Have fun with fine motor skills while you craft a fuzzy friend.

What You Need: 

• Yarn 
• Scissors 
• Pipe Cleaner 
• Glue 
• Googly eyes 

What You Do: 

1. Wrap yarn around your four fingers about 50 times.  
2. Carefully slide the bundle of yarn off your fingers and set on a flat surface. 
3. Wrap the pipe cleaner around the middle of the yarn bundle, perpendicular to the yarn direction. Twist ends together to cinch the yarn tightly in place. 
4. Time for a haircut! Cut the looped ends of yarn and give it a trim if you’d like. 
5. Style the pipe cleaner ends by curling into a swirl, or wrapping around a pencil, then glue on the googly eyes or other embellishments. 

Words to Use: 

• Fiber art: The creative art of making wall hangings, sculpture, etc. out of thread, yarn, rope, etc., by using techniques such as weaving or knotting the materials. 
• Embellish: To make something more beautiful by adding decorations to it. 
• Texture: The way a surface or material feels when you touch it, especially how smooth or rough it is. 

What to Talk About: 

• How would the pom-pom look different if you wrapped more yarn around your fingers? Less? 
• What else could we use to embellish the monster? 
• What other materials could we use to make monsters? 
• What secret powers does your monster have? 

Change It Up:

• Add a dowel or stick to turn your monster into a puppet. Make a puppet stage and put on a play for friends and family. 
• Write a story about your pom-pom monster. Give it a name and personality. What does it like to eat? How does it like to play?

Learning Connections:  

• Creativity 
• Curiosity 
• Imagination 
• Fine Motor Development 
• Using Tools 

Curriculum Connections
NC Standard Course of Study 

• Visual Arts: K.V.1.1, K.V.3.1, K.V.3.2, K.V.3.3, 1.V.1.1, 1.V.3.1, 1.V.3.3, 2.V.3.1, 2.V.3.2, 3.V.3.3, 4.V.3.3, 5.V.3.3