You know that using hands-on activities to improve fine motor skills is important. You also know that you should help your children strengthen their little hands. But what do we do about this? In this article, I will teach you fine motor skills and how to help your preschooler with hand strength. I will also share 50 fine motor skills activities to practice small movements through play.
RELATED: What comes next? Pencil grip, of course. Here are 25 activities for kids to improve pencil grip.
What are fine motor skills?
Fine motor skills are small finger and hand movements that develop the small hand muscles, hand-eye coordination, and a pincer grasp. Early learners need to use fine motor skills activities to prepare their hands for life skills such as writing, zipping, shoe tying, and so much more.
RELATED: Sensory play is just as important as fine motor skills activities. See how to get started with sensory play here.
Craving a calmer morning?
Breakfast Invitations are simple learning games that begin the day with play.
How do you teach fine motor skills?
Teach fine motor skills to young children through everyday activities. This includes using a spray bottle to help wash windows, stretching rubber bands and wrapping them around paper tubes, and pushing pom poms through small holes. All of these simple ideas help improve fine motor control.
Pretty great, isn’t it? Fine motor development starts here, and now. These are doable activities for busy parents.
Strong hands help ease the pressure of correctly forming a letter and allow the child time to gain the necessary confidence. After years of activities for fine motor skills, early learners will hit the ground running from the preparation you gave them to have stellar manual dexterity.
PRO TIP: If you take one thing away, I want you to remember that fine motor skills are best developed through play rather than pencil and paper. Three, four, and five-year-olds (and myself) are urging us to slow down and allow motor skills to be developed through play rather than pencil and paper.
Activities that support fine motor
Cutting, connecting, gripping, grasping, painting, ripping, stacking, squeezing, and twisting are activities that support fine motor skills. Kids can do these everyday tasks independently (with practice) to improve hand strength.
Let’s dive in! Here are my favorite ways to help young children strengthen their little hands. Fine motor practice has become a passion because it is simple to encourage and kids have a blast.
1. Cutting
I know it can be frightening to hand scissors to a preschooler. Yet, the more a preschooler has access to and practices with scissors, the less nerve-racking it becomes. Over time, children learn to hold their hands and position their wrists to cut straight lines. And good news! We don’t have to get there overnight. Head to my list of cutting activities for kids to learn how to help children hold scissors, along with 20 creative ways to play.
Cut and Rescue
Using painter’s tape is a great way to encourage scissor practice. The bears are inside the muffin tin and must be cut and rescued. It is a fun way to combine pretend play with scissor skills. (Using an ice tray will make this more challenging.)
2. Using blocks
Blocks play an important role in grasping small items and building resilience as they tumble.
Stack the Blocks
This activity challenges children to see how tall they can stack the blocks before they crash down. Try the activity using other manipulatives, such as rocks, small cubes, and dice, a few times.
3. Playing with playdough
Play dough is a childhood staple for all age groups. It gets finger muscles moving and entertains many children for long periods. (Yes, please!) Often, we don’t need a clever idea to go with the play dough. With this tool, children truly know what to do!
Cut the Play Dough
Strengthen your child’s little hands, get comfortable holding scissors, and maybe even drink the coffee before it gets reheated in the microwave.
4. Peeling with Stickers
Calling all families with half-used sticker sheets. These easy ideas are for you! Simple activities are the best.
Sticker Match
This learning through-play activity is simple, easy to set up, and packed with a fine motor punch. Sticker Match is also a risk-free way to improve pencil grip!
Circle the Sticker
Try this fun activity to use up all those half-used sticker sheets shoved into your junk drawer. This conversation starter sticker activity will get your early learners chatting!
5. Twisting pipe cleaners
Pipe cleaners are another simple tool to help reach fine motor milestones. I included all of my favorite ideas in this collection of pipe cleaner crafts.
Pipe Cleaner Wands
This simple activity is a sneaky way to build fine motor strength as your child twists and wraps the pipe cleaners.
6. Grasping pom poms
Good news! If you have a bag of unused pom poms, now is the time to bring them out. Playing with pom poms is a great opportunity for children to strengthen their finger muscles as they grasp.
Pom Pom Match
- Open the bag of Pom Poms.
- Sit across from the other player.
- Take turns finding matches.
- Place each match on the line.
Sort and Deliver
Introduce bilateral coordination as your child moves from one side to the next, sorting and delivering the pom poms.
