paper, all of which require strong hand muscles.
Strong fine motor muscles will help your preschooler tie her shoes, hold her toothbrush, button her pants, and hold a pencil to write.
Bilateral Coordination
Using both hands at the same time (bilateral coordination) isn’t something preschoolers often do, so it is a great day when they can practice their bilateral coordination.
Gripping paper and ripping it requires little ones to use both hands simultaneously.
Sensory Experience
Feeling the paper, hearing and seeing the ripping, and seeing the ripping create quite a sensory experience for your little learner while they are making a ripping paper craft.
Creativity
After the paper is ripped, little ones can glue it onto the paper in whatever way they wish, encouraging creativity. Creating a ripping paper craft is the perfect way to encourage creativity.
To have creative adults, we need to encourage the creativity of preschoolers.
This article may contain affiliate links to products that may help you when homeschooling preschool.
Emotional Regulation
This controlled destruction of paper can be invigorating for little ones. It is a beautiful way for little ones to release tension and aggravation in a controlled and safe manner.
Learning Cause and Effect
Littles can see how their actions of ripping paper can change and shape how it looks. This encourages little ones to experiment with ripping the paper in specific ways to make different sizes and shapes.
Preschoolers also work on spatial awareness when placing the bits of ripped paper onto their masterpieces. They choose whether the pieces should overlap or how much space to leave between them.
Making a ripping paper craft is full of cause-and-effect opportunities.
Items Needed
*construction paper
*printer paper/cardstock
*glue stick
*scissors (optional for the first part)
How to Make a Ripping Paper Craft
1. Cut off a chunk of construction paper. By giving them a smaller piece to start ripping from, you prevent them from ripping a whole sheet and having colorful paper bits all over.
You can always give them more paper if they want more of a specific color.
2. Place a blank sheet of printer paper on the table for your little one to make their masterpiece.
3. Have your preschooler rip the colorful paper and glue the pieces onto the white paper.
4. Continue ripping and gluing the construction paper to make a beautiful masterpiece.
Torn Paper Craft
Redirect your preschooler’s ripping into a ripping paper craft whose sole purpose is to encourage ripping in an acceptable context. Here it is to hoping it curbs the need to rip other paper (or books) into a million pieces. 🤞
