A sticky wall is a fine motor platform for so many types of activities: art, building, sorting, and puzzling. It can include open ended activities or can have a prompt, and best of all it keeps kids busy while meeting their sensory and creativity needs.
Sticky walls are also sometimes known as sensory walls. Kids just love using their senses to touch and explore different materials as they put them on and take them off the wall.
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Materials:
Blue Painters tape - safe for walls!
Contact paper for walls!
Can you use toilet paper rolls and other recyclable items to make a path for your pom poms?
Place a coloring page with your child's favorite characters behind the contact paper and with tissue paper or construction paper, have them tear off sections to "color in" the character.
Match puzzle pieces together on the wall for a new way to use your puzzles!
Toddlers love the soft feeling of pom poms as they place them on the sticky contact paper. This sensory wall combines sticky and soft textures for open ended play. Include language development by discussing the size and colors of the pom poms.
For the next two setups, you'll want to remove a small piece of the blue tape so you can place colored paper behind the contact paper. Then redo the blue tape...Now toddlers can sort items by color. Use flat, lightweight items to make sure they stick.
Section off the wall into areas for each shape. Cut out paper shapes or find shapes in your home. To get your free printout of shapes to sort visit this post.
Open ended and celebratory. This one is perfect for a special day. Blow up balloons and stick them as you please. Throw and see if you can get your sticky wall to "catch" your balloon.
Open ended- kids use letters to stick to the wall and make words. Kids can explore letter names, match uppercase and lowercase letters, etc.
For more hands-on ways to learn about letters with toddlers and preschoolers, you'll wanna see these 12 Letter Games.
This activity comes from Happy Toddler Playtime, and is all about sorting coins! How fun!
This one is a little different, because I taped the contact paper into a cardboard frame so we could take it on our nature walk. You could also collect natural objects from a walk and then bring them home to put on the sticky wall you already have.
When your sticky wall begins to get slightly less sticky and it's time to switch it out, don't throw it away. Instead let your children decorate it with different kinds of paper (tissue paper, construction paper, cardboard, cut outs) and then remove it. To keep the art intact, place it sticky side against the wall for a beautiful decorative art piece.