7. Squirting shaving cream
Shaving cream is one of my preschooler’s favorite materials for sensory play. Yep, it falls into the messy sensory play category, but it can be cleaned up quickly with a hose. If your child likes to go all in with their senses, these ideas are for you.
Shaving Cream Tracks
What started as a problem (there were only three squirts of shaving cream left in the can) quickly turned into an epic sensory play experience.
Shaving Cream Cake
This cake-decorating messy play is a win. You will most likely already have the supplies needed to get started.
8. Playing with puzzles
Puzzles have been a big part of my boy’s childhood, so I included our favorite puzzles for toddlers, preschoolers, and big kids in one place. Puzzle play practices focus on paying attention to small details.
MAGNETIC PUZZLE
Magnetic tiles are open-ended, which means exactly what you may think. There is no official start or stop. The play is endless, and the tiles are played differently every single time. This magnetic puzzle idea is genius.
9. Squeezing a a hole punch
Office supplies are some of the best fine motor tools! Find your hole punch and keep it accessible for your child to explore.
Hole Punching
Kids love the hole puncher. Once they see the magic of pressing down and making tiny circles, it is as if they just discovered chocolate-dipped Oreos. (Now I am hungry.) This preschool hole-punching fine motor activity gives them life.
10. Peeling painter’s tape
Painter’s tape is one of my most used kid activity supplies. (No one told me I would need a life supply!) Painter’s tape creates a world of imagination and creative play prompts can be set up in less than five minutes. Gosh, I just love it.
Creative Thinking
Offer your child painter’s tape and ask them to create a bridge for the bears to cross over the river. You will set up in less than five minutes and then your child takes the lead.
Will it Stick
Gather small objects and invite your child to see which ones will stick and hold onto the painter’s tape.
What about pencil grip?
Pencil grip is another fine motor skill that needs a little prep work. We must strengthen the small hand muscles before asking our children to write numbers and letters. We can add these fine motor activities into our daily routine.
Through activities, we can improve pencil grip with risk-free invitations to write lines and curves. Here is a larger list of my favorite fine motor activities for kids.
- Sticker Match: Place stickers on one side of a piece of paper, then randomly place matching stickers on the other. Watch your child use a marker to draw across the paper and match up the stickers!
- Color by Number: Draw a scary monster or animal on paper (it doesn’t have to be good, trust me!). Then, split it into sections and put a number in each area. Write a code down the side of the paper using colors and numbers (e.g., 1 = orange). Your child will look at the number in each section and use the correct marker to color it in.
- Fall Leaf Painting: Draw some leaves on craft paper and watch your little one paint them.
- Monster Dot Marker Maze: Draw little monster faces randomly on paper using different color makers. Ask your child to draw lines with the same color pen that matches your monster faces!
- Treasure Map Color Hunt: Dash a path of random curves and lines on a large piece of paper using a marker. Add pirate drawings to make it fun and some colorful stickers to help your toddler follow the path to the treasure!
- Mystery Shape Build: Lightly draw out shapes using a pencil and stick colored dots on the edges (make sure you space them out). Then, invite your child to follow the pencil lines to each dot.
- Things I Like: Gather your random leftover stickers and put them on a large piece of paper. Ask them to cross out the ones they don’t like and draw around the ones they do.
- Find Your Name: Write out random names using colored markers and see if your child can circle their name.
- Apple Connect: Draw apples spaced out on paper and watch your child connect them. These simple ideas make great fine motor skills activities for toddlers.
- Highlighter Trace: Draw out an image using a sharpie, then get your little ones to trace over it using highlighters. Sip your coffee while they enjoy some morning fun!
- Paint the Sticks: Pour some paint into a paint palette and give your child different-sized brushes so they can paint the stick. You can join in too! It’s a bit of a messy one that provides hours of fun.
- Alphabet Dot to Dot: Create the outline of letters and see if your child can join the dots to write out the letter.
Squeezing
Squeezing can also build small hand muscles for writing! These easy activities will invite your child to play and practice squeezing.
- Shape Dig: Bury some building blocks in playdough, then ask your little one to use squeezy plastic tongs to dig them out. Once they’ve unburied the block, they can pick it up using the squeezer and place it in a tray!
- Poke the Alphabet: This is the same as shape dig but using letters instead.
- Bear Boat Rescue: Put some plastic bear toys on a sheet of blue paper and get your child to rescue them using squeezy plastic tongs.
