Counting Ants: Fine Motor Sensory Game

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 activities from our co-hosts at the end of this post! This week I am sharing a bug themed fine motor sensory game with some math thrown in for good measure!

Counting Ants Fine Motor Sensory Game

Setting up this insect themed sensory activity is so quick and easy! And you only need a handful of supplies! Below you will find the supplies list and instructions on how to make it and how to play with your child!

Supplies:

Potting Soil
Mini Plastic Ants
Jumbo Tweezers
Ice Cube Trays
Die

Setting Up:

Cover the bottom of your plastic bin with a layer of potting soil.
Place enough mini plastic ants in the bin to fill each space of your ice cube trays.
Arrange your bin, tweezers, ice cube trays and die on a table in an inviting way.
Invite your children to play with the tweezers, filling the ice cube trays with ants!

How to Play:

To play this Counting Ants Fine Motor Sensory Game children roll a die and use tweezers to pick up that number of ants. Then place them one-by-one into the squares of the ice cube tray. The first player to fill their ice cube tray is the winner!

This simple game has a lot of benefits for preschoolers! The dirt in the bin offers tactile sensory input for kids who enjoy touching different textures. Using the tweezers is a fun way for kids to work on building fine motor strength and hand-eye coordination! And by placing the ants in individual ice cube squares is a simple way for preschoolers to practice counting and understand one-to-one correspondence.