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Fine Motor Fall Favorites
- Gabrielle Fischer Posted On Oct 7, 2020 | Motor Skills
Make It a Fine Motor Fall!
Fine motor skills are so important while you are Building Someone Amazing! How well your child can hold a pencil or crayon, cut with scissors, or button their shirt has a lot to do with how developed their fine motor skills are. Luckily, developing fine motor skills – learning to control the small muscles in the hands and wrists – is easy! There are lots of simple ways to help your little one master fine motor movements at home and most of them are really fun. So why not make it a fine motor fall? We’re sharing some of our favorite fine motor activities below – try one each day and repeat each week until your little one’s fine motor skills are up to snuff. Start with:
Pipe Cleaner Pasta
Stringing beads is a great way to develop fine motor skills, but pipe cleaners and pasta make it much easier and less frustrating, which means your kids are more likely to come back and try it again (and again, and again).
- Start by dying a bag of uncooked, tubular pasta in a few different colors (just toss a handful of pasta in a ziplock baggie with a few drops of food coloring and shake – your kids will love this part, too)
- Once covered, shake the pasta out onto a paper towel and let it dry.
- Pull a few pipe cleaners out of the pack and make a loop in one end of each.
Shake the dried pasta together into a large bowl and let your child loose! - Show them how to choose a color, place it on the end of the pipe cleaner, and slide it down to the bottom. See if they can fill the entire pipe cleaner with pasta.
*For extra fun and learning, make a pattern on your pipe cleaner and see if your child can follow it – green, blue, green, blue for example. Then start a pattern and see if your child can figure out what comes next!
Tweezers and Tong Transfers
Grasping and manipulating tweezers and tongs is another fun way to build those fine motor skills!
- Start with a pair of large kitchen tongs and challenge your child to use them to stack a few blocks into a tower or move balled up socks from one mixing bowl to another.
- Next, try sorting a bowlful of colorful pom poms into matching colored slots in an egg carton using a pair of child-friendly tweezers.
- Triple the fun with Learning Resources’ Trip Grip Tongs – these three-pronged tongs are designed to strengthen the muscles and build the skills kids need to hold a pencil. Set out a bowl of marbles and see if your sweetie can use the Tongs to pick one up and move it to another bowl.
Learn a Slot
Save that coffee can! The plastic top and sturdy base are perfect for practicing slotting, another fine motor skill.
- Use a kitchen knife to carefully cut several slots slightly wider than your craft sticks into the top of an empty coffee can and replace the lid.
- Set out the same number of craft sticks as slots in your lid and show your child how to slide the stick into the slot.
- Count each stick as it slides into its slot, then count the total number of sticks. Count backwards as your child removes each stick. Once they’ve mastered slotting, add a challenge by writing numbers on the top of each stick and asking your little one to slot them into the lid in numerical order.
Spooky Sorting Trays
Sorting activities are such a great way to develop those all important fine motor skills when Building Someone Amazing. The small muscles in their hands are worked hard when grasping and releasing small manipulatives, and also when using fine motor tools. I love putting together simple sorting trays for my 3 year old. They are easy to set up but keep her engaged, and also provide the opportunity to work on colors, numbers and even literacy too. In this blog we are sharing three fun sorting trays which have a spooky twist ready for Halloween. The trays we use are lunch trays from Dollar Tree, the pumpkins and cauldrons are from Party City, and the erasers are from Target and Dollar Tree.
Big Pumpkin, Little Pumpkin: Sorting by Size
- Sorting by size is a great way to start your child with these kinds of activities. We kept things really simple and used a large pumpkin pot and a small pumpkin pot. On the tray there were large pumpkin erasers and small pumpkin erasers. My little one referred to them as Mommy and Baby pumpkins!
- I always like to include a fine motor tool with sorting trays but it’s worth mentioning that I never force my daughter to use it. Sometimes she just dives straight in and uses her hands to pick up the manipulatives, other times she will use the tool. Both ways are great for her fine motor skills! Here you can see she attempted to use the Tri-Grip Tongs for the entire activity which was great. This tool is a twist on traditional tongs because it has a third prong and encourages the child to coordinate more muscles to grasp the manipulative.
