Wall Tape Pull for Toddlers

We are heading toward spring, but some days make it tough to get outside for long periods. We are still utilizing a lot of our indoor go-to activities, and this is definitely one of them. I set this up for our 18-month-old, but this could work for kids as young as 12 months old, plus you could scale this for preschoolers and up.

This activity really couldn’t get any simpler. We are using 1 thing to help keep your little one occupied. If you have 2 minutes to prep, you can get this set up to give you a minute and your toddler a chance to work on some fine motor skills.

If you have a toddler and are looking for a fuss free activity, this is for you.

Here’s What You Need

• Painter’s tape. I just ordered this rainbow set of painter’s tape because we use it for so many activities and the colors will be a nice touch.

• Some form of open space, such as a door or wall

Clearly this wall is craft adjacent and has a lot of crayon marks and probably a few mystery scuffs as well. If you can look beyond that, you can tell you don’t need a ton of space to set up this activity.

Set up

1-2 minutes

1. Rip or cut off different sized pieces of painter’s tape and place on a wall or other vertical surface. No need to be precise or fancy here. I just ripped off a piece and stuck it on the wall. I left at least one of the edges up for Ellette on most of the pieces to make them eaiser to grab. If your little one is ready for a more challenging fine motor task, you can lay them all flat or nearly flat.

2. Show your toddler how to pull a piece off the wall (or they might figure it out all on their own) and show them where to put the tape when they do. They could make a sticky ball, hand it to you, put it in a pile on the floor, or anywhere else you want them to put the used pieces.

Clean Up

1-2 minutes

1. Gather all of the painter’s tape and put it in the trash.

There are a few things I love about this activity:

• low prep

• no mess

• no fancy supplies necessary

• can work for babies in sitting or toddlers just starting to stand. You can place the tape in some challenging positions, depending on your child’s skill level, and work on some balance and weight transfer.

• this offers a very practical application for fine motor skills practice

• builds frustration tolerance. I left edges up on most of the pieces of tape, but I did smooth out a few to see how Ellette would approach this challenge.

Brinley was home for quite a few days recently due to a combination of snow days and sick days. It was nice to have her home and it was amazing to watch her play with Ellette. It is a very rare occurrence that just the two of them have time to play together, so it was sweet to witness them interacting and loving each other.

My favorite moment from this activity was when Ellette couldn’t quite reach the highest piece of tape I put up. Brinely watched her try a few times, gave her some encouragement, then got up and took the tape off the wall. I thought she would just hand it to Ellette, but instead she moved just slightly lower and said “Here, see if you can reach it now!” My heart was singing!! And what proof that our children internalize what we say to them and show them. I try to allow the kids space to problem solve and experience some frustration with difficult or new tasks- that is part of life! I would rather have them learn how to cope with difficult things with me nearby when they are young so it doesn’t seem foreign or wrong when they get older. Learning to be comfortable with something new or something you aren’t perfect at is a skill that I’m still working on. I thought it was amazing that a 5 year old was able to condense that process into a 30 second span.

Here are some ideas to scale this or make it different, depending on what your child needs.

• Make this a highchair activity if you want your little one contained, or they can’t quite make this happen on the floor.

• If your child is crawling, you can organize the tape in a line along a wall or the kitchen cabinets. Reaching with one hand can really help build the strength of the core and shoulder girdle of the arm in contact with the floor.

• Add different colors to keep things interesting. Brinley thought the blue tape looked like raindrops, so she kept saying “Let’s catch all the raindrops!” and didn’t miss the variety of colors one bit.

• Make a web pattern or write out your child’s name. This is great for older kids who might find this activity too easy. Encourage them to not rip any tape and try to get every piece off individually.

• Add a certain number of tape strips around the house and create a scavenger hunt of sorts for your older child. Have them bring the tape back to you/a pre-determined area and count the pieces. You could spell their name or write numbers on the tape if you wanted to add in some number or letter recognition. This would also be great if you had multiple children working on this together- one kid tries to collect all of the letters of their name only while the other works on finding their own letters.

• For older children, use different colors and write down how many red pieces, how many blue pieces, etc. you want them to find. Then let them go explore and you get some much needed breathing room.

I hope you enjoyed this ultra easy activity. If you don’t have painter’s tape at home, I cannot recommend it enough for activities. We use it all of the time. It is low cost, mess-free, and kids love the sticky aspect, so we buy in bulk. I might even include the colorful rolls in Easter baskets this year, especially as we don’t do a ton of candy with all of the food allergies we manage.

Be sure to save this post, add it to your Pinterest board, or send it to a friend looking for easy ways to entertain their children. Comment below how many minutes you were able to get out of this activity. We were up to 15, which is pretty great for Ellette at almost 1.5 years old. I’m sure my older girls would have gotten a longer stretch out of this activity.

Hopefully this activity brings you some sanity. I know I definitely need a little extra dose some days!

Looking for other activities? Check these out:

• Toddler Toy Rescue Wall Activity

• Toddler Friendly Painting with Aluminum Foil

• Paper Towel Roll Candy Drop

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