Easy Cheap Fine Motor Activities at Home

Samantha Cooper, MS, OTR/L

October 19th, 2021

Fine Motor Activities Chosen by Pediatric Therapists

We often think about fine motor skills as the skills required to manipulate a pencil for legible handwriting or to manage clothing fasteners. Considering that handwriting and independent dressing skills are not yet developmentally appropriate for your toddler or preschooler, it is through many naturally occurring play activities that you can help support the developmental progression of the fine motor skills. These fine motor skills activities are excellent ways to encourage fine motor development while having some fun!

Jump Ahead:

Indoor Fine Motor Activities
Outdoor Fine Motor Activities
Fine Motor Precision Activities
Fine Motor Strength Activities
Fine Motor Skills Games

What are Fine Motor Skills?

Fine motor skills are thought of as the movements that involve the fingers and the hands, fine motor skills are essential for supporting independence with dressing, feeding, eating and performance in school. The best way to foster fine motor efficiency and supplement your child's occupational therapy is to build practice into your child's everyday routine with fine motor skills activities at home. Now, let's dive into our favorite fine motor activities!

Fine Motor Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers

Listed below are fine motor skills activities for parents or caretakers to try with their toddler at home to help the developmental progression of fine motor skills. While some of these activities may be done independently, we recommend supervising your toddler when playing with small items.

1. Peeling and Placing Stickers

Place stickers on your child's hands or clothing and have them peel them off. For an added challenge, take a piece of paper and draw open circles to give your child targets in which to place the stickers. The grasp required to peel a sticker works toward the pincer grasp required for manipulating a button. The visual motor coordination required for placing the sticker within a target works toward the visual motor coordination required for inserting the button within a hole.

2. Stringing Cheerios

Start by using something that holds its shape (e.g. a pipe cleaner or piece of uncooked spaghetti) and string Cheerios across. To progress this activity, use a string. The use of two hands for completing two different tasks simultaneously and the visual motor coordination required for inserting the lace through the hole are precursor skills for attaching the pin of a zipper and pulling the slider up the chain.

3. Ripping or Crumpling Paper

Create a mosaic craft by ripping paper into small pieces. This bimanual activity works on strengthening the small muscles of the hand and promotes bimanual use of a tripod grasp, similar to what is required to unsnap the snaps of a jacket.

4. Placing Coins in a Piggy Bank

Picking up the coins encourages use of a pincer grasp and orienting them to the slot of the bank requires visual motor coordination, similarly to buttoning. Increase the challenge by first sorting and stacking the coins, which would require a precision grasp around the edges of the coin and visual perceptual skills to identify matches based on size. This is similar to identifying and placing the top of the toothpaste tube or water bottle.

5. Squeezing Clothespins or Chip Clips

One idea for fine motor clothespin activities is using preferred board book and having your child attach the clothespin to the book to create "legs" for the characters and have the book stand up. Another fine motor clothespin activity idea is to attach the clothespins to your child's clothing and have them try to locate and remove them. Increase the challenge by doing this without the use of a mirror, addressing body awareness that supports independent dressing. The opening and closing of the hand as you squeeze and release the clothespins is a precursor for the motion and strength required for opening and closing a scissor. Bonus points if your child uses his thumb on one side of the clothespin and index and middle finger on the other side of the clothespin. With this finger placement, you're working towards a mature pencil grasp.

Fine Motor Activities for an Outdoor Adventure

6. Sidewalk Chalk

Sidewalk chalk is an inexpensive tool (often available at the dollar or 99cent store) that can help your child build fine motor skills. Drawing on the sidewalk or driveway will help your child build hand and finger strength and improve coordination while stimulating creativity at the same time. The bonding, laughing and fresh air don't hurt either!

7. Threading and Lacing

Laces and beads can form the basis of an activity that encourages bilateral integration and concentration. By slowly threading laces through the beads, your child will be boosting muscle memory, which will make similar everyday tasks easier to complete. Start with larger beads and then gradually make them smaller as they become more adept. Mix up the threading challenge by threading Cheerios on pipe cleaners or Rigatoni on yarn.

