Move Your Body:
Exercise is a wonderful way to to build the body strength needed to enhance fine motor skills. These are some exercises that we love to use:
Wheelbarrow: With your child on his hands and knees pick up his feet. Using their feet as the wheelbarrow handles ask them to walk on their hands; shifting their weight from their left arm to their right arm
Donkey Kicks: On all fours again, have your child try to kick out their back legs together. This places all of their body weight on their hands which helps develop as well as strengthen them.If they have trouble on the floor, try it with their hands on a table.
Visit different playgrounds in you area. These offer opportunities to exercise many muscles in a variety of ways!
Explore outside...pick up acorns, shells, leaves, flowers, interesting rocks, anything that excites you! Fly a kite, play catch, kick a ball-the possibilities are endless!
Swimming offers the resistance of water which is great for building endurance and strength.
Yoga is a wonderful way to exercise the body. There are many books and DVD's on the market to help you learn the poses if you are not already familiar with this practice.
Helping Hands:
Helping around the house can be a fun way to encourage the development of hand skills, as well as other skills necessary for learning. Try some of these activities with your children:
Washing the table after a meal. Have your child squeeze the wet cloth or sponge to release the extra water before the task. This works on strengthening the muscles of the hand.
Use a small garden shovel to dig holes for seeds and plants. This develops strength in the hand muscles.
Pulling weeds from a garden. This also works on hand strength.
Matching socks. Have your child place one sock inside the other before putting them away. This activity works on matching skills and hand strength.
Picking up toys after play, and putting them in the correct place. For example, all books go on the shelf and toys go in the toy box. This encourages the understanding of categories and matching skills. Make it a "race" by trying to finish before a timer goes off or a song ends.
Water plants (indoor our outdoor) with a squirt bottle. This helps build the grasp needed for holding a pencil.
I Can Do It Myself!:
Activities of daily living are the tasks your child does everyday to help take care of themselves. These tasks require fine motor development.
Have your child squeeze soap onto a loofa in the bathtub and help wash themselves.
Allow your child to use utensils as soon as they are interested (it will be messy, but children learn best by doing!)
Let your child twist open the toothpaste cover.
Let your child pinch the ziploc baggies used for their lunch.
Allow your child to help dress themselves. Putting on clothes and shoes and practicing with buttons and zippers is a great way to enhance motor skills.
Click this link for information of how to teach children to compete self-care tasks in a fun way.
Click and Play: Activities To Use With Your Children:
Clink on this link to access activities through our Pinterest boards! Don't forget to follow us for updates! Fine Motor Mamas Pinterest Boards
Visual Activities: Our visual system can impact our ability to physically write words. Some children have trouble truly making that mind body connection when it comes to writing because some letters look so similar. For example, a child may be learning to write the letter A but actually see the letter H. Below is a website and eye activities to strengthen their visual skills: Visual Perceptual and Visual Motor activities Additional Visual Perceptual and Visual Motor activities
Apps We Love:
Tablet and ipad apps are enjoyable, motivating ways to work on the skills needed to learn and write. However, these should be used in moderation and never fully take the place of old-fashioned play! Have your child play these games while laying on his tummy. This will exercise the muscles needed for correct posture and fine motor development. We have included the links for parents who want more information about these programs.
A Bee Sees (Headlight Software,Inc.; 2012): A fun way for toddlers and pre-schoolers to practice eye-hand coordination, as well as being exposed to colors, letters and numbers! More Information About A Bee Sees
Farm Jigsaw Puzzles 123 (GiggleUp Kids Apps And Games Pty Ltd., 2013): The difficulty of the puzzles can be adapted as the child's skills grow...starting at puzzles with only two pieces for young toddlers.More Information About Farm Jigsaw Puzzles
Toy Tangrams (TabTale LTD, 2012): Basic parquetry on the i-phone/i-pad, starting at simple 4 piece shapes and advancing to more challenging pictures. This company also has a wide variety of free storybooks. Each of these books is filled with fun activities and puzzles with different levels...ensuring a "just right challenge" for your child. More Information About Toy Tangrams
Handwriting Without Tears Wet Dry Try (2012): Provides step-by-step demonstration for formation of each uppercase letter and numbers. Encourages children to trace each with their finger starting at the top- in order to learn proper formation before practicing with paper and pencil.More Information About the HWT Wet Dry Try App
Endless Alphabet (Callaway Digital Arts Inc., 2013): A fun tool for practicing letter recognition, letter-sound recognition, and visual perceptual skills.More Information About Endless ABC
Clever Kids Alphabet Puzzles (Kizzu Learn and Play, 2013): A puzzle for each letter of the alphabet. The first few are free! This company also has a farm animal puzzle game that my daughter loves. More Information About Alphabet Puzzles
i Learn With Boing Ocean Adventures (Tribal Nova): This game focuses on vocabulary, sentence formation, and listening comprehension. Your child will be able use this for years, or with an older sibling. There is even a way to track your child's learning progress. More Information About i-Learn With Boing
Paint Sparkles (Kids Games Clubs, 2012): This is probably the most used game on my i-pad. It includes coloring pages, as well as a variety of colors to use when making your own pictures. Draw lines, shapes, and letters to see if your child can copy them....or let them be creative and draw their own pictures!More Information About Paint Sparkles
Ice Cream (Food Maker Inc., 2013): Mix the ingredients to make your own ice cream. Then design your own sundae...with all of the toppings! This works on following directions, and visual skills.For More Information About Ice Cream
Exercise is a wonderful way to to build the body strength needed to enhance fine motor skills. These are some exercises that we love to use:
Click on these links for fun yoga activities to do with your children:
Parsnip the Cat
Kickapoo the Kangaroo
Helping Hands:
Helping around the house can be a fun way to encourage the development of hand skills, as well as other skills necessary for learning. Try some of these activities with your children:
I Can Do It Myself!:
Activities of daily living are the tasks your child does everyday to help take care of themselves. These tasks require fine motor development.
Click this link for information of how to teach children to compete self-care tasks in a fun way.
Click and Play: Activities To Use With Your Children:
Click on these links for a variety of computer based activities, mazes, puzzles, crafts and printables. We use thses activities with the students that we work with...as well as our own children!
Disney Printables
Nickjr. Printables
PBSkids activities
Another Disney sponsored activities page
Finger Plays:
Finger plays are a fun and interactive way for children to enhance fine motor skills. Here are a few:
Arts, Crafts, and Other Fun:
Click on this link for a list of crafts and other fine motor activities:
Hand Strengthening Activities By Age
Many great ideas on this link, although some activities are more appropriate for older children:
Prewriting Activities For 2-4 year olds
Clink on this link to access activities through our Pinterest boards! Don't forget to follow us for updates!
Fine Motor Mamas Pinterest Boards
Visual Activities:
Our visual system can impact our ability to physically write words. Some children have trouble truly making that mind body connection when it comes to writing because some letters look so similar. For example, a child may be learning to write the letter A but actually see the letter H. Below is a website and eye activities to strengthen their visual skills:
Visual Perceptual and Visual Motor activities
Additional Visual Perceptual and Visual Motor activities
Apps We Love:
Tablet and ipad apps are enjoyable, motivating ways to work on the skills needed to learn and write. However, these should be used in moderation and never fully take the place of old-fashioned play! Have your child play these games while laying on his tummy. This will exercise the muscles needed for correct posture and fine motor development. We have included the links for parents who want more information about these programs.