20 Engaging Fine Motor Activities for Kids - Fantastic Fun & Learning (2024)

FAQs

What are some activities that help fine motor skills? ›

Provide interesting experiences which help children practice fine motor skills. Cooking, gardening, sewing, fixing and making things are all good examples of activities that involve using tools and small movements with accuracy and precision.

What are Fine Motor skills? Fine motor skills involve the use of the smaller muscle of the hands, commonly in activities like using pencils, scissors, construction with lego or duplo, doing up buttons and opening lunch boxes.

Structured Fine Motor Activities

Teachers may organize activities like finger painting, cutting with scissors, playing with playdough, using tweezers to pick up small objects, or lacing beads—all of which help kids refine their finger movements and hand coordination.

Fine-motor activities

◗ Play with playdough, biscuit dough or exercise putty – knead, squeeze, roll, cut out using cutters, squeeze playdough through a garlic crusher. ◗ Make as many playdough sausages as you can in one minute. Then cut up the sausages with scissors or a plastic knife.

Legos: Legos are excellent for working on fine motor skills as it develops grasp along with intrinsic hand strength having to push them together and pull them apart. Legos also improve hand-eye coordination and bilateral coordination since a child has to use both upper extremities to manipulate the pieces.

Precision teachers often build frequencies on the Big 6 + 6, which include reach, touch, point, place, grasp, release, push, pull, shake, squeeze, tap, and twist (Binder, Haughton, & Bateman, 2002; Desjardins 1995).

Fine motor skills involve finer hand control or the ability to manipulate smaller objects with the hands and fingers, for example, grasping, holding a pen/pencil, writing, painting, or pinching.

Puzzles Develop Fine Motor Skills

Toddlers and small children exercise their fine motor skills when they do Puzzles. Grasping and fiddling with puzzle pieces activates the smaller muscles in your child's hands and wrists, while selecting and placing the individual pieces improves your child's hand-eye coordination.

Manipulating crayons improves a child's dexterity and fine motor skills. Coloring improves hand-eye coordination, which is essential in learning to write letters. Kids learn about force with crayons. A mark can be light or very dark depending on the amount of pressure they use when they draw.

What sport is an example of fine motor skills? ›

Fine skills involve precise movements using small muscle groups. These movements are performed with great detail and generally involve high levels of hand-eye coordination. A snooker shot or the hand movements when throwing a dart are examples of fine skills.

Fine Motor:

Manipulate small objects comfortably. Tie shoe laces and undo small buttons needed for dressing. Writing is legible and can write for long periods of time.

6-year-olds will become more adept at drawing and writing letters, and their pictures and stories will look much more recognizable and legible. 7-year-olds can perform more difficult movements such as twisting, turning or spinning while standing in one place.

Strengthen hand grasp by using a hole-punch, making paper balls and squeezing sponges. Spraying with trigger type spray bottles. Provide opportunities for practicing timed grasp and release with tools other than scissors. Try using tweezers or tongs to sort cotton balls, blocks, play dough or balls.

Puzzles are great for improving fine motor skills because they are typically graded, meaning you can start with larger pieces and make the pieces smaller as the user's fine motor skills improve. You can use puzzles as an exercise to improve fine motor skills in adults and children because all ages can enjoy puzzles.

Fine motor skills refer to the small movements of the hands, wrists, fingers, feet, toes, lips, and tongue and they involve the coordination of smaller muscles. They involve actions such as drawing, writing, buttoning, eating, etc.