Fine Motor Christmas Activities

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These simple, effective fine motor Christmas activities can be used to help improve your child's hand strength and finger dexterity.

On this page, I outline some basic techniques that you can incorporate into almost any Christmas craft activity, to help improve your child's fine motor skills, while still having lots of fun!

Christmas activities and techniques to build fine motor skills!

Threading and Tying

When you involve your children in threading beads and tying ribbons, then they are also working on eye hand coordination and bilateral coordination, as well as fine motor skills.

 - Threading Beads

Chenille stems#Ad (pipe cleaners) make it really easy for kids to thread beads.

You can bend the chenille stick into shapes (like I did to make a bead angel) to make Christmas tree decorations or table decorations.

threading pony beads onto chenille stems is a good fine motor activity for kidsthreading beads

 - Tying Ribbons

Make a ribbon tree that can give your child some practice in tying knots. Don't worry about the lengths of the ribbon as you go along - at the end you can trim the ribbons with sharp scissors to make a tree shape.

To make the activity a little easier, use longer sticks, and plonk them in a jar to keep them still while your kids are tying the ribbons on to the top part of the stick. You can then cut off the base of the stick once the ribbons are tied.

Ask your child to help you tie the ribbons and strings onto gifts - this is a lovely activity that most kids enjoy! Even if it is just simple knots and not a fancy bow, your child's hands will be getting lots of fine motor practice.

crafty ribbon christmas tree for kidsribbon tree Christmas card

If your child finds tying really hard, you may want to check out my article on why some kids struggle more than others with tying skills.

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Working With Dough

Working with dough is one of my favorite fine motor Christmas activities - we do this every year!

Elsewhere on my site, I have highlighted the many benefits of working with playdough, and the different techniques you can bring into your child's playdough activity time.

All that rolling and squishing is great for improving hand skills and bilateral coordination.

working with cookie dough can strengthen little handssquishing cookie dough for hand strength!

Why not use real cookie dough or craft dough such as salt dough or homemade clay? That way they can eat or keep their creations!

5 reasons to bake with your kids this Christmas!Bake With Your Kids!

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Stamping

Stamping is a lovely activity, especially if you do it on a vertical surface, as then it develops good wrist extension and helps to develop upper body endurance, which kids need when they are sitting a desk.

Your kids can use stamps to decorate wrapping paper or plain gift bags#Ad, or even a paper table runner for your festive table setting!

stamping paper on a vertical surface is good for fine motor skillsStamping on a Vertical Surface

Just be sure to have your kids wear old clothes!

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Use A Craft Punch for Fine Motor Christmas Activities!

If you have a hole punch or a craft punch, why not let your child use it to punch holes in gift tags or to punch out shapes to decorate cards?

The best ones have a lever action, like this ones in my pictures. You can get them on Amazon#Ad or in most stationery stores.

how to hold a craft hole punch to strengthen handsUsing a paper punch to strengthen hands

Squeezing the punch shut is great for strengthening little hand muscles. Older kids can use the tripod fingers to push the punch shut.

Check out this cute Christmas sheep activity you can make with a flower-shaped punch!

The little ones with the round punch button don't really work for developing fine motor skills, so it's worth paying a little extra for the lever-type punches.

 - good craft punch techniques

using a craft punch in a fine motor activityUse the tripod fingers to close the punch
use a craft punch to help develop fine motor skillsTurn the punch upside down to position the holes

 - unhelpful craft punch techniques

unhelpful technique with a craft punch for fine motor skillsUsing a round button punch does not get as much fine motor involvement
unhelpful technique with a craft punch for fine motor skillsUsing the heel of the hand means the fingers are not getting fine motor practice

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Tearing and Crumpling Paper

Give the tripod fingers a workout and decorate your activities with torn strips of paper or with tiny crumpled paper balls.

tearing paper is a good fine motor Christmas activity for kidsTearing Paper
crumpling paper with the tripod fingers is a good fine motor Christmas activity for kidsCrumpling Paper
decorating pictures with crumpled paper is a good fine motor Christmas activity for kidsDecorating With Crumpled Paper
More than 30 Christmas themed fine motor activity pages, including Christmas mazes!View My Christmas Themed Fine Motor Activity Pack!

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Christmas Scissor Activities

Cutting with scissors is an excellent way to strengthen your child's hands and get the tripod fingers working together. And at this time of year, it is so easy to get your child interested in practicing scissor skills!

If your child still does not know how to cut with scissors, go and read my article on how to help your child learn to use scissors first. Then come back and try these fun fine motor Christmas activities!

kids can work on scissor skills with this simple paper Christmas wreathPaper Christmas Wreath
kids can work on scissor skills with these simple paper angelsPaper Angels
kids can work on scissor skills with this simple Christmas tree picture made from cut-out trianglesTree with Triangles
Christmas paper craft and scissor cutting printables for kidsView My Christmas Paper Craft and Cutting Printable Pack!


I hope you feel as inspired as I did as I rounded up all these fine motor Christmas activities.

It is just so much fun creating memories with your kids as you do special activities at Christmas time!

Thanks for visiting!


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Fine Motor Christmas Activity Printable Pack!

This accessible download contains more than 30 easy-to-use Christmas activity pages that can be used at home, at school and in Sunday school over the Christmas period.

Work on fine motor skills with a variety of techniques, and get visual motor practice with 9 different figure-ground mazes.

Fine motor christmas activity printable pack
13 pages to decorate using fine motor skills
9 different Christmas mazes to practice visual motor skills
7 different nativity scenes to decorate using fine motor techniques

More Christmas Pages On My Site!

Christmas gifts that build kids visual perception, spatial perception and planning skillsChristmas Gift Ideas
christmas paper crafts for kidsChristmas Paper Crafts
preschool christmas activitiesPreschool Christmas Activities
free Christmas word searchesFree Christmas Word Searches

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