Clothespin Sensory Play for Young Children: What Would You Do With It?

Can you believe it is the first Wednesday in September??? I know, right? I can't believe it either! This summer sure flew by!  I am SUPER excited to be bringing back What Would You Do With It? Wednesdays!  This week, I have a VERY special guest blogger, Deborah Stewart of Teach Preschool. Did you know that in addition to being an educational consultant, singer/songwriter, and running her own preschool, Deborah runs the Teach Preschool page on Facebook? She scours the web for amazing blogs and inspiration to share with over 21,000 followers! She is truly amazing. I am so excited to share with you my very first guest blogger!


Clothespin sensory play for young children

by Deborah J. Stewart of Teach Preschool

Clothespins are excellent tools for young children to play with. They come in all colors and sizes, can be used in all sorts of games, and promote fine motor skills. I like to keep a supply of clothespins in my classroom all the time for the children to explore...



Recently, I decided it would be fun to add a new dimension of play and exploration to the clothespins. To do this, I collected a variety of items with different textures and glued them to the clothespins...



I included textures that were soft (pom-poms and cotton balls); rough (sand paper); squishy (sponges and bubble wrap); and bumpy (buttons, rice, and googly eyes)...



I tried to leave the ends of the clothespins clear of objects but I didn't think to do this until I had many of them already done. The goal is to promote descriptive language and sensory as the children manipulate the clothespins through their play...



I put together a basket of various textured clothespins for the children to explore but I have already discovered that the rice falls off when the children play with the rice covered clothespins. And the first thing my two-and-a-half year old nephew did is pull off the bubble wrap I had on one of the clothespins. I had to tell him that the bubble wrap was supposed to stay on the clothespin so we could feel it. Oh well, it is still fun while it lasts and it only takes a minute to add a few new textures to my textured clothespin collection as needed...



The possible ways children can play with these clothes pins include simple activities like making patterns, sorting textures that are alike or different, and offering them up for open ended play such as hanging them on a clothesline...



Or clipping them to a board - in this photo the clips are on a Plexiglass sign holder...

I am sure there are many great ideas for how to add interesting textures to clothespins - I would love to hear what you come up with!


Now, it is your turn! What would you do with clothespins/pegs? (I know that in other parts of the English speaking world, clothespins are clothes pegs ;). )  Here are the guidelines of the link up:


Here are the rules:

1) The post MUST use clothespins/clothes pegs

2) The post MUST be family friendly.

There are no other requirements. If you would like, I would love if you linked back to his linky party, but it is not required. I would hope that you will investigate the links shared and visit some of the  other blogs, but I'm not imposing any "blog hop/linky" rules.  Please, if  you do find great ideas and photos... Give credit where  credit is due  :).


If you are interested in being a guest blogger, please pop on over to this post. 


What Would You Do with Clothespins/Clothes pegs?