- My little one happily sorted the small pumpkins into the small pot, as well as the big pumpkins into the big pot. Once she was done we took the activity a little further and counted how many of each type we had, as well as how many pumpkins in total there were.
Pumpkin or Witch: Sorting by Type
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This one required a little more processing which meant there was more challenge in the activity for my 3 year old. She actually ended up liking it the most because she got to talk so much about witches and cats. There were Primary Science Jumbo Tweezers® available for her to use on the tray which was great for encouraging her pincer grasp.
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Her task was to sort the erasers into witch themed ones which went in the cauldron pot, and pumpkin themed ones which went in the pumpkin pot. There was lots of conversation about where the cat erasers should go, with my little one making the valid point that maybe cats like to eat pumpkins. Then she remembered that the witch in one of her favorite books, Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson, had a pet cat. I love when activities prompt in depth discussions like this.
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Do you have a favorite way to set up sorting activities? I’ve always found that using a tray of some sort helps to keep the activity area organized and therefore the activity itself a little more structured. These little erasers made for the perfect slightly spooky manipulatives, but sorting can be done with so many things, even everyday items such as buttons, or natural items such as leaves and rocks.
Printable Camp Learning Resources Merit Badges
Keep the learning going all summer long with our free activities at Camp Learning Resources and earn your merit badges! Print and color your merit badges as you follow our weekly learning activities!
The Benefits of Coloring:
Coloring is not only a fun activity, but it also has many benefits for children, including:
- Development of fine motor skills: Coloring requires using small muscles in the hands and fingers, helping to develop fine motor skills.
- Improves focus and concentration: Coloring can help children focus and concentrate on a specific task, which can be helpful for their academic performance.
- Reduces stress and anxiety: Coloring can be a calming activity, helping reduce stress and anxiety in children and adults.
Encourage your child to use their favorite colors and get creative with their coloring. You can also use this printable to talk about springtime and narwhals, teaching your child about nature and animals. The Printable Spring Narwhal Coloring Page from Learning Resources is an excellent activity for children of all ages. It promotes the development of fine motor skills, improves focus and concentration, and helps to reduce stress and anxiety. Download the printable today and encourage your child to get creative with their coloring, spending quality time together as a family.
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Valentine's Pattern Block Activity
Valentine's Pattern Block Activity is a fun and engaging way to incorporate math and problem-solving skills into the holiday. These activity mats feature different Valentine's Day-themed pictures, such as hearts, flowers, and cupids. To complete the activity, students can use pattern blocks to create the pictures on the mats.
This activity is a great way to teach kids about shapes, counting, sorting, reasoning, symmetry, and even fractions. Students will use pattern blocks to create the pictures on the mat, which will help them understand and recognize different shapes and combine them to create a complete picture. Additionally, students will need to count the number of pattern blocks required for each image; this will help to improve their counting abilities.
The activity also includes reasoning, symmetry, and fractions. Students must use their problem-solving skills to determine which pattern blocks to use and where to place them to create the desired picture. They will also practice symmetry by matching the pattern blocks to create a symmetrical picture. And finally, with pattern blocks, students can explore fractions and how they relate to the different shapes.
Valentine's Pattern Block Activity is a great way to incorporate math and problem-solving skills into the holiday while keeping the activity fun and festive. These simple Valentine's pattern Block Mats are an awesome math challenge for kids. Just print them out and start building; it's that easy!
Shop Pattern Blocks
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Valentine's Printable Fine Motor Mat
Valentine's Day Printable Fine Motor Mats are a fun and engaging way to incorporate math and fine motor skills practice into the holiday. These mats feature different Valentine's Day-themed pictures, such as hearts, flowers, and cupids. To complete the activity, students can use pom poms to create the images on the mats.
Learn More About Fine Motor
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