There are many ways to work on fine motor skills, particularly with young children.

While preschoolers often enjoy working on cutting funny shaped lines and tracing letters and numbers for practice, I think it’s important to also find some unconventional ways to work on those fine motor skills.

One method that we enjoy for working on fine tuning those fine motor skills is cookie decorating. This can be done with any age child, from toddlers to teenagers. Obviously, if your goal is working on fine motor skills, you might be happy with sprinkles just making it onto the cookie for the youngest of toddlers, while you might expect intricate piped designs from your high schooler. It is also important to note that this project can be especially great practice for kids of all ages with special needs who may have difficulty with fine motor activities.

Don’t forget — spreading on frosting is an important part of the cookie decorating as well. This can be great for preschoolers, but also the most challenging part of the activity. So, don’t “do them a favor” and put on the icing so they can decorate. Instead, teach them how to spread it on (even if you need to do it with a hand-over-hand approach).

If you’re feeling slightly more adventurous, don’t start this project with the cookie decorating — start with the baking! Baking is always a great opportunity for kids to learning homemaking skills, as well as to work on language/reading and math skills.

And the best part of this project? You can take a picture of the finished product, and then not feel bad at all that you’re not going to find somewhere to store the project somewhere in your house!

You can find Angie, along with her collection of all kinds of sprinkles, sanding sugars, and nonpareils, writing at Many Little Blessings.

Photo by all in green