Fine motor activities are things you do involving your hands and fingers. Fine motor skills are an essential part of daily life. There are many ways that you can help your child with those skills. You can adapt and change the activities your child does to match their abilities.
As a newborn grows and starts to move around, they learn how to use their hands and fingers and start developing fine motor skills. At first, babies and toddlers use their fingers to touch objects and their hands to pick up and hold items. As they grow, and their fine motor development progresses they become better at using their fingers to feed themselves.
Giving kids more opportunities to use their hands will help them develop fine motor skills in the long run. Have lots of opportunities through play to build their hand muscles. Ultimately, this will help them use their fingers with greater control and precision with everyday tasks.
What objects can be used to improve fine motor skills?
Many families have a variety of useful items already in their homes, that they can use. You don’t have to go out and purchase things just to work on fine motor skills. Surprisingly many fine motor activities can be used with common everyday products and items you can find in your kitchen and throughout your house.
Items you may have in your house to make fine motor activities with:
- Empty Kleenex box
- Cleaning wipes container
- Baby wipes box
- Shoe box
- Mailing box
- Empty jelly jar
- Spice jar
- Empty vegetable can
- Protein powder container
- Empty cereal box
- Ice cube tray
- Cardboard boxes
- Tupperware containers
In addition to those items, various other objects in your home can be used as containers or main items in your fine motor activities.
Next, you can make different-sized holes in them. And some of those items, you may just simply take the lid off and already have items with different-sized openings.
Kids will use fine motor skills to move objects into different containers with fingers or tongs.
Small objects that can be used with fine motor activities you may find around your house:
TIP: It would be great if the objects were of different colors. This way, they can be sorted based on their color, size, and shape. Children can practice counting the items and learn letters and numbers as well. Incorporating multiple skills in such activities can make learning more educational and enjoyable.
- Paper clips
- Clothes pins
- Coins
- Candy
- Beads
- Pom poms
- Glass stone or rocks
- Rice
- Dry Beans
- Pasta
- Feathers
- Fuzzy sticks/pipe cleaners
- Spools of thread and string
- Candles
- Buttons
- Sequins
- Scrabble letters
- Checkers
- Dominoes
- Cards
- Rubber bands
- Push pins
- Cotton swabs or balls
- Puzzle pieces
Additional items that can be used along with the others mentioned
- Scissors
- Hole punch
- Tongs
- Piece of paper
- Construction paper
- Glue
- Paper plate
- Tape
- Key rings
- Paint, markers, crayons, or pencils
There may be other items in your house that you can use, which I haven’t mentioned. So, try to be creative and use whatever you have or can find. Also, you can check your recycle bin for any items that you can upcycle and use for fine motor activities.
With the everyday items above, you can do all kinds of activities for fine motor skill development.
I will give you some simple ideas using those items along with other examples of fine motor skills activities.
- Sorting Items – Use containers or boxes with different hole sizes to put items in by fingers or tongs. Have them sort by color or shape. One suggestion is to use color-coded containers or boxes to sort items of different colors. This is a good example of a fine motor activity.
- Painting – Finger painting or painting with a paintbrush can be an enjoyable activity that helps to develop fine motor skills. However, it’s important to remember that there are many other ways to paint and explore one’s creativity. You can try using a sponge brush, cotton swab, a small handheld sponge, or any object that you can hold and paint with instead of a traditional paintbrush. This can lead to fun and unique results and help to keep painting fun.
- Stacking items – Toddlers can stack blocks, crackers, cookies, or other items. Depending on age and ability, items such as dominoes, checkers, and cookie cutters can be stacked. Set a timer and see what the most they can stack in a certain time period.
- Threading beads – String beads on rope, string, shoe laces or pipe cleaners for preschool-age kids and up or younger age with help. Another great idea is to let kids put items onto key rings.
- Rubber bands – You can use rubber bands to create a fun activity for kids. Simply stretch and wrap them around an empty Clorox wipes bottle. Kids can have fun shooting them across the room or trying to shoot them into a box or knock down items. This may be an activity for an older child or one that has good finger and muscle strength.
- Sorting sports or collector cards – Sorting sports cards can be very fun for kids who collect them or who are interested in sports. Picking up cards and sorting them by sports categories can be educational by discussing clothing, accessories, and equipment along with working on fine motor skills.
- Putting together puzzles – Start with larger puzzles and gradually increase difficulty based on age and ability.
- Play dough – Play dough or real dough is fun to use and can be made into different activities. Roll dough into balls and snakes in your hands and with your fingers. Also, use cookie cutters or stamps to play in the dough. For an added fun twist, put beads in the play dough that can be found and removed.
- Slime – Slime is an excellent material for creating a fun sensory and fine motor activity that can get a little messy. You can create a field of slime and play with small toy figures such as army soldiers or little people figures. You can also put beads or other small items in the slime for an added challenge to find and pull out.
- Rice or beans in a container – You can create an engaging activity for kids by putting tiny objects such as beads, coins, or rocks in a tub or container filled with rice or beans. Kids can then search for and extract these objects using their fingers or tongs. Additionally, you can practice counting the number of objects they pull out and teach coin identification and their respective values to kids who have that understanding. This is one of my favorite fine motor activities.
