10 Best Fine Motor Skill Activities For Kids

If you’re looking for fun activities to help your child develop fine motor skills, you’ve come to the right place.

Below, we’ve listed some simple ideas – fun, engaging activities and games to entertain your kids while improving their fine motor skills and muscle coordination.

What are fine motor skills?

You’ve probably heard the term ‘fine motor skills’ but might not be familiar with its meaning.

Fine motor skills involve small muscles controlling movements in areas such as the hands, fingers and tongue. These skills help your child dress, eat food, draw and manipulate objects.

Your child’s motor skills will develop as he grows.

For example, a baby will use little fingers in a pincer grip to pick things up. Toddlers can use their fine motor skills to pull a zip or draw a picture. An older child will be able to write neatly and build with Lego.

Fine motor skills are essential and will contribute to a child’s independence. You should ensure your child has plenty of opportunities to develop these skills through play.

What are gross motor skills?

Gross motor skills are foundation skills that use bigger muscle groups, such as legs and arms.

Gross motor skills include sitting, running, kicking and jumping. These are skills your child will develop with practice.

Often, these are the building blocks for your child to develop fine motor skills. You should give your child plenty of opportunities to develop gross motor skills every day.

Physical play is key to developing gross motor skills.

What activities are suitable for fine motor skills?

You don’t need to spend ages setting up fine motor activities for your child but, of course, you can if you want to. Your kids will develop fine motor skills as they play and explore the world around them. There are some things you can do, though, to encourage the development of these skills.

For example, kids love making marks; they’ll do this anywhere, without prompting. That’s why they smear soup all over their highchair tray, crayon on your walls and end up covered in mud every time they play in the garden.

Mark-making encourages children’s dexterity and helps them develop fine motor skills.

Here are 10 fine motor activities your kids will enjoy:

1. Play dough

Play dough is perfect for developing fine motor skills. Your toddlers will love the sensory experience of playing with play dough; you’ll have to keep an eye on them, though to ensure they don’t eat it all.

Younger children will enjoy using cutters and rolling pins to mold the play dough. You can also give them beads and sequins to push into the play dough, for something different to do.

As your children grow, you can move on to air-drying clay. Older kids will have fun making different items with the clay and they can keep their creations forever.

There are plenty of tutorials they can follow or they might get creative and come up with new things to make.

For more fun ideas, read Playdough – Try Our Homemade Playdough Recipe.

2. Painting

Painting is one of the messier fine motor activities, but it’s absolutely worth the mess. Finger painting is lots of fun, especially for younger children. Messy play is a wonderful way to develop those fine motor skills. Just be sure you have a bath ready for the clean-up operation.

If the weather is fine, painting outdoors is ideal because you don’t have to worry about your furniture. You can use big pieces of scrap paper, so your child has plenty of room to play.

Make sure you get involved, too. Your child will love doing the activity with you, even if you are secretly weeping inside because of the mess.

You can provide a variety of different paint brushes, paint palette, sponges and paint colors for your child to experiment with. Of course, young children will invariably mix all the colors together and end up with a muddy purple, but it’s not about creating a masterpiece; this is a fine motor activity.

3. Lacing beads

Lacing beads is a great way to build fine motor skills. For toddlers, you will need some big chunky beads and thick lacing threads.

There are many lacing kits available for toddlers, and they make brilliant birthday or Christmas presents. It might take your toddler a while to figure out how to lace the beads.

For older kids, you can use smaller beads and threads to encourage fine motor development even further. Why not make personalized bracelets or beaded keyring accessories for friends and family members as birthday presents this year?

4. Color sorting

This is a fun activity to teach colors while developing fine motor movements. Toddlers and preschoolers will enjoy sorting objects into different categories. Color sorting is an excellent fine motor activity and one you can mix up each time you do it.

All you need is a pair of jumbo tweezers, some colored pom poms and containers to sort them into. You could use different colored tubs or use a muffin tray or a large ice cube tray. Ask your child to sort the pompoms into different colors.

The jumbo tweezers will help your child develop the pincer grip and the coordination of hand muscles. The color-sorting of pompoms will help develop hand-eye coordination. As your child gets better at the activity, you can switch the pompoms for smaller ones to make it more challenging.

