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Fine Motor Activities
Explore these hands-on fine motor activities, which are designed to strengthen hands and fingers at home or in the classroom . These activity suggestions are mostly aimed at kids from age 4 to 8, but are adaptable from toddler years to teens. They use everyday items to boost handwriting skills and overall dexterity.
These free activities are designed to
promote your child’s normal development, especially in this digital age where
kids have not been exposed to as many hands-on activities as they might have
been. Poor fine motor skills can have an impact on handwriting, self care, participation in crafts, and many other childhood tasks, so we want to encourage our kids to develop their fine motor skills.
Instead of giving you a list of developmental milestones and related activities, I have created pages that target particular groups of muscles and movements, because I feel these are the most practical ways for parents and teachers to find activities to help their kids. For example, kids who have weak hands can try the hand strengthening exercises, and kids who struggle with pencil control can try the finger exercises.
I have, therefore, not put an age category on my activity suggestions! Almost all activities can be made simpler or more complex depending on the age and ability of your child. So start where your child is at, and use the resources you have at home.
Whether your child is left-handed or right-handed, the skills needed are the same. Please just ensure that your left-handed child is using the left hand for the activities, as they may sometimes copy the right-handed adult who is demonstrating.
If you are at all concerned about your child's fine motor skills, please consult your health professional.
Exercises For Hands And Fingers
Being able to control the small muscles of the hands and fingers has been shown to have a greater impact on handwriting skills than the actual pencil grip the child uses. Fine motor activities for handwriting should therefore be targeting the hands and fingers!
These pages provide easy-to-do, photographed fine motor exercises and activities to strengthen hand and finger muscles and improve dexterity in the hands. They make use of resources commonly found in preschool and kindergarten classrooms, as well as everyday household items.
I have presented
the articles below in more less graded order from simpler to more complex.
Hand Exercises for Kids
Using simple resources like sponges, paper and spray bottles, these simple hand exercises can help make your child's hands stronger if they are weak.
Kindergarten Fine Motor Activities
These fine motor skills activities were developed specifically for children around kindergarten age, but older kids who have poor fine motor skills may find them useful.
Simple Finger Exercises
Once your child has practiced some of the kindergarten hand and finger exercises, try these simple finger exercises for kids that may help improve their handwriting skills.
Isolating Finger Movements
If your child struggles to isolate the movement of specific fingers (which is a skill needed for typing on a keyboard and playing musical instruments) then try these exercises to help their fingers move.
Pencil Control Activities and Exercises
Once your child has had lots of practice with the simpler finger exercises above, then try these more advanced finger exercises.
These are done with a pencil to help improve your child’s pencil control for handwriting.
Wrist Position and Exercises
The
position of the wrist plays an important role in how well your child will be
able to control the pencil when writing. If your child hooks the wrist, it may affect their handwriting.
Read more about the importance of wrist extension (the best position for the wrist to be in while writing) and check out some activities and wrist exercises that may help kids who struggle with poor wrist positioning.
Toddlers and Teens
Most of the fine motor skills activities on my site are geared towards kids aged 4 to 8 years old. However, there are many activities that can be adapted to be simpler for younger children or more challenging for kids who are a bit older.
Use these ideas to inspire you if you have a child who falls into those age groups.
Themed Fine Motor Activities
Across my site, I have some fun themed pages that build fine motor skills as well as other important skills - take a look!
- Free playdough activities to help build your child's fine motor and bilateral coordination skills.
- Baking with kids is a great activity for you to do with your child - develop coordination skills, math skills, fine motor skills and more!
- Simple fine motor Christmas activities for kids - use these techniques to get the most out of Christmas crafts!
- Use these simple preschool Christmas activities if you have a younger child.
- Fine motor Christmas activity pages for fine motor and visual perception practice! Great for Sunday School, homeschool, or regular classes.
- Nativity-themed cutting skills printables that are suitable for preschool, kindergarten and first grade kids.
- Fine Motor Printable Activities Make use of these fine motor skills worksheets and printables to help your child practice fine motor skills and pencil control!
Tactile Perception
Being able to interpret and use the sensory feedback from your hands (touch perception) is important for developing fine motor skills. These articles will help you learn more about this important aspect of fine motor development and see how easy it is to help your child develop these skills!
- What is tactile perception, and how does it affect fine motor development?
- Fun tactile perception activities to help develop touch perception skills.
Cutting With Scissors
Cutting with scissors is an important fine motor exercise, as it strengthens the fingers that are needed to control the pencil, and also helps develop stability on the ulnar side of the hand (the little finger side of the hand).
Developing the hand function in this way, can help children with other fine motor skills, including handwriting.
- Visit this hub of scissor cutting pages stuffed with photographed ideas and frequently asked questions about scissor cutting.
- If you have a left handed child, check out my article on why left handed scissors are a thing!
Pencil Grip and Handwriting
Research has shown that handwriting skills are more affected by fine motor control than by the position of the fingers on the pencil, alone. However, your child’s pencil grip may affect handwriting if it blocks efficient movement of the fingers.
Visit my hub of related articles of related articles on these important topics:
Printable Resources
If you like the activities on my fine motor pages, but want them in a more accessible format that you can print out and/or access offline, then I really recommend my fine motor e-books!
Fine Motor Activities E-Book
My handy Fine Motor Activities download gives you a resource you can access over and over!
For the price of a couple of coffee, you get more than 60 pages jam-packed with info, goal planners and more than 24 pages of photographed activities (multiple activities on each page)!
My Scissor Skills Resource Pack!
My 33 page scissor skills e-book covers all the information in my scissor cutting pages, and will give you step by step photographed activities to help your child master scissor skills.
Thank you for visiting my site! I hope you found it helpful!
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Free Printable Fine Motor Download
This free printable download gives you an overview of the essential bases for fine motor development.
It is part of a set of 3 handouts that I compiled to help parents understand how fine motor skills, gross motor skills and visual perception skills can affect your child's learning.
You will get all 3 handouts absolutely free when you sign up for my newsletter!
Three Free Handouts When You Sign Up For My Newsletter!References
Cornhill, H; Case-Smith, J. Factors That Relate to Good and Poor Handwriting. 50(9):732-9 · November 1996 http://dx.doi.org/10.5014/ajot.50.9.732
Ohl, A. M., Graze, H., Weber, K., Kenny, S., Salvatore, C., & Wagreich, S. Effectiveness of a 10-week Tier-1 Response to Intervention program in improving fine motor and visual–motor skills in general education kindergarten students. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 67, 507–514. Sep/Oct 2013 http://dx.doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2013.008110
Sharp, G. and Thompson, D. (2001-11-27) Biomechanics of the Hand. Retrieved (last checked 2025-02-27) from https://ouhsc.edu/bserdac/dthompso/web/namics/hand.htm
Weintraub, N. ;Graham, S. The contribution of gender, orthographic, finger function, and visual-motor processes to the prediction of handwriting status. The Occupational Therapy Journal of Research; 20(2):121-140 · March 2000 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/153944920002000203
Fine motor goals and teaching practices for teachers https://headstart.gov/school-readiness/effective-practice-guides/fine-motor-know (last checked 2025-02-27)
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