6 Fun Fine Motor Skills Activities For Kids

Part of a child’s development from a very early age is to develop those fine motor skills. So let’s take a look at 6 fun fine motor skills activities for kids that can help them to develop and grow. Fine Motor Skills are the ability to make movements using the small muscles in our hands and wrists.

We rely on these skills to do most tasks, even the simplest of ones such as brushing our hair, twisting a cap on a bottle, doing the button on our shirt. Children have to learn how to do these simple tasks, not just their brains, but their hands too. They need to build up the muscles and the strength in their hands and wrists in order to accomplish these otherwise simple tasks.

At different stages in a child’s life will there be opportunities for them to practice new fine motor skills – the skills we learn that allow us to hold objects, move things and push objects and interact with others. They’re essential to our own personal development and are key for your child’s first steps as they grow. This post gives a few simple examples of fun activities you can do with your child to encourage them to develop their fine motor skills.

Disclaimer: This is a collaborative guest post.

Fun Activities To Develop Your Child’s Fine Motor Skills

To continue to develop your child’s fine motor skills, here are a few fun activities you can try to improve their muscles, coordination and support from this day nursery in Kew.

Playdough And Slime Fine Motor Skills Activities

Playtime that involves oobleck, dough, putty or slime is all great for children to play using their hands. Making funny shapes, putting parts together, rolling out dough and even throwing it around are testing your child’s hand and finger movements. This kind of material activates sensory movement as well, with different smells, textures and shapes to be made.

Painting Activities

You can make a whole host of painting activities for your child with paintbrushes, sponges or using their own hands and feet to make their own creations. These activities strengthen a child’s hand strength and being able to make clear and strong movements with a brush or sponge. 

Sewing, Stitching and Threading

Sewing and the simple act of stitching is a great activity to develop fine motor skills in your child. Simply get a needle (not too sharp), and a piece of fabric, even an old table cloth, sheet or shirt, and some thread and get your child to practice stitching. You can draw a line on the fabric in pencil, and as their fine motor skills progress, you can draw circles, squares, and even cat faces, or trees.

You could even get one of those bead making kits and get your kids to thread beads onto a string. A fun way to do this activity for younger children is to get them to thread round cereal pieces onto a thread.

Have Fun Gardening

Let your children get muddy by letting them plant seeds or harvesting vegetables. Using smaller muscles is still a great skill to instil early on, something that planting and gardening help with. Even asking your child to hold a watering can, hold tools for you or play within the soil all contribute to better motor movements within their hands and arms.

My friend Jacqui has this fun post on planting herbs in an eggshell which I think is brilliant to get those little fingers moving and their brains concentrating.

Water Play

In a paddling pool or a larger swimming pool where a child can practice their strokes – either can benefit your child’s hand and arm movements, strengthen muscles and improve their technique. In fact, water play can be seen as a way to practice movement all across the body and improves children’s coordination.

Baking

Baking is a great way to exercise those little fingers and brains at the same time. From playing with the flour to rolling dough, cutting cookies, and squishing the biscuit mixture, baking is one of those fun fine motor skills activities that all children love. As someone who is not a fan of messy play, even I have to admit that baking, has many benefits, not just to the kids either!

Within each of these sections there are many ways to interpret the fine motor skills activities – but in essence, you simply need to think creatively about how to get those little fingers moving. Hand to eye coordination is something we all work on improving every single day, it’s not just as children.