Children’s Occupational Therapy
FINE MOTOR COORDINATION
Many children struggle with manipulating objects such as for arts and craft or with
buttons, zips and laces. This is often in part due to the difficulties in coordinating
their hands to carry out many fine motor tasks, therefore this programme looks at
further developing these skills.
 Hand Awareness
A child may require further activities to help them become more aware of their
hands, in order for them to progress with more complex fine motor tasks:
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Clapping games to music, e.g pat a cake
Playing in different textures, e.g sand, water, play dough
Finger and hand puppets
Drawing on hands with face paints etc…
Finger painting
Musical instruments
Massage the hands with creams, oils
 Hand Strengthening
To strengthen the child’s hands/arms to provide a stable base in which to carry out
fine motor activities:
 Tug of war games
 Climbing apparatus
 Kneading dough or playdough, can be adapted into
cookery, baking for older children
 Gardening using trowel or hand fork.
 Children’s basic carpentry games– hammer, saw.
 Throw/catch heavy/large balls.
 Crumble newspaper and use as balls to throw at targets.
 Wring out clothes/sponges. Can do a relay race and transfer water from
bucket to bucket by squeezing out the water.
 Potatoe mashers … and stirring in cooking.
 Sand and water play games with jugs, buckets, spades and scoops.
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For older children:
 Stress balls or hand grips
 Use a hand help stapler or holepunch to make a picture
 Fine Motor Coordination
Once the child has developed the strength to carry out fine motor tasks, he/she
needs to be able to co-ordinate their hands and fingers in order to achieve more
dynamic skills with their hands.
(Younger child)
 Encourage the child to poke fingers into play dough, cookie dough etc…
 Jumping frogs
 Finger rhymes (available – Early Learning Centre book or children’s book
stores.
 Telephone and pop up games using index finger
 Popping bubbles with index finger
 Clothes peg games. Make a cage around animals in a shoe box.
 Wind up toys, posting toys, turning pages of a book
 Building tower blocks with 1” cubes.
 Sorting objects – buttons of various sizes and colours into containers.
 Threading beads onto thread
 Pegboard activities, sewing cards
 Small handled puzzle pieces.
 Unscrew/screw small bottles/jars and nuts/bolts games.
(Advanced activities or older child)
 Computer key board
 Place different textured materials, liquids and objects in sections of egg
carton. Encourage child to put index finger inside egg box to feel contents.
 Place masking tape around top of index finger and encourage child to pick up
dried peas, hundreds and thousands, coloured sand, small scraps of paper
etc.
 Operate cassette recorder, telephone dial.
 Hold piece of card or pencil tightly between thumb and fingers and do not
allow someone to pull it out of your grip.
 Large tweezers to pick up and sort objects (can be a
team race) or in art to handle materials when sticking
(found in a number of commercially available games).
 Scrunch up tissue paper into tiny balls (can be made into
a collage) with finger tips only.
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Popping bubble wrap.
Operate cassette recorder, telephone dials
Loop small elastic band around fingers and spread apart.
Hold a thick elastic band between thumb and finger tips of each hand and
stretch band as far as possible. Measure distance on ruler.
 Playing with travel games (small pieces)
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