9 Ways to Develop Fine Motor Skills

Fine Motor Skills are extremely important for our students. In fact, many students are coming to school with far less fine motor skills because they have so much screen time. Fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination lay a foundation for academic learning and other life skills. Fine motor skills help improve dexterity and strength in the hands, which allows students to color, draw and write for extended periods of time. Hand-eye coordination also improves as fine motor skills improve. Making fine motor skills FUN will give students an opportunity to play and explore while building these very important skills.

I have created 2 Bundles to help children strengthen fine motor skills while exploring and playing! Bundle #1 includes: blocks (geometric shapes), pom-poms, popsicle sticks, and playdough. Bundle #2 includes: geoboards, cutting skills, painting skills, pegboards, and snap cubes or unifix cubes.

Packet #1: Pattern Blocks

The Blocks Made Fun is designed to increase hand-eye coordination, muscle strength, and dexterity. By grabbing and placing the shapes onto the mat, students work to build strength in the index finger and thumb.

• Materials Needed:
• Pattern Blocks
• Magnet letters

• Skills Covered:
• Matching shapes with one-to-one correspondence
• Counting shapes
• Making words with magnetic letters

Also included are Reflections Made Fun! Students work to build a reflection of the given shape.

This packet is designed to increase hand-eye coordination, muscle strength, and dexterity. They are perfect for morning tubs, fine motor tubs, literacy tubs, rainy day activities and MORE!

Packet #2: Pom Poms

The Pom Poms Made Fun packet works on color matching and using the fine motor skills of tweezing. As students squeeze the tweezers together, they work on their pincer grasp. This builds the strength needed to help in properly holding a pencil for writing.

• Materials Needed:
• Pom poms (use multiple sizes for scaffold or extension)
• Tweezers

• Skills Covered:
• Color Matching
• Tweezing

• Extra Educational Component:
• Each mat includes an opportunity to identify the rhyming word.
  

Packet #3: Popsicle Sticks

The Sticks Made Fun packet works on color matching and using the fine motor skills to pinch the sticks with the thumb and index finger. Grab some popsicle sticks from the Dollar Store, print out the mats and you are ready to go!

Packet #4: Play Dough

With the Play Dough Made Fun packet, students work to manipulate the play dough into the correct shape on the mat. This works with the tripod fingers to develop control and strength.

Students can also use the icon in the upper left-hand corner to match the colors on the mat (optional). These come in both color and black & white.

• Materials Needed:
• Play Dough

• Skills Covered:
• Manipulating shapes of dough in various ways (pinching, cutting, rolling, etc.)
• Color Matching

• Extra Educational Component:
• Each mat includes an opportunity to identify beginning sounds.
  

Packet #1: Geoboards

There are 152 cards included in the geoboard set. Also included are optional recording sheets, so students can record what they build. Little fingers work to create shapes and other objects. Students develop spatial skills, hand muscles, and so much more!

• Materials Needed:
• 5 x 5 Geboards
• Rubber Bands (2 options)
• 1″ bands most colors included- These stretch across the 5 x 5 board
• Smaller Loom Bands These don’t fit across the 5 x 5 board. Students may need to use 2 bands in place of 1 band, which is great for problem solving.

• Skills Covered
• Works on one to one correspondence
• Counting
• Matching colors
• Exploring shapes, the Alphabet (upper and lowercase), numbers, and everyday seasonal objects

Packet #2: Pegboards

There are 48 cards included in the pegboard set. Also included are optional recording sheets, so students can record what they make with the pegs. Pegboards help with grasping small objects, counting, patterns, sequence, one-to-one correspondence, color recognition, and so much more!

• Materials Needed:
• 10 x 10 Pegboard and Pegs
• Extra boards for classroom use

• Skills Covered:
• Pincer grasp
• Counting
• Color Matching

Packet #3: Snap Cubes

There are 65 cards included – 2 versions of each card included. Recording sheets are also included. For this set, you can use snap cubes or unifix cubes.

• Materials Included:
• Snap Cubes or Linking Cubes

• Skills Covered:
• Works on one-to-one correspondence
• counting
• matching colors

• 2 Ways to Play: (use snap cubes or linking cubes)
• Roll, count, and add cubes to color board or black and white board
• Black and white board with image in upper left: roll and build

Packet #4: Painting Skills

There are 88 pictures to paint and color. This packet works with q-tip painting and watercolor painting (or crayons). Each packet also includes a simple sentence made of sight words and words that match the picture.

• Material Needed:
• q-tips
• paint
• watercolors or crayons

• Skills Covered:
• one-to-one correspondence (q-tip painting)
• Basic sight word recognition
• painting skills

Packet #5: Scissor Skills

This packet includes 120 cutting images with 120 background pages! We all know that younger kids LOVE to cut things! These pages provide opportunities to cut with a purpose! Scissor skills at their best!

• Materials Needed:
• scissors
• glue
• crayons

• Skills Covered:
• cutting large images
• glueing or pasting
• coloring
• reading a simple sentence with sight words
• tracing the simple sentence
• color words