Clothesline Matching

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A simple and fun activity for young kids is hanging play clothes on a clothesline. This activity happens to be great for targeting fine motor skills, finger strength, and visual perception. It is a lot harder than you think to hold clothes up to the clothesline, get it in the right position, while pinching open a clothespin, and lining the clothespin up the right way in order to get it clipped onto the clothes. There are a lot of skills happening at one time.

To play the activity, you need a clothesline (which can be a string, ribbon, twine, or yarn), some play clothes (which can be doll clothes or the clothes printable), and clothespins. I use two chairs to hold my clothesline in place and I tie the string to the backs of the chairs. If you are using real doll clothes, then you can hang some up and have the child match like clothes to like clothes (ie; shirts to shirts) or colors to colors. I am using the printable clothes so I printed out two copies of the clothes and attached one to the string with tape so that the child could match the exact same piece of clothes and hang it on top of the matching clothes.

This is a great way to use some large movements while working on visual discrimination and fine motor skills. You could have kids take turns and work together to match the clothes, or you could divide the clothes and have them compete against each other. I will often place the clothes in one area away from the child and they have to go get another piece of clothes to hang up. It is also a great activity to get kids to move into the positions that they need to, such as squatting to pick up clothes, crawling to get some clothes, or using animal walks to go get more clothes.

Materials:

• Clothesline (string, ribbon, yarn)
• Play clothes (printable)
• Clothespins
• Two chairs to hand the clothesline

Skills:

• Fine motor
• Finger strength
• Arm strength
• Visual perception
• Visual discrimination

This activity is part of a large book called Learn With Play.  The book has tons of activities put together by a group of bloggers that are a part of the Kid Blogger Network.  This activity is by me, and there are activities by other Occupational Therapists, teachers, moms, Physical Therapists, and other professionals.  This book has so many different activities in it.  You can get it as an e-book. You can also find it on Therapy Fun Store.