Montessori Practical Life: How to Wrap a Gift

For our Montessori Practical Life today, we learned how to wrap a gift. Since Christmas is barely behind us, I still had some leftover wrapping paper to use for this. It was such a fun and awesome activity for K. He seriously surprised me at how well he did! He will definitely be my gift-wrapping buddy this next Christmas!

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I recommend that you start out with an easy shape to wrap. Try to find something that looks like a cube or a rectangular prism and that is just the right size for small hands.

You can make your own wrapping paper by using a piece of white paper with a pattern copied onto it so the child can decorate or have them decorate it any way you'd like. If it will involve paint or watercolor, I suggest the wrapping paper decorating activity happen the day before so there is enough time for it to dry thoroughly.

When it comes to measuring out the wrapping paper, we eye-balled it this time, but you can be more technical and incorporate a ruler and measure out the right size of the wrapping paper before cutting.

Materials:
- wrapping paper
- scissors (child-sized and child-safe)
- Scotch tape
- a small "gift" of choice

Steps:
1. Unroll the wrapping paper.
2. Place the gift on top.
3. Estimate how much paper you will need to cover the gift. For us, we went 3 inches on the long sides and about 2 inches on the wide sides.
4. Trace an invisible line with your nail (or a pencil).
5. Take the gift off the wrapping paper.
6. Cut the wrapping paper.

Steps 1-6

7. Pre-cut a small piece of tape (about 1 inch long)
8. Place the gift in the middle of the wrapping paper and wrap the paper around the gift and put the piece of tape where the end meets the paper.

9. Pre-cut another piece of tape (about 1.5 inches long)
10. Fold one end of the wrapping paper four times (top down, left in, right in, bottom up)

11. Pre- cut the last piece of tape needed (about 1.5 inches long)
12. Do the same as Step 10, but on the opposite end of the gift.

13. OPTIONAL: Add a bow and tag (we didn't do it this time)
14. Open the gift!

15. Act surprised! haha

We hope that you have enjoyed this post and that it will inspire you to include your child/ren in any gift-wrapping you need to do.