Today’s craft is a Jack Be Nimble craft based on the nursery rhyme, Jack be nimble, Jack be quick. If you are looking for an easy nursery rhyme crafts based on development, this craft supports fine motor skills and scissor skills.
Jack Be Nimble Craft
I love this Jack be Nimble craft because it has so many components that are the building blocks for developing motor skills in kids. You’ll find:
- Cutting simple shapes
- Cutting straight lines and curved lines
- Tearing paper
- Crumbling paper
- Gluing the craft pieces in order (direction following)
This craft is one of those kids crafts that is project based, but there are components that can be created by the child with a process-based format. You can have the child add their own spin on things and offer art and craft materials and just let the process go.
Jack Be Nimble Jack Be Quick Craft for Toddlers and Preschoolers
To make a Jack Be Nimble craft, you’ll need:
- cardstock in white, another color (we used blue) and a background sheet (we used green)
- glue
- tissue paper (in red, yellow, and orange)
To make the Jack be Nimble Jack be Quick craft:
- Start by cutting the simple shapes you’ll need to make the candlestick craft. Older kids can work on scissor skills to cut these simple shapes.
- Cutting from card stock is a great way to work on scissor accuracy because the resistance is greater than regular printer paper. This allows children to slow their snipping speed and better accuracy when cutting along lines.
- Cut a semi-circle from colored paper and a rectangle from white paper.
- Tear a square of each color of tissue paper.
5. Glue the semi-circle onto the paper. This is a great opportunity to talk about shapes with your toddler or preschooler.
6. Glue the rectangle on top of the semicircle.
7. Draw a flame shape with the glue.
8. Have your child tear small pieces of the tissue paper.
Tearing paper and crumbling tissue paper is a great way to work on fine motor hand strength, opening of the web space (area between the thumb and index finger), and defining of the arches of the hand.
All of these areas are important for pencil grasp and endurance in handwriting and coloring.
Tearing tissue paper is such a great fine motor strengthening activity and one of my favorites!
Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.