Fine motor skills include small muscle planning within the hands, fingers, and wrist. These movements are used for daily tasks such as zipping, tying shoes, holding a pencil, and cutting. Fine motor development starts in the shoulder and moves down to the wrist and hand. These skills often develop through practice. Repeating certain activities will help a child improve fine motor skills and make the movements more precise. Below are some fine motor activities to do at home.
Cheerios
- Place cheerios on a table top and have the child pick up cheerios and place them in the bowl
- Use uncooked spaghetti noodles to thread the cheerios onto spaghetti
Scrap paper
- Have a child rip scrap paper into small pieces and count how many pieces they have.
- Scrunch up one piece of paper in their hand to work on building strength.
Playdoh
- Mold and roll Play – Doh into tiny balls using fingertips
- Use pegs or toothpicks to make designs in Play – Doh
- Cut Play – Doh with a plastic knife or pizza wheel
Tweezers
- Pick up objects using tweezers, try different materials such as cheerios, small cubes, poms, marshmallows
- Toys and games that incorporate tweezers
Paper on the wall
- Attach a large piece of drawing paper to the wall. Have the child use a large marker to make different strokes.
- Have the child trace shapes, letters, numbers
- Put stickers on the paper
Toys
- Lacing beads
- Stack and Nest toys
- Pegs and pegboards
- Nuts and Bolts
- Wooden Knob puzzles
- Legos
Pediatric Occupational Therapist