Fun Grids – Free Printable Grids and Activities for Kids

These free printable grids are a great tool for art, maths, fine motor and even language play and exploration!

There are so many fun and easy way to use these grid printables for hands-on learning with your kids, both in the classroom and at home.

This fun grids activity started out as a simple idea for drawing, and soon became something totally different!

In the beginning we made a printable grid for drawing some zentangles and patterns. My kids loved these and we had fun filling in squares together, googling to find new ideas, and trying out new patterns and zentangles. But as I sat drawing I wondered what else we could do with a simple printable grid…

Suddenly I found myself creating grids in several different sizes, along with some numbers, symbols and squares to match.

Fun Grid Activities for Kids

A simple printed grid can be used in so many ways for hands-on learning. They are great for lots of art activities, perfect for fine motor play, you can even use them for language and literacy play, and of course, they are perfect for maths activities.

They are a great open-ended tool that can be used for any age, either at home for some fun activities, or in the classroom.

There are just so many ways to use these fun printable grids!

Art Grid Activities

We started this grid project with the idea of drawing zentangles but we quickly came up with lots of other arty ways to use the grids.

Here are some arty ideas for the grids:

• Fill each square with a zentangle, pattern or tiny drawing.
• Use a ruler to draw lines across the grids and make interesting patterns to colour in.
• Use the small grid to make Minecraft inspired pixel/block drawings.
• Draw a gallery of blank faces on the largest grid as a fun drawing prompt.
• Use the small grid to design perler bead patterns.
• Use the small grid to do some grid art.
• Use the grid to draw a map, add in some maths fun by adding co-ordinates down each side and mark where the hidden tressures are
• Use the grid as the starting point for designing your own board game.

Maths Grid Activities

The printable grids are perfect for lots of great maths activities and hands-on number play. We added printable squares to use as counters, as well as numbers and maths symbols to add even more fun to a math grid activity.

Here are some math grid idea for preschoolers:

• For number recognition and basic counting skills add the numbers along the top of the grid then use counters, or loose parts (we used little erasers) and place the correct number of items under each number.
• Use the grids to see up a patterning activity. Use loose parts or the printables squares to make a repeating pattern for your child to continue.

Here are some maths grid ideas for older kids:

• Practice basic sums using the numbers, symbols and counters or coloured squares – addition, subtraction and multiplication.
• Use each square to work on basic fractions, either by drawing or using wooden tiles (ours came from Spielgaben)
• Add a numbers down one side of the grid and letters down the other for a game of battle ships! Start out with the largest grid for an easy game then try the smallest.
• Use the grids for some simple graphing. Try graphing favourite colours of your class, or the colours of your soft toy collection.
• Use the grids to help write out maths problems.

Fine Motor Grid Activities

We love loose parts play and adding a selection of counters and bits and pieces to the grid make for great fine motor play and lots of eye-hand co-ordination practice.

Here are some ideas for using the grids for fine motor play:

• Use the grids as a base for loose parts play, set out items in patterns across the grid.
• Use the grids as a base for pattern blocks
• See how many items you can stack on top of one another on one square of the grid!
• Use the grids with playdough, squish a ball of dough onto each square, or roll out the dough and cut shapes to fit on each square.

Language Grid Activities

By a happy coincidence our Scrabble Junior letter tiles also fit perfectly onto the third grid, but there are lots of other ways you could use the printable grids for language learning.

Here are some ideas for using grids for language learning:

• Use scrabble letters to math words written on the grid.
• Match lower case to upper case letters. You could write the uppercase letters on the grid, or use word cards.
• Use the grids to make your own word search activity.
• Write a letter in each square of the grid then cut them up to make rearrangeable words or a fun ‘ransom note’!

Download the Free Printable Grids Set.

More Hands-On Learning Ideas

If you enjoyed this fun hands-on learning idea you might like these other easy ideas and activities: