Concentrating hard on cutting!

Here are some fun and simple ideas for helping your child develop the fine motor control needed for handwriting, tying shoes, and many academic activities. Most of these activities can easily be incorporated into constructive daily playtime.

Play Dough – Kids love to play with play dough! For easy cleanup, lay out a table cloth or let your children build with play dough on a plastic serving tray. As children form the play dough into balls, pancakes, letters of the alphabet, and animal shapes, they are developing their fine motor control and strengthening their little hands.

Cutting – As a child learns to hold scissors and cut in a specific pattern, they are learning hand-eye coordination.

Threading Buttons – This is a fun activity that promotes working with small items and being precise.  Use yarn and a large blunt sewing needle, and show your child how to thread buttons onto the yarn to make a button necklace.

String up Anything –String up anything with holes: macaroni, wooden beads, and shells.

Finger Painting – Finger painting is another favorite activity. If you have an easel, now is the time to bring it out!

Cooking – By allowing a child to help you cook, you are encouraging fine motor control.  Stirring cake batter in a bowl, kneading bread dough, and mixing crumb topping are all good ways to improve motor skills. At a more advanced level, kids can measure out spices, pour liquids, and spoon out cookie dough.

Watercolor Painting – Let the child have fun with a brush and some watercolor paint.  They’ll learn how to hold and control smaller tools.

Puzzles – Start with larger puzzle pieces that are easier to hold and gradually move to smaller puzzle pieces.

Just by encouraging fun and basic life skills you can help your child develop fine motor skills. These are very important in all areas including handwriting. Try these out and have some quality time with your child at the same time!