- Crack and Sort: Scribble down some colored squares on paper, then hide colored pompoms inside plastic Easter eggs. Watch as they open them and match the pompom to the marker color. You can sit back and enjoy some easter chocolate while you watch!
- Egg Drop: Grab a cupboard box and cut a hole in it. Place a bowl of plastic eggs nearby and get your toddler to pick an egg up and drop it into the hole with squeezy kitchen tongs.
- Wash the Socks: Draw a washing machine on a box (the door and some fake buttons will do), then cut a slot in the top. Ask your little one to pick up socks using tongs and drop them in.
- “Ketchup and Mustard” Color Mix-Up: Fill one squeezy bottle with yellow paint and another with red. See if your child can squirt the paint into a sensory bin and mix the colors!
- Crack a Name: Write random names on pieces of paper and fold them up inside plastic Easter eggs. Write the same names on a separate piece of paper so the kids can crack the eggs and match the names.
- Rethink Your Playdough: Get your playdough and gather loose parts from around the house (like pasta, old corks, and pebbles). Your child will get creative, picking them up and squashing them into the play dough.
- Hot Lava Volcano Rescue: Draw a volcano with hot lava spilling out. Place plastic toys inside your masterpiece, and get your toddler to rescue the bears with squeezy tongs!
- Squirt the Ice: Fill up some squeezy bottles with paint and get your tiny one to squirt it all over some ice.
- Clothespin Squeeze: Gather old cardboard tubes and attach clothes pegs to the ends. Your toddler will have fun figuring out how to squeeze and open the pegs with their tiny hands.
- Save the Pumpkins: Grab some mini plastic pumpkins, then ask your child to pick them up with tongs and place them in a pot.
- Neon Squirt: Put some neon paint in squeezy bottles and get your little ones to squirt them into a sensory bin.
- Squirt the Alphabet: Draw letters from the alphabet on pieces of cards and stick them on a wall outside. Fill up a spray or squeezy bottle with water, then call out a letter so your child can squirt the right one!
- Paint the Shredded Paper: Fill some with paint (I like using primary colors), then watch your preschoolers color a tub of shredded paper with paint. Easy!
- Squirt the Numbers: It’s the same as squirting the alphabet with numbers!
- Simple Clay Activity: Ask your child to draw out shapes on a brown paper bag, then squeeze the clay to make it match and fit in the outline. If your kid wants to make something more creative, let them do it!
- Fingerprint Lights: Using a marker, draw out a string of fairy lights, then get your child to press their fingers into the paint and then onto the paper to create the lights! I love this one for Christmas, and it is a great home decoration.
Grasping
- Drive and Park: Mark out parking spaces using painter’s tape, then add colored squares. Watch your child drive the same-colored car into the same-colored parking space!
- DIY Coin Bank: Cut slots into a milk carton and label each slot with the numbers of different coins. See if your child can find the correct coin for each space.
- Toddler Roads: Create roads using painter’s tape, then watch your little one follow the road using toy cars. It’s so simple to set up that you can enjoy your coffee before it gets cold – win!
- Simple Weaving Activity: Get a piece of cardboard and cut slits in it so you slide in and wrap around pieces of string. See if your child can push bits of colored cards under and around the string.
- Block Build: Draw some crosses on a piece of paper and see if your kids can stack things in the center of the cross. Chat with them and encourage them as they try it out.
- Snowman Home: Make a snowman from white marshmallows, then ask your kid to build it home using white Lego.
- Bears on a Ladder: Draw a tree with ladders going up it (basically just lines!), then get your toddler to place bears on the ‘steps’ of the ladder. What could be easier?
- Monster Eyes: Make a few monsters’ outlines (hit Google if you’re not so hot at drawing!). Then, write a number at the top of each monster. Your kid sticks the same number of googly eyes on each one.
- Pick a Color: Cut some slits in a large box, then color the end of some jumbo craft sticks. See if they can slot the sticks in, pull them out, and name the color.
- Bring the Bears Home: Practice essential prewriting skills moving across the curved lines.
- Button Push: Push buttons into small slots to practice hand-eye coordination.
Practicing Fine Motor Skills Activity Through Play is Critical for Development
These fine motor skills activities will give your child a huge advantage in writing when ready. They will prepare the small hand muscles for proper pencil grip and letter formation.
Give toddlers these fine motor skills activities a go, and watch them have fun!
As always, I would love to hear from you. In the comments, tell me your thoughts about fine motor skills and your favorite activity!
