Stickers are a great way to offer an open- ended invitation for the whole family to create.

Three reasons stickers are good for your child’s development:

They are a workout for little fingers! Peeling stickers and pressing them onto paper is great practice for fine motor skills. If you have a child who is hesitant to draw or write, but you want them working on getting ready, stickers are a solid option.
No mess! If you don’t feel like dealing with the mess of paint, creating with stickers is the way to go.
They are inexpensive. You can always find stickers at the dollar store or the Target Dollar Spot.

Tip: Set the ground rules early.

In our home, the rule is that stickers are for paper only. They do not go on clothes, windows, furniture or skin. That’s what I am comfortable with. Decide what works for you, and lay out the rules. Follow through.

Three Sticker hacks for toddlers:

Peel the backing off the sticker page to make it easy for the child to grab the edges of the sticker.

Peel the stickers ahead of time and stick them to the edge of a tray so that the child can grab and stick.

Cut large sticker sheets into smaller, more manageable strips.

Peel the stickers ahead of time for young children to grab and press..png

Here’s how we set up an invitation to create with stickers:

First, I found a tray with separate compartments to hold various stickers. Next, We picked a color palate and dug through our sticker collection for anything that matched. Then, I rolled out a large roll of paper on the table and traced some large rectangles. Each child got right to creating, and all three kids had unique approach. My eldest child, squiggled a line all around his rectangle and then covered the long squiggle in dots. My middle child traced circles and then used dot stickers to create negative space. My youngest was drawn to the straight lines and carefully lined them up according to color inside her rectangle.