Clothing Unit Resources & Ideas!

Gloves, socks, caps, & mittens! It's that time of year again..practicing buttons, zipping zippers, and putting on jackets! Clothing is something students are quite familiar with and therefore makes a great stepping stone into many different ventures about clothing..where it comes from..how it's made..how is it cleaned..how it's different around the world..etc.  

A study on clothing can be tied into any center or interest area.  In previous years, my students have created a clothing store or shoe store in the pretend center to go along with the unit theme and to learn about real world experiences..click HERE to view. A laundry room is another great pretend center idea. Students can color sort clothes into baskets, practice hanging and ironing, and even washing in paper box washers/dryers.  In the discovery area we set up a provocation with costume books & clothing from around the world books, large paper doll cut outs (similar to gingerbread men), yarn, glue, and scrap fabric and scissors. The math center was very busy with button matching, color sorting, and size sorting. In ABC center students would match upper & lowercase felt clothing letters (pants & shirts) together. In blocks, we had a set of dollhouse dolls with clothes. Students built clothing stores after a virtual tour video we watched about a clothing store. 

See how we integrated art into our clothing unit HERE. Art is a great way to learn about different textures and textiles from around the world! Process art and recycling fit in nicely with this unit study as well! 

Looking for more clothing or laundry unit ideas? Check out these awesome clothing unit resources & ideas below! 

I was given this Cra-Z-Art Spinning Art machine over Christmas and thought it would be a great rainy day activity. While reading A Pocket for Corduroy I was inspired to use it along with our clothing unit! There is a part in the story where an artist draws a sketch of the spinning clothes in the dryer..voila spinner art! This Cra-Z-Art spinning machine is awesome. It comes with pre-cut papers (which we traced to make more) and three paint tubes (which we refilled with regular paint when they ran out). The machine requires 2 C cell batteries. (You could also use a salad spinner if you wanted to do this project manually.) Students LOVED choosing their own colors and watching their creation transform! We also used a popsicle stick to drag the paint through as it was spinning for a cool effect!

Here is the part about the artist sketching the clothes in the dryer!

Spinned dryer art! 

I love this mini laundry basket sorting game by Wild Olive! I haven't tried this game yet but it would make a great math center game. Add a clothespin to the game and students can be working on even more fine motor skills! The laundry baskets are actually pencil cups and I think I actually have some of those in my art cabinet!  

My students loooove bingo games! This one focuses on winter clothing vocabulary and color words! 

Directed drawing guides are fun to keep in your art or writing center! I made a set and put them on a key ring to hang for easy access. Download them here! 

Preschool Plan It has an awesome collection of FREE Preschool Clothes Theme ideas for centers & lessons!

Graphs, graphs, and more graphs!  My students enjoy interacting with graphs and especially comparing their likes & dislikes! During our clothing unit we graph types of shoes, colors of clothing, clothing sizes, etc.  Mrs. Lee's Kindergarten  did an emphasis on buttons during her Cats, Buttons, and Colors Unit.  Check out her fun button games, graph, & activities here! 

An ordinary wire shelf from the dollar store makes great fine motor practice! Adaptive Tasks blog had students use clothespins to squeeze and clip paper clothing "to dry." I have two of these racks or shelves out during our clothing unit. We use one to clip and "to dry" the clothes (made out of felt) and the other to weave. Students practice patterning (over, under, over, under) by weaving colorful ribbon scraps through the wires! 

See how my students created their own pretend center clothing store HERE! 

Yarn Block Art - See here how we created these fun prints with items we already had! 

The Preschool Experiment has some very cool laundry themed tray game ideas including an alphabet match game, sock folding tray, washcloth folding activity, clothespin number match game, and more!

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In this class the students muddied up paper pants and then used bubbles to make paper shirts"clean." This idea comes from Doodle Bugs Teaching on Preschool Wonders.