Homemade Fine Motor Activities Here are some fun and easy fine motor activities for your kiddies that you can make from household items. (The items used below were all found in a house that has no children living in it which shows how we can use everyday items for fine motor however feel free to add in some of the kiddies items that you have around the house) Fine motor activities help develop your child’s pincer grip and are an indirect preparation for writing skills so it’s great to focus on these type of activities as much as possible. Some Examples of fine motor activities that you can create at home: Threading Level 1 Use a shoes lace and thread it through the penne pasta Level 2 Stick uncooked spaghetti into some playdough (could also use a unpeeled banana) and put the pieces of pasta down each spaghetti stick. Level 3 Stick uncooked spaghetti into some playdoh (could also use a unpeeled banana) and use Cheerios instead of the penne pasta to put down each spaghetti stick. The Cheerios make the activity harder as they are smaller. Stacking Use plastic cups, little lunch boxes, small raisin boxes, small cereal boxes etc and stack them up to build towers with them. Tweezers Level 1 Use a big bowl and small items. I have used little ping pong balls here. Items around this size or a little smaller are great. Use a big kitchen tongs to grab the items and put them into another bowl. Level 1b Use the same items as above but use tape to make it a little more difficult. Tape across the top of the bowl and the kiddies have to navigate the tongs in and out with the items. Level 2 Use a smaller object such as pasta. Level 3 Use two little bowls. Put rice Krispies, Coco pops or raisins in one bowl. Use a small tweezers (guidance needed while using this small tweezers) to move the items from one bowl to the other. Lacing Lacing is a step up from threading and it is a great activity to learn the self-help skill for lacing your shoe laces. I coloured the holes with green for where to start and red for where to finish. Level 1 Start with big large holes on the cardboard and a thick shoe lace that is sealed at the ends. Level 2 Make smaller holes in the cardboard and a shoe lace. Level 3 Make small punch holes in the cardboard and use a ribbon. This gives the extra skill of squeezing in the top of the ribbon to fit it through the hole. Materials needed: piece of cardboard, lace or ribbon. Clothes Pegs Use any clothes pegs you have and a surface to clip them onto. Make this fun by putting colours to match the clothes pegs to on the card like I have done or you could stick on/draw the child’s favourite characters and ask them to clip the clothes pegs onto each character. Materials used: piece of cardboard, clothes pegs. Instead of cardboard you can use paper plates (you could use a marker to write the numbers of the clock around the plate), edge of the table, a thin book. Peeling Using tape to stick items to a surface and get the kiddies to free the items by peeling off the tape. You could play a game with this- free the superheros, free the letters to spell your name, free the cars so that you can bring them on the tracks, free the piece of coloured bath bomb so that you can throw it into your water play. Use items that your kiddies love so that they have motivation to peel off the tape to get the items. You can also lay turn taking games where you draw 6 smiley faces and leave room for 6 blank spaces on a page then cover the smiley faces individually and 6 blank spaces with tape or plasters and each take a turn to see who gets the most amount of smiley faces. Materials needed: tape and some fun small toys/treats. Wiggly worms Use a container, an empty bottle or a drink cup that has a hole in the top. Use straws, pipe cleaners (art materials) or the old bendy rollers that are used to curl hair. Make a hole in the lid of the porridge container or take the lid off the bottle. Then allow the child to push the straw/roller/pipe cleaners through the hole. Add pompoms or cotton wool balls to this activity and pretend they are food for the wiggly worms. Materials needed: Porridge container/empty bottle/drink cup with opening at the top. Straws/pipe cleaners(art material)/bendy rollers/pompoms Have fun busy fingers!
