Welcome to Fine Motor Friday! A bunch of us (Lalymom, Craftulate, School Time Snippets, Little Bins for Little Hands, P is for Preschooler, Racheous and myself) have gotten together and will be posting fun activities that promote the development of fine motor skills every Friday. So after reading this post you will want to go check out what fun they have posted about!
And this week Dyan from And Next Comes L is back! So be sure to check out all these great fine motor ideas at the end of this post!
Fine motor development does not need fancy games or activities. You do not need to buy anything special. Everyday tasks around the house will help young children develop hand-eye coordination, hand and finger strength, and fine motor planning and control. Toys, games and activities that help develop fine motor muscles just make learning fun!
Last week as I sat and watched Caden peel an orange I thought to myself, “Wow! That takes a lot of hand strength and fine motor skill! This would make for a great blog post!” So this week I am sharing all the ways toddlers and preschoolers can improve their fine motor skills in their everyday life.
Caden loves to help in the kitchen! Baking and cooking offer many opportunities to practice fine motor skills; scooping, pouring and stirring to bake bread, pinching to add cheese and pepperoni to pizza and picking up ready-made dough and placing it on the cookie sheet for some quick and easy cookies!
Caden is also at that great age where toddlers love to help with chores. Cleaning dishes in the sink, sorting silverware and feeding the dog are all fun activities for him! These daily tasks require him to use hand-eye coordination and hand strength to complete.
Caden also loves to help with cleaning chores! Using a swiffer mop requires hand strength to grip and push it along, a dust broom and pan need hand-eye coordination and motor planning. Squeezing a spray bottle requires great hand strength and coordination to aim it in the right direction. Wiping the table also uses fine motor muscles.
All of the above daily activities help with a toddlers ability to feed his or herself. It takes a lot of fine motor strength, coordination and planning to scoop some yogurt with a spoon and get it in your mouth. A variety of eating experiences will help to develop different fine motor skills.
Gardening and yard work is another fun way to practice fine motor skills. It takes great hand strength to turn the nozzle on the water faucet and to squeeze the sprayer on a hose. Even I still have trouble with those skills sometimes! Digging is another great way to build fine motor muscle strength.
Playing a musical instrument can be a really fun way to practice fine motor skills! Caden loves to play around on the piano and guitar with Gramps! Pressing one of the piano keys and plucking one of the strings on the guitar takes skill. And the more you practice the correct way to play any instrument the more fine motor skills it takes.
The development of fine motor skills allows you to be able to open a pea pod, sort vitamins into a pill-box, pop those fun bubble wrap bubbles and water the house plants. Practicing all these skills will eventually help in learning how to draw and write.
So as you can see there are many opportunities for toddlers and preschoolers to develop fine motor skills in their daily lives and without the help of expensive toys and games or time-consuming activities. But don’t get me wrong, we have many toys and games for fine motor growth that are lots of fun to play with, but I don’t think they are necessary and often times they just sit on a shelf collecting dust while Caden helps me around the house.
Do your kids like to help around the house? What do they like to help with?
Happy Fine Motor Friday!
Go check out these great fine motor ideas from:
Going on a Snack Hunt – Lalymom
Clothespin Letter Match Busy Bag – Craftulate
Kandinsky Inspired Felt Button Board – School Time Snippets
Cranberry Play Fine Motor Skills – Little Bins for Little Hands
Stacking on the Light Box – P is for Preschooler
Bath Time Fine Motor Activities – Racheous
Winter Village Fine Motor Activity – And Next Comes L
Our NEW 99 Fine Motor Ideas for Ages 1 to 5 is full of all types of enriching fine motor activities that your kids will love! And you will love them too because they are simple to set up and use everyday items you probably have around the house! Each activity includes full color photos, a materials list and step-by-step instructions. It’s a fantastic resource for parents, educators, and caretakers!
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Some great practical ideas here – great life lessons! I definitely want to get my son to help with a few chores… 😉
Thanks Georgina! Gotta get them while they are young! Caden thinks chores are fun!
Wowsa, you have quite a capable kid!! Send him to my house to teach my 3 year old to do all those things! (Kidding, maybe her parents should!?) What an awesome post and a good reminder that we can find fine motor activities everywhere we look!
Thanks Laura! Just don’t teach her how to pick a lock with a butter knife, you will never get a moment of peace again… LOL 😉
This is the best way to incorporate and encourage fine motor development – make it organic and part of everyday life! Love this, very Montessori.
Thanks Rachel. I thought it was interesting that you wrote about practical life trays earlier this week- this is kinda the flip side of that. Its all very important and good.
Wonderful way to look at fine motor skills. Practical life skills are great examples that learning doesn’t have to be a made activity!
Thanks Sarah!
So true! Opportunities to strengthen fine motor skills are all around us! It’s just making sure that we give them those moments and not try to to everything for them instead!
Love the pictures of Caden eating corn and holding the ice cream. My favorites are of him with the guitar and piano though.
I love those pictures too!