Penguin Lacing Card (Printable Fine Motor Activity for Preschool and Kindergarten)

This penguin lacing card is a fantastic fine motor activity for preschool and kindergarten. Print it, laminate it, hole punch it and hand your little learner a lace or a length of yarn and you’re pretty much good to go!

Carefully threading that lace in and out of each hole works the small muscles in their hands and builds the hand-eye coordination they’ll be calling on every day, from fastening buttons to eventually holding a pencil.

And here is a fact to share while they are lacing away – emperor penguins are about the same height as your average six-year-old. 

If your little learners love penguins, they will have a great time with the Build a Penguin craft and the penguin puzzle too – or you can explore the full range of sea animal printables for even more ocean-themed fun.

Time to get threading!

What Skills Can Your Little Ones Learn And Develop?

This penguin threading card is designed to help your children practice and develop some fine motor skills, such as:

• Hand-eye coordination – to be able to understand what they are seeing and get their hands to go where they want them to
• Finger strength – to be able to hold the lace and push it through the holes
• Hand dominance – developing and strengthening the skill of one of their hands
• Finger dexterity – the ability to move fingers in different ways and use different fingers for different tasks
• Bilateral coordination – lacing requires both hands to work together – one to hold the card steady while the other threads. This kind of two-handed coordination is an important developmental milestone.
• Pincer grip – Children naturally use a pincer-style grip to hold and manipulate the lace, which directly supports their pencil grip.
• Spatial awareness – Understanding where the holes are and how the lace moves through them develop spatial reasoning.

They can also help children practice patience and concentration as they may find it tricky at first and offer a great chance to talk about the different holidays we celebrate.

How To Prepare This Penguin Themed Lacing Card

First you’re going to want to download the threading card by clicking on download button at the bottom of the page.

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Then print them off onto paper or card.

You’ll probably want to laminate it to make it stronger. 

Then use a hole punch to punch out the holes around the edges.

You can make the threading cards easier by punching fewer holes, or more difficult by adding a few more.

That’s pretty much it, just grab some long laces, or yarn and let your little learners practice their fine motor skills in a fun way.

If you are using yarn, you may want to toughen the ends by dipping in some PVA glue and leaving to dry first.

Get Even More Out of This Penguin Lacing Card

Don’t put it away just yet – there is plenty more you can do with this one.

Penguin Parade

Make several copies, laminate them and let your little learners lace a whole colony. Once they are done, you could hang them all up for a cute penguin parade display. If you print off say 10, you could write a number on each and use the lineup for a bit of counting and ordering practice!

Race Time

Turn the lacing into a two-player (or more) game. Give each child a penguin card and a lace and see who can thread all the way around their penguin first. The “finish line” is the last hole – first one done gets to do a penguin waddle victory lap. Hooray!

Storytelling Starter

Once the penguin is laced, use it as a character in a story. Where is this penguin going? What is it looking for? Is it cold? Who are its friends? Brilliant for building speaking and listening skills, imagination and some storytelling language.

Pattern Lacing

Use two different colored laces and challenge your little learners to create a pattern as they thread – red, blue, red, blue. This can be quite tricky to do and really requires some strong focus!

Penguin Puppet

Once the lacing is done, tape or glue a popsicle stick to the back and turn the penguin into a puppet. then they could put on a puppet show or just let their imaginations run wild with some free play.

Initial Sound Spotter

Time to get a bit of phonics in! While lacing, chat through things that begin with “p” – pig, pear, pug, popcorn etc. How many can your little learner come up with? Can they think of a ‘p’ word every time they thread a hole? 

However you use this penguin lacing card, I hope you and your little ones have a brilliant time with it!

Enjoy and let’s nurture those neurons!