Work on fine motor skills with these printable shape lacing cards.
This set of four, free printable, shape lacing cards are great for working on fine motor skills, and for introducing the concept of sewing to young children. They are also a great way to introduce or reinforce learning of 2D shapes!
While my older kids have been enjoying some more complex textile crafts like weaving and making God’s Eyes, my preschooler is still a little frustrated and struggling to get the hang of sewing or weaving. So I decided to make some super simple sewing cards to help him practice beginning sewing skills and gain some confidence.
These simple 2d shape lacing cards are a great way for young children to learn about sewing and begin to practice the basic skills. They are also a fun fine motor activity that kids will love, and you can sneak in some learning about 2D shapes as well!
If your child is learning about 2D shapes they might also like these printable shape drawing prompts or this free printable shapes scavenger hunt
Benefits of Using Lacing Cards
Lacing cards are a great individual activity that preschoolers can use independently once they master the technique. They are easy to set up, are low-mess, and kids practice a variety of skills while using them.
Lacing cards help kids work on fine motor skills, eye-hand co-ordination, dexterity and hand strength. They are also great for working on sequencing, patterning and spatial awareness as they follow the in and out sewing technique. And they are a great way to teach kids beginning sewing skills.
These 2D shape lacing cards are also a great way to reinforce learning about shapes. You can talk about how many sides each sewing card has as your child sews around each one.
How to Make These Shape Lacing Cards
These printable shape lacing cards are quick and easy to make with our free printable and a few basic supplies and they are great for a classroom activity or for a fun activity at home.
To make these shape lacing cards you’ll need:
- free printable shape lacing cards (download below)
- paper or cardstock
- laminator (optional)
- hole punch
- plastic needle, or make your own (see below)
- wool, string, ribbon, or plastic string
I suggest printing your lacing cards onto sturdy cardstock, or laminating them. Paper is too flimsy for this printable, so if you are not able to use cardstock or laminate the lacing cards I suggest gluing them onto some cardboard.
When you print the shape sewing cards you’ll see small dots marked on each one to show you where to punch the holes. Cut around each sewing card and then punch the holes.
We used a regular paper hole punch (held upside down so we could make sure we were making holes in approximately the right spot) to punch nice large holes.
We made a simple ‘needle’ by cutting out a thin ‘needle shape’ from an ice-cream container lid and making a hole in one end (I melted the hole with a hot skewer). Make sure your ‘needle’ is thin enough to fit through your holes
We used some colored wool to sewing with. For very young children you may like to tie a button on the end of your wool to stop it being easily pulled all the way through the hole.
Free Printable Shape Lacing Cards
This set of free printable shape lacing cards includes for simple shapes – a square, circle, triangle and octagon.
This printable is an A4 sized pdf file, you will need a pdf reader such as adobe acrobat to open it. It will fit to print on US ‘letter sized’ paper, just be sure to select ‘fit’ or ‘shrink to fit’ from your printer options to allow for printer margins.
Click here to download the shape lacing cards
Please remember that the printables at picklebums.com are for personal use only, you may not sell, share, or link directly to these files.
More Fun Fine Motor Activities.
If you’ve been working on fine motor skills with these lacing cards, you might all like one of these easy fine motor activities or check out one of the fun ideas below:
Try one of these awesome threading activities for kids.
Have fun with these free printable loose parts pattern mats.
Make your own giant, crazy, DIY geoboard.
Fantastic Fun Kate! I want to try some basic sewing with the girls soon so thank you for your printables! And how clever are you making that needle….love it!
Thanks so much for these :)
This is fabulous!! I love it! Will definitely be trying this – what a fabulous idea for the needle!
These are gorgeous Kate – just pinned them!
My girls would love this, they are into sewing and beading at the moment, anything threading.
I love how you made the needle – what an awesome idea! Just pinned it.
Thanks for sharing, we’ll be using those :)
my daughter will love these.