Astronaut Fine Motor Training

Happy Fine Motor Friday! It’s good for toddlers and preschoolers to do a variety of fine motor activities. Having different activities help work different fine motor muscles and hand coordination which is necessary for handwriting. Fine Motor Fridays is all about giving you a bunch of ideas to do with your little ones! Be sure to check out the activities from our co-hosts at the end of this post!

It is sometimes a challenge to find or come up with fine motor activities for my son that are both interesting to him and age appropriate. But when Sheila of Brain Power Boy shared this Train Like an Astronaut page for educators from NASA, I got really excited! My son has said he wants to be an astronaut, so these activities (with a little modification) are the perfect way to peak his interest!

The one activity that really caught my eye is called Crew Assembly Training. For this activity kids work on dexterity (fine motor skills), hand-eye coordination, communication with team members and problem solving skills. As is, it’s a great activity for older children, but for preschoolers it can be made a little simpler.

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Astronaut Fine Motor Training

Astronaut Fine Motor Training is a fun activity for space obsessed preschoolers to work on fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination and perseverance. For this activity you will need a pair of gloves (garden gloves or winter gloves) and building toy. I chose this Melissa & Doug Construction in a Box set because I thought it would mimic the tools and supplies used by real astronauts!

This astronaut fine motor training activity very simple. Put the gloves on the child (some preschoolers will need help getting all their fingers in the correct spaces). The gloves will mimic how astronaut have to work while on a space walk and make this activity more challenging. Then ask them to build whatever they want with the construction set. It doesn’t matter what they built because the goal is to practice fine motor skills.

My son was very excited to do some astronaut training, but I’m not going to lie, he needed A LOT of encouragement. This was a challenging fine motor activity for him. He gave up a couple of times and took a short break. During those breaks I talked with him about how astronauts never give up and that they have to work hard during training to become astronauts. This was a big motivator for him as he has been really insistent that he wants to become an astronaut and go to space.

In the end, he successfully completed a simple “space rover”. He used one long piece, two long screws and two square nuts to attach four wheels and build a rolling vehicle. He was so proud of himself when he finished!

If you have a little astronaut at home be sure to check out these awesome Space Themed Early Learning Activities we did earlier in the year.