Sharpening pencils used to be the coolest job in the class! Give preschoolers a chance to sharpen pencils to work on their fine motor skills.

The other day I was going through some old boxes of teaching supplies when I happened upon a few cases of unsharpened Ticonderoga pencils (I wasn’t donating those puppies when I left the classroom! Ticonderogas are the holy grail of pencils!). My curious kids wanted to open the cases, even though I told them they were just pencils, and they asked ‘”why aren’t these sharp?” My lightbulb moment hit when I realized the potential in offering my kids the novel exercise of sharpening pencils!  I realized this activity might just buy me enough time to finish cleaning the garage while they were occupied with a relatively simple activity! WIN!

Sharpening Pencils

To set this exercise up I pulled out a pencil sharpener and a case of the unopened pencils. I modeled how to hold the sharpener and twist the pencil to sharpen it. What I thought was a simple task was really a great exercise in fine motor control for my preschooler!



The faces he was giving me were CRACKING ME UP!! He was really trying hard to control turning the pencil around while pushing it down at the same time ( I didn’t even consider that that could be difficult for him!)

Sharpening pencils used to be the coolest job in the class! Give preschoolers a chance to sharpen pencils to work on their fine motor skills.

Eventually he got the hang of it and really took care to examine each pencil and make sure they had a proper point.

Sharpening pencils used to be the coolest job in the class! Give preschoolers a chance to sharpen pencils to work on their fine motor skills.

I know this activity seems super easy, but I had to share it with you all because it challenged my preschooler and kept him occupied for a good 15 minutes! We went back to this activity two more times during the week- that’s how much of a hit it was!

Now just to write with all those sharpened pencils so we can go back to this activity next week…

Don’t forget to pin this activity for later!

 

Sharpening pencils used to be the coolest job in the class! Give preschoolers a chance to sharpen pencils to work on their fine motor skills.

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