Motor Skills

Spaghetti Noodle Lacing is a fun activity that develops fine motor skills (strengthening the pincer grasp), patterning, pretend play, counting, and more! It is easy to set up and there are so many different ways to try this great activity.       Materials Playdoh spaghetti noodles other noodles or cheerios for lacing     …

Use these printable finger puppets to enhance pretend play time, ignite creative imaginations, strengthen fine motor skills with finger dexterity, and to have a lot of fun. Printable puppets are a huge hit with young children. They spark imaginative play and are easy to prepare, just print and play. Playing with finger puppets builds language …

We have quite a few bags of homemade colored rice (click for recipe) on hand so I decided to put them in the water table for something different – Sensory Play and Fine Motor Skills. We ended up mixing the colors, which the kids thought looked really cool! I took a variety of beads that I …

Motor skills are motions carried out when the brain, nervous system, and muscles work together. Fine motor skills are small muscle movements, such as grabbing something with your thumb and forefinger. Gross motor skills are bigger movements that use the bigger muscles such as running and jumping. (Resource: babycenter.com) So often we focus on ways …

We often hear about the importance of a child developing fine motor skills but do we always know what that means or why it’s so important?  As your child develops, being able to color with crayons, cut with scissors, tie their shoes, or complete puzzles becomes integral to their development.  We can ensure their success …

Give this tooth pick activity a try! I found these toothpick holders at Dollar Tree (3/$1) in the Luau section. They are a perfect fine motor skill activity. The lid has a small hole to put the toothpicks back into the container or you can turn it and it has 3 holes to put the …

To be honest, I never thought about buying a barrel of monkeys for B. Grandma introduced him to his first barrel and I thought it was a big mess for one little game. Fast forward 3 months and I’m so happy that we had those monkeys! B came up with so many different ways to use them. …

This clothes pin game was a good excuse to have B work with clothes pins (great for motor skill development), but it turned into a fun way to practice counting too.     Materials: clothes pins, 1 die, something to clip on (shelf from pantry shown above)   Here’s how to play: Roll the die. Clip the corresponding …

This lacing with water noodles activity from My Little Gems is awesome! Grab a few of the water noodles that are hopefully on sale right now and make them into a large lacing activity by cutting the noodles into pieces. photo courtesy of My Little Gems I have had this activity on my “to do” list …

I got this mini ice cube tray from the grocery store and saved a dropper from an empty medicine bottle for this mini water transfer activity. B had fun transferring water from a bowl and filling up each of the sections. I drew small circles on wax paper with a Sharpie for this water transfer activity. I challenged B to squeeze …

Here’s a great activity for your toddler or preschooler using a cardboard shape and rubber bands. It is great for strengthening finger and hand muscles which is important for beginning writers. Cut a star out of sturdy cardboard and give your child several rubber bands to stretch over it. This is a great activity for motor …

I’ve seen this opening and closing activity all over the internet and have been so excited to try it with B!  I saved up quite a few containers that open in different ways. I put a penny in each container and told Blake he could put the pennies in his bank if he could get them …