Present Wrapping Work

We spent some time wrapping gifts as a family last night, and now Q is very interested in the process!
I put out a little basket in her playroom with some scraps of wrapping paper, a tape dispenser, and some little scissors. She is LOVING finding things in her playroom to wrap and put under her little tree!
This is great practical life and problem solving--she is using spatial awareness and geometry as she figures out which size of wrapping paper will fit each gift and how the paper needs to be oriented to cover the gift. She is using problem solving to figure out where she needs to tape in order for the paper to stay stuck. For fine motor this uses the small finger muscles in tape tearing, folding, and cutting--thin wrapping paper is tricky to cut without tearing!

After she'd wrapped some gifts I encouraged her to make gift tags and write who each present was for. This is a great time to use environmental print skills in a real situation. Sometimes she'd ask me for help deciding which first letter to write--Honey's grandma (one of her dolls) is named Tilly, so she wanted to know what to write. I told her a T and she went right to work!

Here are a couple of the other labels she came up with. This is for Rosa, of course.

And this is "just an N." It's for nobody. That cracked me up. She doesn't know "nobody" starts with "n," she just got lucky. :)

For younger children/toddlers who aren't ready for paper and tape and scissors, you can put out gift boxes (they can put tops and bottoms together) or even gift bags (with or without tissue paper for accent.). This activity can be adapted to any age! Even babies (old enough to sit up) can have fun putting objects in and out of a holiday bag!