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You are here: Home / Math / A Beaded Snowflake Craft for Kids: Math & Fine Motor Activity

A Beaded Snowflake Craft for Kids: Math & Fine Motor Activity

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This beaded snowflake ornament craft for kids is a great winter project that provides opportunities to work on fine motor skills and number sense.


I want to show you a cute winter snowflake craft activity that you can make with your kids.  The DIY beaded snowflake ornaments are fun to make, but the best part of this preschool craft idea is that kids can work on fine motor skills and many math concepts while they create.

  1. This snowflake craft for kids is a great winter project combining hands-on math learning and fine motor activities. Learn how to make the beaded snowflake ornament. Kids can work on counting, patterning, composing and decomposing numbers and skip counting. This is a great fine motor activity for preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten in class math centers or at a classroom holiday party. holiday crafts for kids, winter art projects... #winteractivitiesforkids #finemotor #preschool #wintermath

Snowflake Craft Instructions

If you want to do this winter fine motor activity with young kids you will need to do a little bit of prep work before the project.  Don’t worry, it is really not difficult, and I have included a step-by-step tutorial for you.

You will need the following supplies:

  • pipe cleaners
  • colorful beads
  • scissors

I began by cutting pipe cleaners in half.

This snowflake craft for kids is a great winter project combining hands-on math learning and fine motor activities. Learn how to make the beaded snowflake ornament. Kids can work on counting, patterning, composing and decomposing numbers and skip counting. This is a great fine motor activity for preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten in class math centers or at a classroom holiday party. holiday crafts for kids, winter art projects... #winteractivitiesforkids #finemotor #preschool #wintermath

You will need 3 of the halved pipe cleaners for each snowflake.  

  1. I folded the small (halved) pipe cleaners in half.  
  2. Then, I twisted two of them together on the bend.  
  3. Finally, I twisted the third small pipe cleaner around the first two.  

That’s all you need to do to get them ready.  Now, they are all set for kids to add the beads.

This snowflake craft for kids is a great winter project combining hands-on math learning and fine motor activities. Learn how to make the beaded snowflake ornament. Kids can work on counting, patterning, composing and decomposing numbers and skip counting. This is a great fine motor activity for preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten in class math centers or at a classroom holiday party. holiday crafts for kids, winter art projects... #winteractivitiesforkids #finemotor #preschool #wintermath

Fine Motor Practice

If you want kids to have creative freedom, you can just let them place the pony beads on the pipe cleaner snowflakes without additional instructions. Kids will enjoy the fine motor activity as they create gorgeous snowflakes.

Math Concepts

When we made our snowflakes we tried to incorporate some math learning.  I get excited when I think about all the different ways I can create learning opportunities within an activity. Here are a few ideas:

Counting – Ask kids to place 5 pony beads on each pipecleaner.  I found that they kept counting them to check the quantity.  They also had to figure out how many more they needed to add or take off to get the correct number of beads.  When your snowflakes are complete, you can ask kids to count the total quantity of beads on their snowflakes.

Pattern by Color – Ask kids to create a pattern with the bead colors.  They can create an ABAB or similar pattern on each individual pipe cleaner or kids can create a pattern by filling alternating colors on each pipe cleaner.

Pattern by Quantity – If kids placed 4 beads on one pipe cleaner and 5 beads on the next pipe cleaner, etc…they would have an ABAB pattern made with bead quantities.

Constructing and Deconstructing Numbers – Use two color of beads.  Ask kids to place 5 beads on each pipe cleaner and ask them how many different ways they can create 5 with the colors. (4 purple beads + 1 blue bead, 3 purple beads + 2 blue beads, 2 purple beads + 3 blue beads…..)

This snowflake craft for kids is a great winter project combining hands-on math learning and fine motor activities. Learn how to make the beaded snowflake ornament. Kids can work on counting, patterning, composing and decomposing numbers and skip counting. This is a great fine motor activity for preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten in class math centers or at a classroom holiday party. holiday crafts for kids, winter art projects... #winteractivitiesforkids #finemotor #preschool #wintermath

Finishing the Snowflakes

Okay, back to making the snowflakes.  To finish the snowflakes we wrapped the end of the pipe cleaner around our finger to curl it and stuffed the end of the pipe cleaner into the hole of the last bead.  This kind of creates a knot so that the beads won’t come off.  

Young kids may need help to accomplish this. 

Finally, you can tie a ribbon to one of the ends to create a beautiful snowflake Christmas ornament.  Use them to decorate a Christmas tree, as a winter decoration hanging in the window, or as a gift tag on a present..

This snowflake craft for kids is a great winter project combining hands-on math learning and fine motor activities. Learn how to make the beaded snowflake ornament. Kids can work on counting, patterning, composing and decomposing numbers and skip counting. This is a great fine motor activity for preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten in class math centers or at a classroom holiday party. holiday crafts for kids, winter art projects... #winteractivitiesforkids #finemotor #preschool #wintermath

I hope this article helped you think of some ways that you can incorporate learning concepts into a fun winter snowflake craft.  Do you have additional ideas?  I would love to hear them!  


Additional Winter-Themed Activities for Kids

If you are looking for additional hands-on winter and snowflake themed activities for your kids, check out the resources from my store below:

snowflake cutting templates or patterns
snowflake activities for preschool and pre-k
snowflake counting activities for preschool and pre-k
snowflake color matching activity for preschool and pre-k
snowflake puzzles
snowflake counting hole punch book

Below are some items from Amazon that can be used for the activities mentioned in this article. The links below are affiliate links. If you happen to purchase something from link, there will be no additional cost to you, but a small portion of your purchase will be used towards the cost of maintaining this website

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Winter Theme Ideas: Make a Snowman Fine Motor Activity

Comments

  1. Lisa says

    December 16, 2018 at 5:51 pm

    I used this work my craft club on Friday and the kids loved it! My craft club is 1-5th grade! We went through 160 pipe cleaners and over 1000 beads…40 happy kids and lots of beautiful snowflakes

  2. Alyssa says

    January 24, 2017 at 11:56 am

    This is such a pretty craft. I wanted to let you know that I am featuring this with a photo and a link if you don’t mind.

  3. Jennifer says

    January 8, 2017 at 9:01 pm

    Sounds great Barb….I would love to hear how it works out for you.

  4. Barb says

    January 6, 2017 at 7:24 pm

    Love this! I’m going to do it with my first graders next week!

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