And ideally, teachers want them to be able to hit the ground running, because they have a lot to get through.
And what this means is that preschoolers, 3-year-olds included, need to know their fine motor skills.
And this is not something they can learn by coloring alone. Sure, learning to color inside the lines is a start, but it’s not nearly enough.
Help is at hand, however.
I have sourced 15 excellent worksheets, targeted at 3-year-olds, that really help the child’s fine motor skills by getting them to trace lines, as they do when they eventually learn to write letters and figures in kindergarten.
In this worksheet, the child is asked to trace lines from a cute cartoon worm on the left-hand side over to an apple on the right-hand side. There are 5 apples and worms, and the worm takes a different route each time.
It’s a great worksheet for 3-year-olds in particular, because the lines they are required to trace over are mostly straight lines, with few curves. It’s also quite colorful and engaging.
To access this worksheet, simply click on this link.
This worksheet features 4 different, easily recognizable vehicles, such as an airplane, a hot air balloon, a blimp, and a helicopter. Each vehicle requires the child to draw their route to their destination.
It starts off nice and easy with a straight line for the airplane, and then it gradually gets increasingly more difficult.
The hot air balloon route curves one way, then the other, the blimp zigzags, and then the helicopter’s route is trickier still.
It’s simple and straightforward enough for a 3-year-old to understand what to do, with no written instructions. And they get to color the vehicles afterwards.
To access this worksheet, simply click on this link.
There’s a smiling cartoon monkey who is hungry, so he wants to get to the banana on the other side of the sheet to fill his tummy.
It starts off nice and easy with a straight line between the monkey and the banana, but then the challenge steps up a gear, and the child has to trace a zigzag.
Then there’s a gently curving route, before a curving route whose direction changes more rapidly, and finally another zigzag to try out.
To access this worksheet, simply click on this link.
The great thing about this worksheet is how it mimics the worksheets that 3-year-olds will use in future years.
Because after each line that they trace, they trace another identical one, just as they would if they were learning to trace the number one.
And they have to trace this line within the confines of an upper and a lower limiting horizontal line, with an additional line going through the center to ensure that their writing is even.
The theme of this worksheet is rain. There is a rain cloud at the top of the sheet, and the child is required to draw the rainfall in a diagonal line in the direction that the rain is falling from the rain cloud.
To access this worksheet, simply click on this link.
Young kids love the theme of this worksheet. They have to trace the various lines to help a cartoon character in a car get to the checkered flag that marks the end of the race.
The lines go from the car on the right-hand side of the page over to a checkered flag on the left-hand side of the page.
Some of the lines are nice and easy to build the child’s confidence, but some are a little more challenging.
There’s a straight line, a zigzag, curved lines with differing heights of peaks and troughs, and even fun loop-the-loops!
It’s a great worksheet for kids who have already done a lot of similar worksheets, but need to learn to be quicker with their line tracing, because the theme is racing and getting somewhere quickly.
To access this worksheet, simply click on this link.
This worksheet features 6 easily identifiable shapes, including a triangle, a heart, a circle, a square, a hexagon, and a star.
As such, it requires the child to try their hand at a variety of different movements. This includes straight lines going in multiple directions, and curved lines too.
Then they get to have the additional fun of coloring their shapes in either crayon or colored pencils.
To access this worksheet, simply click on this link.
The theme of this worksheet is a windy day in the fall, when leaves tend to spiral around in the wind before they eventually fall to the ground.
It’s a really fun worksheet for young kids, and it’s a nice change from tracing straight lines all the time.
The child starts at the outer part of the spiral, and then they have to be increasingly careful as they gradually move the pencil to the center of the spiral.
There are a total of 8 spirals for them to trace altogether, and then they get to color in all the leaves, as well. To access this worksheet, simply click on this link.
In this worksheet, the child is tasked with drawing a line connecting the baby cartoon characters on the left-hand side of the page with their mothers on the right-hand side.
There’s an easy straight line to build their confidence, followed by a more challenging zigzag, then a curvy line, and even a loop-the-loop.
The humans and animals are in full color and look super cute.
To access this worksheet, simply click on this link.
This link is for not one, not two, but a pack of three worksheets, all aimed at improving a child’s fine motor skills.
The first sheet gets kids tracing lines upwards to the various destinations, the second one has a sports theme where the kids trace lines heading to the right to the various destinations, and the third sheet is centered around easily recognizable vehicles heading to their corresponding destination on the right-hand side of the page.
To access this worksheet, simply click on this link.
Once your 3-year-old has mastered more basic line tracing, there’s no reason why they can’t move on to a worksheet like this one.
Instead of boring straight lines, they get to make real pictures of easily recognizable things by tracing various lines. Then they get to color the pictures in!
To access this worksheet, simply click on this link.
If you want to give your kid extra practice on tracing straight vertical lines, this is the perfect worksheet.
It’s built around the theme of the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty. Humpty Dumpty is an egg sitting on a wall, and the child is tasked with tracing vertical lines to complete the brick wall.
Then, when they’re done, they get to color the picture in.
To access this worksheet, simply click on this link.
This worksheet is super fun for young kids. They have to complete the patterns of 5 fish with gently curved lines. Then they can trace the bubbles in the water. And finally they get to color the whole sheet in!
To access this worksheet, simply click on this link.
When their fine motor skills are sufficiently able, you can get your 3-year-old to start tracing the letters of the alphabet, as in this worksheet.
All 26 letters are there in both upper and lower case. The letters are all of a large size, making them easy to trace over.
Your 3-year-old does not have to know the sound of each letter in order to be able to trace the letter, but there’s no harm trying to teach some of it ahead of time.
To access this worksheet, simply click on this link.
This fun and colorful worksheet can help 3-year-olds with their manual dexterity and fine motor skills as they trace curved lines. What’s more, they do this repeatedly so that they get plenty of practice.
To access this worksheet, simply click on this link.
In this fun and colorful worksheet, preschoolers must trace straight and curved lines to create pretty shapes over and over. It’s great practice for when they start writing.
To access this worksheet, simply click on this link.
Final Thoughts
So, there are some great line tracing worksheets out there to give your 3-year-old a head start in their manual dexterity and their fine motor skills. And I think they’ll enjoy these worksheets.
Hi, my name is Helena Waters and I was a teacher for 40 years before retiring last year.
During my time as a teacher I dedicated the majority of it to making classrooms as fun as possible, with educational parties, fun activities, and low cost entertainment that made the children excited about learning.
I taught children of all ages, from preschoolers to high school students. Now, with the pandemic having uprooted everything that children once knew about school and learning, I think that the need for my ideas is bigger than ever.
That is why I created School Sparks, a place in which I can write down and share all of my ideas on how to get students excited about going to school again. I hope that you’ll find some useful within a school setting, even at home too!
