3 Themes Tracing Mats for Toddlers
Prior to having tracing mats for toddlers, I didn’t notice Miss 3 actually beginning to love to trace.
Until I saw that she tried to trace the pages inside of her storybook using her color pens.
She traced the colorful words and the outline of the cute images in the book. She looked so focused at this activity.
This made me feel wanting to make something to support her current passion, hence I made the tracing mats.
Why It Is Important For Tracing For Toddlers
Tracing is one of the pre-writing skills. It helps the cute muscles in our kids’ hands to get used to write and draw lines and curvy shapes.
Miss 3 first seen drawing her own straight line out of the blue. Currently she love to draw circle shapes everywhere.
Those circle shapes also has their own stories and their own meanings. Although I might see those circles are look alike, for her one circle represents a dog, while other circle represents her sister.
Tools for Tracing
There’s no one way to trace and surely kids can trace anywhere they like.
Among tracing tools that my kids love include, tracing using :
Q-tips
We trace watercolors using Q-tips in one of our name activity play. It’s a bit mess but the kids love it.
Tips : Try to do messy activities on a sheet of cloth or in big tray, so that it is easier to clean-up.
Crayon/pencil color/marker
It gives the sound of scribbled papers. These sounds are music to their ears
Plain finger
This is one of the way that Miss 3 love most, just trace it using her finger without leaving any mark on the paper
Skewer
This is especially when the kids are playing with playdough. It looks fun to trace using skewer and poke some hole into the playdough.
Toys
I mean, any toys. For instance, they used toy car to trace along the tiles on the floor or the line on the bed sheet
3 Themes Tracing Mats for Toddlers
Just to supplement Miss 3’s free play of tracing, I made some tracing mats for them. Well, sometimes she needs a break from their free play and wish to do some activity mat. So here I come.
P.s: You can download them for free at the bottom of this post.
Tracing Mats for Toddlers #1 : Apple Theme Tracing Mat
This tracing mat is used when it was ‘Letter A is for Apple’ activity day.
It has basic tracing lines such as the plain straight line and the circle shaped lines.
It also has a few other patterns such as apple in boats, apple in the sun, and tracing the word ‘apple’
Miss 3 love this and as usual, she also asked to color some of the images in the mats, such as the clouds and the boat.
Tracing Mats for Toddlers #2 : Farm Theme Tracing Mat
The kids love farm theme a lot. Farm theme week means it’s a week full of farm animal’s noises along with projects to make chicken’s barn, make some sheep out of cotton ball, and more.
If your kids are into farm animals, I think you might want to give this Farm Tracing Mat a try.
This Farm Tracing Mat start with tracing straight line, inspired by Miss 3. I observed for tracing activity, Miss 3 always need to warm up with either straight line, or circle line.
It also has feature where the farm boy has to drive a road up to the barn.
Tracing Mats for Toddlers #3 : Fish Theme Tracing Mat
If your kids love fish theme activities, they might love this mat.
Your kids will be having the opportunity to trace the colorful fish to meet their same colored friends. They also will learn about color sorting with this kind of tracing mat for toddlers.
Keep the tracing mats as supplement, not as the main thing to trace
Toddlers need to play a lot. They learn so much through their play. As far as I observed, my kids learnt about social skills and good manners from their free play.
But there are times that they need to take a break from each other, when they need their own me time.
Usually during this time they will come to me to find something different to do.
Usually Miss 3 would ask for something to trace, or to color, or to cut. That’s where my printable come and save the day.
Apart from tracing mat, toddlers also can benefit a lot by tracing on different surfaces such as :
- Tracing on sands or sand papers
- Tracing on flours
- Tracing on rice – you can make it colorful rice to grab their attention
- Tracing on cooked spaghetti
- Tracing on playdough – this is one of my toddler’s favorite. It is kind of messy, but hey, anything that helps her
- Tracing on storybooks
Just don’t put any pressure and keep an open mind regarding this activity.
Get Your Free Download
Before you close this post, don’t forget to get the FREE compilation of the 3 Tracing Mats for Toddlers, you can click Download Button below.
Have fun!
