Do you ever think back on a fond childhood memory and wonder why that memory, in particular, has stuck with you over the years?

For me, those memories are often of simple moments spent with family. Sitting on the kitchen counter, legs dangling, as my mom prepared an afternoon snack. Heading to the hardware store with my dad to pick up supplies for a weekend project. Recording songs onto a blank tape off the radio so my sister and I could play it on repeat and learn all of the lyrics…

That last one might date me a bit!

But you get what I mean. Often, it’s the simple moments of togetherness that build beautiful memories.

Well, the other day, little Norah and I were making some fingerprint art together, and I just knew we were building one of those core memories.

Fingerprint Art for Preschoolers

Fingerprint Caterpillars

Our fingerprint art started with some patterned caterpillars. It’s actually one of the activities from my preschool program, Play into Kindergarten Readiness!

You can use paint or washable ink pads to make your fingerprint art. If you use paint, I like to mix in a little bit of dish soap to make it extra washable. We used washable ink pads and a black marker for our creations.

To make a caterpillar, have your child dip one pointer finger in one color and the other pointer finger in another color. Now they can make a patterned caterpillar by dotting those fingers on a page in a line—left hand, right hand, left hand, right hand.

Add a little eye, legs, antennae, and a smile to the first dot of the pattern and you have a cute little caterpillar!

Our caterpillars quickly grew in size as we tried out an ABC pattern: purple, blue, pink, purple, blue, pink…

Then we tried another ABC pattern, but this time also patterning the number of legs on each body section! One leg, two legs, three legs, one leg, two legs, three legs…

Fingerprint Bugs, Plants, and Other Animals

After making a few caterpillars, we decided to see what else we could make with fingerprints.

Together, we filled page after page with little creations!

We made fingerprint butterflies…

Fingerprint birds…

And even little chicks, bunnies, and carrots for Easter.

Learning Opportunities with Fingerprint Art

This was a wonderful opportunity to be creative together, and, of course, it was filled with lots of learning, too!

• We practiced patterning with our caterpillars.
• We chatted about symmetry as we created our butterflies and ladybugs.
• We worked on fine motor skills as we added lines to our fingerprints.
• Norah very astutely noticed that my ladybug and spider had a different number of legs. That sounds like counting, comparing, and anatomy to me!
• We also built vocabulary skills as we made up silly stories to go along with our pictures.

At this point, Norah decided she really enjoyed adding all of the lines and wanted to do MORE! But… could I pretty please do the fingerprints?

So, I added a bunch of fingerprints to a page, and she had fun transforming each one!

Fingerprint Art for Preschoolers Printable

This one activity turned into such a lovely afternoon spent together!

In fact, we enjoyed it so much that I decided to take our creations and turn them into a Printable Fingerprint Art Pack for you! The pack includes:

• Step-by-step tutorials for how to make 12 adorable fingerprint creations.
• A nature scene with versions for kids of all ages and abilities (including one with the fingerprints already done, and you can just have fun adding lines!)
• Fingerprint cards that you can use to play games like Match Me, Guess Who, or Go Fish.
• AND fingerprint number cards, perfect for building hand strength with clothespins or using for a scavenger hunt.

I also added a sample of Play into Kindergarten Readiness so you can see just how easy it can be to cover all core skills in 20 minutes of play a day!

You can grab your Free Fingerprint Art Pack right here:

And if you want even more activity ideas for your preschooler—engaging, fun, and planned for you day-by-day—you’ll want to check out Play into Kindergarten Readiness! The preschool curriculum covers all core preschool skills in ONE 20-minute activity a day.

Take a peek at Play into Kindergarten Readiness:

https://shop.howweelearn.com/pages/play-into-kindergarten-readiness

I hope you enjoyed this fingerprint art for preschoolers! Thank you so much for reading, sweet friend,

xo
Sarah