Preschoolers love the bright colors of tie-dye, but parents aren't always eager to break out the dye with young kids. Creating “tie-dye” baby wipes gives preschoolers the opportunity to work on color recognition and fine motor skills while creating a smaller, less messy version of the tie-dyed t-shirt. This activity also lends itself to the kindergarten math concept of patterning, giving your child a head start for Fall. Add a pipe cleaner and you've got an instant flag for pretend play!
What You Need:
- Baby wipes
- Rubber bands
- Markers
- Construction paper
What You Do:
- Help your child tightly twist and roll the baby wipe until it's about the width of a pencil. She can simply roll it from top to bottom or twist it from the middle to make the traditional sunburst pattern.
- Wrap the rolled baby wipe with rubber bands every inch or so (just as you would if you were tie-dying a t-shirt). Encourage your child to help as much as possible with this step, but be ready to assist. Wrapping rubber bands can be tricky for little fingers.
- Have her use markers to color in the parts of the baby wipe not covered by rubber bands. Encourage her to color all of the exposed baby wipe. The more she colors, the better it will look.
- Tie-dye is a great opportunity to teach her about patterning. Start with a simple ABAB pattern (i.e. red, yellow, red, yellow). Get her involved by asking her to predict which color should come next.
- Have her remove the rubber bands and untwist the wipe. Now she has a beautiful tie-dyed piece of art!
- You can frame the baby wipe by gluing it onto a piece of construction paper for a refrigerator-worthy finish.
On her next tie-dye baby wipe, challenge her to come up with her own patterns. She'll have fun making a unique project and learning at the same time!
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