Cutting Snowflakes from Coffee Filters

Sweet Pea is 4 years old.

From: I found these easy coffee filter snowflakes at Art for Little Hands.

Material:

• Coffee Filters.  (You can use plain paper, but the coffee filters are a great size and shape for this activity.)
• Scissors. (Maped Koopy Scissors are our favorite.)
• Glitter Glue (optional).

Procedure:

• Show your tot how to fold a coffee filter in half.

]

• Demonstrate folding the coffee filter in half a second time so the coffee filter is folded into quarters.

• If your tot has good fine motor skills, demonstrate one last fold so only 1/8 of the coffee filter circle is visible.

• Demonstrate using scissors to cut triangles and other shapes out of the sides of the folded coffee filter.

• Show your tot how to gently unfold the paper to reveal a snowflake.
• If you are using glitter glue, let your tot use a q-tip or small brush to apply it to the snowflakes.

Observations:   This really held Sweet Pea’s interest and I was surprised by how many snowflakes we ended up making.  We probably used 20 coffee filters.

Of course, all the fun is in unfolding the paper to discover your snowflake.  Sometimes the snowflake turns out beautifully.

… but sometimes it isn’t quite right.

Sweet Pea has excellent scissors skills and even she had some trouble cutting the folded coffee filter.  I would only recommend this for an older preschooler (or perhaps even kindergartner) and older.

Notes from the Trenches: I did not anticipate what a mess this activity would be.  I was picking up little pieces of coffee filter off of the floor  for the rest of the night.

Rating: 4 Stars * (Fun, Easy, Independent, Frugal)

Carnivals:  This post is linked up to It’s Playtime at Quirky Mama.