If you find that your child is struggling to develop their fine motor skills, there are many things you can do with them in order to practice and master these skills more effectively.
If you see that your child struggles to hold a pencil, or move things with their fingers, tie their shoes or use a pair of scissors, then do these activities with them and their fine motor skills will improve greatly.
Play-Dough
Play-dough is a classic and it’s a staple during childhood. Not just because it encourages imagination and creativity, but because it also encourages sensory play and the development of fine motor skills. Every time your child rolls, squeezes, pinches and shapes their play-dough, they’re strengthening the small muscles in their hands that are in charge of fine motor activities.
Finger Painting
Painting is not only a great way to encourage imagination on your children but it also helps them strengthen hand-eye coordination and dexterity. By allowing your child to use their fingers, you’re giving them the opportunity to use their hands and this will get them ready to start using a brush. As they practice, they will get more control of the tool and thus, more in control of their fine motor skills.
Water Play
Water play is super easy and quick to set up, plus it’s a lot of fun. Additionally, water play allows your children to practice their fine motor skills in a different way. To set up this activity, just fill a cup with a quarter of water and then hand your child an empty cup and an eyedropper. Then tell them to take the water from one cup to another by using the eyedropper. You can color the water to make this more fun and prepare different water cups so they can mix colors!
Building with Blocks
Building with blocks is another classic activity for the development of fine motor skills. It also encourages hand-eye coordination and it allows your child to express their creativity in a different way. What you want is to take the tongs from your kitchen and set up an area for your kids. Give them their building blocks, but have them build using the tongs instead of their hands. This will of course be challenging, but they’ll be strengthening their hand muscles like crazy!
Gardening
If you have a green thumb and you enjoy gardening, it might be a great idea to bring your child in on it. Gardening offers many different opportunities for child to work on their fine motor skills such as planting seeds, transferring seedlings, digging and more. These activities also encourage hand-eye coordination and they’ll be learning quite a bit of science and biology in the meantime. Plus, it’s extremely satisfying to work on something and watch it grow, which is something your kids will find fascinating.
As you can see, there are many different things you can do at home to make sure you help your child develop their fine motor skills in a fun and easy way!
