Sweet Pea is 6 years old.
From: I got a pack of washi tape on Black Friday last year as a door-buster at a craft store. I didn’t have any idea what to do with it until I saw this cute idea for washi covered pencils at Punk Projects. I modified her method so it is easier for children and also to allow the tape to be more easily peeled away when it is time to sharpen the pencil.
Material:
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- Pencils.
- Washi Tape. (I don’t know what brand I used, but my local Target was selling rolls of Scotch Expressions for about $3 each in the school supply section this year. You can also find it at Office Max.)
- Scissors.
- Ruler.
Procedure:
- Invite your child to sharpen the pencil.
- Show your tot how to measure and cut off about 12-inches of washi tape.
- Stick the 12-inch long strip of washi tape to the edge of the table and cut a off a 1 inch piece.
- Test to see if the 1-inch strip will go all the way around your pencil. Exactly 1-inch pieces worked perfectly for us, but you may need a different size depending on the diameter of your pencils.
- Show your tot how to measure and cut off a 1-inch (or larger, if applicable) piece of washi tape.
- After the first piece of tape has been measured and cut, your tot can use it as a guide to cut the rest of the pieces of tape.
- Once your tot has cut 10-12 peices of tape, show him how to start wrapping the first piece of tape around the pencil next to metal band near the eraser. It will requires some concentration to keep the edge of the tape even with metal band.
- Invite him to wrap the next piece of tape around the pencil, next to the first. Repeat with the remaining tape strips until he gets to the edge of the pencil next to the sharpened end.
- Enjoy your new beautifully decorated pencils. 🙂
- Before sharpening the pencil, just peel off the topmost strip of tape. Make sure to show your child how to do this before you send him to school with the new pencils.
Observations: Sweet Pea is headed to 1st grade this year and got to buy school supplies for the very first time. She was super excited when I suggested decorating the plain pencils that we had purchased.
This was a neat little craft and I loved how I was able to work in some math with the use of the ruler.
Sweet Pea really liked having the decorated pencils, but she was only interested in doing about 3 of them before she got bored. This wasn’t as engaging as a lot of our other art projects. Partly, I think she was a tiny bit too young for this. It was hard for her to cut and wrap all of the tape. I suspect that it would be much easier and more enjoyable for older kids, so I’m limiting my recommendation to elementary school aged children and up.
Notes from the Trenches: Can you sharpen the washi tape covered pencils? It worked okay in our sharper, but I found that it left the tape a little ragged, so I wouldn’t really recommend it. It probably wouldn’t hurt anything though.
Rating: 2 Stars * (Fun, Easy)
Hey Shannon! I need an activity I can do with both Miranda (6) and Elliott (2) that uses the same supplies and will keep them both entertained for a bit. Any suggestions? Thanks!
Hi Anjie,
My first thoughts are that some sort of painting activity would work well.
Something like this snowflake silhouette with masking tape (since it is summer, you could make a star or a sun shape instead) would be great. Miranda could even help tear and place the tape for Elliot’s painting.
Sidewalk paint
Sidewalk water painting
Condensed Milk Puffy Paint
And here are a few that don’t involve painting, but I think could easily work with different aged kiddos:
Making a clay bead necklace
Bubble Dough
Scrap paper collage – Miranda could cut out her own shapes and make pictures. Elliot would probably be happy just exploring how a glue stick works. 🙂
Another good one might be this tape maze. Miranda could help create the maze too.