Activities to Develop Fine Motor Skills
Fine motor skills are the coordination of small muscle movements which occur in the
fingers, usually in coordination with the eyes. The small muscles in children’s fingers and
hands need a great deal of practice and exercise. This list of activities will provide you
with a variety of interesting activities for developing fine motor skills, including prewriting
skills and eye-hand coordination.
Puzzles—There are many commercial puzzles that you can purchase for your child or
you can make your own as follows:
*Cut off the front of a cereal box. Cut the box into 3-10 pieces and store in a zip-lock
bag.
*Glue colorful magazine pictures to cardboard. Then cut them into puzzle pieces.
To make puzzles more difficult, ask your child to do them with his eyes closed or to put
the puzzle together outside the frame.
Clay and Play Dough—Play dough is inexpensive to purchase but you can also make
your own using the recipe below. Add rolling pins, cookie cutters, gadgets that make
prints (such as spools, straws, forks), or toy dishes. Your child will also enjoy cutting the
dough with scissors or a plastic knife (with supervision). Encourage poking, squeezing,
pounding, pressing, and kneading. Hide small objects in play dough and have your
child dig them out with his fingers.
Play Dough
1 cup flour
½ cup salt
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 ½ teaspoons vegetable oil
Food coloring
Mix the dry and wet ingredients separately before mixing them together. In a heavy skillet, cook
the mixture over low heat until it thickens, stirring frequently. Cool the dough; then knead it until
it is soft and smooth.
Playing with Silly Putty also will help strengthen little finger muscles.
Stringing—In addition to commercial items, there are many common items that can be
used for stringing: beads, cardboard tubes cut in 1” rings, spools, pretzel twists, buttons,
straws cut in ½” pieces, cereal, and pasta with holes.
Sewing—There are sewing cards with various themes or characters that can be
purchased. You can make your own sewing cards from styrofoam meat trays, paper
plates, plastic lids, or cardboard. Draw a picture with permanent markers, then holepunch around the edges. Use shoelaces, plastic cord, or yarn whose ends have been
dipped in glue as sewing laces. Your child might also enjoy sewing on burlap with a
large plastic needle.
Hammering—Have your child hammer golf tees or push pins into styrofoam with plastic
hammers.
Twisting and Turning—Collect several sizes of plastic jars and lids. Have your child fit the
lids to the appropriate jars and screw them on and off.
Hole-Punching—Give your child a hole puncher, some scrap paper, and a box to
catch the holes. Let him punch away!
Cutting—Start by teaching your child to snip, then how to cut straight lines, curves, and
more complicated shapes. Vary the paper he/she cuts—newspaper, construction
paper, wrapping paper, magazines, wallpaper, paper bags, etc. Also allow your child
to cut play dough.
Pinching—Have your child pinch clothespins and attach them to a hanger or box
edge. He/she may also enjoy picking up small objects with a clothespin and putting
them into a container. Try this: cut small squares of different colors of tissue paper and
mix together. Have your child pick up a given color of squares using a clothespin.
Tweezers and Small Tongs—Let your child use various sizes of tweezers and tongs to
move small objects (nuts, blocks, beans, buttons, cotton balls, pom poms, small toys,
etc.) from one ice cube tray or egg carton to another. Strawberry hullers work well too
for little fingers to transfer objects.
Basters and Eye Droppers—Fill a container with colored water. Using a baster, have
your child transfer the water to another container. Do the same activity with an eye
dropper and ask him/her to fill up a small bottle.
Templates and Patterns—Make cardboard patterns and templates for your child to
trace around or inside. Plastic lids from margarine tubs and styrofoam meat trays can
be used to make templates. Cookie cutters are great for tracing around.
Coloring—Coloring is an excellent small motor building activity. If your child is having
difficulty learning to color within the lines, draw shapes with Elmer’s Glue, let the glue
dry, and have your child color inside the dried glue lines.
Drawing—Help your child develop fine motor skills by drawing with him/her using
markers, crayons, colored pencils, and chalk. Drawings do not have to be perfect.
Squeezing—Soak a sponge or washcloth until it is completely wet. Have your child
squeeze out excess water.
Paper Folding—Show your child how to make fans, hats, airplanes, simple origami items.
Rubbings—Place a sheet of paper over items of different textures, cardboard letters,
numbers, or paper doilies. Have your child rub a crayon over the paper until texture of
design underneath shows through.
Tracing—Place paper over simple coloring book pictures and have your child use
pencils or crayons to trace over them. Other tracing activities include tracing letters,
numbers, shapes, words.
Mazes and Dot-to-Dots—Solve mazes and dot-to-dots on paper with pencil.
Paper Tearing—Let your child tear paper into small pieces and use to fill in a larger
design such as an apple.
Finger Painting—Let your child finger paint on a sheet of paper or in a tray or cookie
sheet.
Weaving—Using a potato bag, your child can weave yarn in and out through the
loosely woven threads of the bag.
Board Games—Board games with pieces and parts to pick up and move are ideal for
developing fine motor skills.
Coins and Buttons—Make sure your child uses an “O” grasp to pick up coins or buttons.
Have him/her insert them into a slot cut into a yogurt container lid.
Stacking—Have your child stack objects such as coins, checkers, cards, blocks.
Finger Puppets—Buy or make finger puppets and have your child use them to act out
rhymes and songs.
Spray Bottles—Let your child use spray bottles to spray shaving cream off the inside of
the sink, to spray designs on the driveway, and with colored water to “paint” in the
snow.
Commercial Toys—There are many commercial toys that require children to assemble
small pieces: Legos, Bristle Blocks, Gears, Tinker Toys, Pegboards, Interlocking Cubes,
Chain Links, and more.
So get those little hands and fingers working!