- Containers and jars with lids – Taking off container lids, filling them with items, and replacing the lids can be great fine motor activities. These are simple activities but can be made harder or more difficult if and when needed.
- Fine Motor crafts – Take a look at some of my blog posts on creating crafts, particularly using cardboard to make holiday garlands or fun toys. Depending on your child’s age they can be simple to complex and involve a lot of fine motor skills. So, it’s important to adjust the craft to your child’s age and ability.
- Making and painting ornaments – Ornaments can be made from dough and dried out or baked. Then the ornaments can be colored in whatever medium you would like to use. This can be extra fun for a Christmas fine motor activity.
- Making cookies – Use cookie cutters to cut out sugar cookies and then decorate them. This can be fun for fine motor activities for all the different holidays throughout the year.
- Hole punching – A hole punch is a great way to work on hand strength to increase fine motor control.
- Taping objects – When learning fine motor skills, pulling the tape off a dispenser and applying it to paper or an object can be a challenging task. However, you can use tape as an activity or craft to help young children improve their pincer grasp. Additionally, children can learn how to connect tape to create loops, which is another useful skill. This type of activity will also have the child working on bilateral coordination to be able to connect the tape.
- Clothes pins– I love working with clothes pins. To begin with, having a child squeeze the clothespin to open and close is good for strengthening those fingers.
- For learning the alphabet, use regular clothespins and write a letter on each one. You can also do this with shapes, colors, and numbers.
- If you have colored clothespins, use those for an added fun and great activity. Using plain ones is better so your child can color them. First, have your child color the clothespins—one color for each clothespin. Next, they can match up the pins to a corresponding bin of that color that they must squeeze open and put on the rim of that bin.
- When using letter or numbered clothespins, you can arrange them on a string in alphabetical order (ABC) or numerical order (123). Please refer to the picture I have posted for better understanding. You can tie the string to a door and then to a cabinet or any other item that works for you.
- Hiding clothespins around the room and then putting them on a string in order can be a fun activity. That can incorporate those gross motor skills as well.
- If you have a small ball pit at home, you can hide clothespins in it for a fun game. Alternatively, you can create a box filled with packing peanuts, dry beans, or rice, and hide the clothespins in it. Then, let the children find the clothespins and pull them out for a fun activity.
All in all, it is endless on all the possible fine motor activities you can do at home with your child.
When working with children, it is important to make all activities fun and engaging so that they don’t perceive it as work. If they enjoy the activity, they will be more likely to continue participating in fine motor activities, which can help them strengthen their small muscles. As a result, they will be more inclined to work for longer periods and remain focused on the task at hand.
Start with short activity periods, gradually increasing time on task. Stop when they lose interest and allow breaks or stop altogether.
Try making this a family fun night playing games all the while working on fine motor skills. If the whole family is involved you can come up with fine motor activities everyone will enjoy doing together.
Messy play is a sensory play that can incorporate fine motor skills and is an excellent method to enhance fine motor skills in children. When kids engage in a messy and enjoyable activity, they won’t even realize that it’s a fine motor skill practice.
Sensory-based activities are fantastic for engaging children in the process. If weather permits, these activities can be done outside, which will help improve both their fine motor and gross motor skills depending on what is involved.
For instance, you could have a box of items, such as clothespins, placed on top of a slide or play equipment. The child would have to climb up to get one item and then slide back down.
An example of combining both gross and fine motor skills would be to create an obstacle course either indoors or outdoors. The child could crawl down the hall or on the grass to reach the box of items, hop back to you with one of the items, and then put it in the container.
What are fine motor skills?
Fine motor skills are those skills you develop by using your hands and fingers. The more you use your hands and fingers the stronger your muscles get, therefore allowing you to do smaller tasks with them. This is very important as this will help kids begin to do small fine motor tasks in everyday living.
Why are fine motor skills important?
Fine motor skills are used in our everyday world to help us do the things we need to be independent. As a result, kids will become more independent when they can do things for themselves.
- Fine motor skills are needed for these daily life skills:
- Feed Themselves
- Draw/color/write
- Do self-care chores
- Brushing their teeth
- Using a hairbrush
- Getting dressed and buttoning or zipping up their clothes as well as getting undressed
- Opening and closing things like a door, containers, zip lock bags, and food or drink items
- Tying shoes
Fine motor skills development usually begins as babies learn to use their hands and fingers. As they grow older and enter preschool or elementary school, they should focus on refining these skills. This refinement will help them perform several tasks, including handwriting, which they will begin to learn during this period.
If you notice that your child is having a lot of difficulties in performing fine motor activities and doesn’t seem to be doing what other kids their age are doing, be sure to talk to your pediatrician. They may just need to work on these skills more at home and increase their hand and grip strength. However, there may be a bigger reason that needs to be looked into. A healthcare provider may recommend that your child see an Occupational Therapist. Occupational therapy can greatly help those kiddos who need it.
Discover fun activities for your kids to enjoy.
If your child is more motivated by treats or snacks, try doing fine motor skills activities with food. When kids have fun while building their muscles, they tend to stay on task longer.
To conclude, the most important thing to remember is to let them have fun while doing activities and make it a positive experience.