8. Making Putty Figures

Putty is an effective tool to develop hand and finger strength. You can add putty to your fine motor skill activity list whether your child is only capable of squeezing the putty in their hands to alter the shape or can use their fingertips to sculpt specific shapes and figures. Try rolling balls, making snakes, and hiding coins or beads inside to increase the fine motor strengthening challenge.

9. Pick Up Sticks

Pick up sticks is a classic game where sticks are scattered on a tabletop or other hard surface and players are required to pick them up carefully one stick at a time. Focus on improving finger isolation by encouraging your child to use the index finger and thumb for one round, middle finger and thumb for the next, and so on.

10. Popping Bubbles

Bubbles – an ultimate child favorite – are a great and easy way to add fine motor fun to your day. Just blow some bubbles and have your child visually track them and reach out to grab them before they float away. Your child can poke them with one finger at a time, pinch them with a couple of fingers or grab them with their entire hand.

11. Sorting Coins or Beads

Coin and bead sorting will help develop hand and finger strength and teach your child how to identify different items and group them together. For this activity, you can place several coins and/or multi-colored beads in a container, in a box or on a table and have your child pick up and sort them based on the type of coin or bead color. Ice cube trays make great sorting containers.

Fine Motor Precision Activities

Here are some fun activities to do at home to work on fine motor precision. Add a timed component, or sequential steps to add the increased challenge of improving manual dexterity.

12. Threading to make a necklace or a bracelet with cereal or beads
13. Mazes
14. Perler beads
15. Snipping on a line
16. Inserting coins into a piggy bank
17. Using glue on a precise target for an art project
18. Putting pegs into a pegboard
19. Engaging in puzzles

Fin e Motor Strength Activities

Here are some activities for your child to do at home in order to improve your fine motor strength:

20. Squeezing playdough or theraputty
21. Making something out of dough, such as pizza or cookies
22. Using syringes and eye droppers for art projects
23. Picking up items with tweezers, clothesline pins, or kitchen tongs
24. Using a hole puncher for art activities
25. Engaging in origami
26. Finding leaves outside, using them as a stencil placed below a paper, and using the appropriate amount of strength to color over to create an indent of the leave's shape

Try New Fine Motor Skill Games

You didn't think an OT would leave out fine motor play from a list of awesome fine motor activities, did you? Where to begin?! Some fun fine motor activities and games for school-age kids might include:

27. Painting with a squirt bottle
28. Squirting down a tower of cups
29. Building marshmallow sculptures
30. Playing with LEGOs
31. Create pictures with a Lite Brite
32. Play games like Connect 4, Uno, Kerplunk, Jenga, Operation, Angry Birds building and launching game, or Mancala.

We Hope You Enjoyed These Fine Motor Skills Activities!

As self-directed and hands-on play, the list above is perfect if you're looking for OT fine motor activities. You could even incorporate these fine motor activities for preschoolers at home. We hope you have fun trying these fine motor activities with your 1, 2, or 3 year olds! It's no secret that parental involvement in the occupational therapy journey provides better results. By integrating fun fine motor activities at home to help boost fine motor skills into your child's everyday routine, you can add tremendous value to your child's therapy program.

Find More Therapist-Approved Activities and Resources in the NAPA Blog

5 Fine Motor Skills Toys Recommended by an OT
Sensory Bins for Toddlers: Our Favorite Ideas and Items
Gross Motor Development for Infants and Toddlers
How to Tame Your Sensory Seeker
Summertime Speech and Language Fun
15 Activities to Build Gross Motor Skills
7 Water Play Activities for Summer Sensory Fun
5 Easy Exercises to Improve Proprioception Awareness

About NAPA Center

At NAPA Center, we take an individualized approach to pediatric therapy because we understand that each child is unique with very specific needs. We embrace differences with an understanding that individualized programs work better. For this reason, no two therapeutic programs are alike. If your child needs our services, we will work closely with you to select the best therapies for them, creating a customized program specific to your child's needs and your family's goals. Let your child's journey begin today by contacting us to learn more.

cartwrightsprobve.blogspot.com

Source: https://napacenter.org/fine-motor-activities/