5. Drawing

Drawing is one of the greatest everyday fine motor activities. Ideally, your child should have the opportunity to draw each day. For toddlers, this might look like supervised crayoning at the table.

As your child grows up, you could create a drawing area so there’s always access to drawing materials. Of course, younger children will draw on the walls, so you might want to wait until they outgrow that stage!

For older kids, you could start doing a drawing a day in a special journal to diarize each day. Drawing is an excellent skill for children to engage with, not only to develop fine motor skills but also to learn how to express themselves.

6. Building

Construction toys are wonderful everyday fine motor activities. Babies and toddlers develop their hand-eye coordination by building towers from building blocks. Toddlers will also love knocking those towers down on purpose.

Toddlers will further develop their coordination skills with building blocks such as Duplo and Mega Bloks. Keeping construction toys within reach gives your toddler plenty of opportunity to develop these essential skills.

For older kids, Lego is one of the best fine motor activities for keeping them entertained. For example, if your child struggles with handwriting, it can be tempting to have him practice repeatedly.

Although your child might need to develop fine motor development, Lego is a great way to develop these skills, and your child will have fun without even realizing he’s working on his handwriting.

7. Puzzles

Unsurprisingly, puzzles are great fine motor activities. Your child will need to develop hand-eye coordination and be able to manipulate the pieces to complete the puzzle.

Toddlers will attempt to complete jigsaws with brute force alone, so it’s best to start them on wooden puzzles that can withstand a beating. Then, as your child grows, you can switch to cardboard jigsaws.

For older kids, jigsaws have the bonus of providing some much-needed quiet screen-free time. So why not get a jigsaw to complete together so you can enjoy quality time while improving their fine motor skills?

8. Collage making

Toddlers love tearing paper, which is probably why board books were invented! Tearing paper or tissue paper is actually a good skill for your toddler to master, so it’s worth including in one of your fine motor activities.

Collage-making is a fun activity to do with kids of any age. Your toddler will love tearing up paper and then using glue to create a collage. It’s going to be messy, so have wipes handy and ensure your toddler wears suitable clothes.

For older children, collage-making can be a fun craft activity and a way to build their confidence. Why not create collages about yourselves?

Use photos and cut relevant words and pictures from newspapers and magazines to create a collage about who you are. Older kids will love this activity, and you can also use it to build them up.

9. Developing independence

Many fine motor skills activities are built into your child’s everyday life. For example, it requires good coordination and muscle control to get dressed (and undressed), wash your face and feed yourself.

Often, as parents, we are in a rush and so do these tasks for our children. But they will benefit from taking charge sometimes. Not only will they gain independence, but they’ll develop their motor skills and their coordination.

So, when you have time, let your child take the driving seat regarding life skills. For example, ensure you allow time in the morning for your toddler to feed himself breakfast, your preschooler to put the toothpaste on the toothbrush, and your six-ear-old to tie her shoelaces.

10. Baking and cooking

Baking and cooking are great for physical development. There are many different skills involved, including stirring, tipping, squeezing and chopping. Your child will love having fun in the kitchen, whether he’s a toddler or a teen.

Why not include baking as a weekly activity? For example, you could make sweet treats or get your child involved in making dinner.

With younger children, you’ll be doing most of the work, and they’ll be enjoying sensory play time. Older children will take on most of the heavy lifting, leaving you free to enjoy the food.

What causes a lack of fine motor skills?

The fine motor delay could be a sign of vision problems, dyspraxia, autism or another physical, cognitive or developmental condition. If you are worried about your child’s fine motor skills, it’s worth discussing your concerns with your pediatrician.

Your child might also need support from an occupational therapist to meet developmental milestones. An occupational therapist will help children develop their motor skills and improve their coordination. The sooner you reach out for help, the sooner your child will receive it.

A 2020 study from South Africa found that children with motor skill difficulties benefited from therapeutic intervention. The researchers concluded this was a successful way to address motor skill difficulties among preschool children from low socioeconomic areas.

If you think your children are struggling, they might benefit from the support of an occupational therapist.