Fine motor tasks pave the way to important foundational skills such as self-feeding, grasping, handwriting, fastening clothing items, and so much more! Fine motor skills also lead way to other cognitive advancements such as eye-hand coordination.
DIY Fine Motor Activities
Colorful Colander
Items needed:
- Colorful pipe-cleaners
- Colander
Set it up!
- For younger babes – ages 6 months to 2 years – thread the pipe-cleaners through the holes of the colander and fold over the end of the pipe-cleaner to prevent baby from grasping the spiky end. Demonstrate to baby how to pinch and pull pipe-cleaner out of the colander.
- For older littles we can make this more challenging as they grow! To grade this task, weave or loop the pipe-cleaner in and out of holes to make the task more difficult. Then, instruct your little on how to thread the pipe-cleaner themselves! Have them make fun designs of their choosing.
What are we working on?
- Sensory: Feeling the soft bristles of the pipe-cleaner
- Hand-eye coordination: visual motor skills are hard at work as baby has to concentrate on using those tiny muscles to control a small movement
- Pincher grasp: thumb to index finger movements to prepare baby for dressing and feeding
- Color recognition: Educate your little on what colors they are seeing as they thread and remove the pipe-cleaners
DIY Coin Slot
Make this simple toy out of an empty baby snack container!
Items needed:
- Recycled cylinder
- Large coin shaped objects such as milk or juice jug caps (tip: use different colors for color recognition)
- Scissors
How to make your coin slot:
- Use scissors to cut a slit in plastic lid of container, make sure it’s large enough to fit your “coins” but not too large that your toddler can rotate or stick their hand inside the container
What are we working on?
- Fine motor coordination: using 3 jaw chuck grasp to pick up the object, manipulation and rotation of object in order to fit the object into the slot
- Cognition: problem solving skills to determine how to line up the object with the slot
- Shape and color recognition: generalizing that coins are “circular,” education of different colored coins
Feed the Hungry Pom Pom Monster
Got milk? Here’s a quick 5 min DIY to work on your litte’s fine motor skills! Have your little “feed the monster” pom poms through the spout or mouth! (Feed through the top for increased fine motor coordination). love this task because it can be modified across the ages for early development (1-3+ years). Read below on how to grade this activity to increase the challenge!
Simply cut a large hole for a “mouth” and hot glue or tape googly eyes for a fun effect!
Item’s needed:
- Empty milk jug or carton, washed and dried
- Medium to small colored Pom Poms
- Tongs
- Scissors
- Googly eyes glued onto construction paper to make monster eyes (or you can draw them on with permanent marker)!
What we are working on:
- Fine motor coordination: For younger littles, just have your babe use their fine pincer grasp to pick up the small pom poms in between their thumb and index finger. For older littles, have them use a set of tongs to add a challenge of control with how much force they need to shut the tongs to keep the pom pom in place
- Cognition: color recognition, instruct your little to only feed the monster red pom poms. Increase the challenge by giving multiple step instructions ie. “Feed the monster a red pom pom and then a yellow pom pom,” test their working memory by memorizing patterns ie. “Feed the monster in this order: red, yellow, yellow, red.”
- Add to this task: for older littles have your toddler sort the colored pom poms before or after feeding their hungry monster
Stack ’em up & Knock ’em down
I love simple activities. Not only can you put something together within minutes, but it really allows your little to focus and build their attention span when they aren’t overwhelmed with distractions! Simple tasks also allow your baby to be an active participant in their learning process vs being passive with something like a battery operated toy. Being an active learner, allows your baby to develop independent play skills.
Items needed:
- Colored balls (these are from our ball pit)
- Cardboard tubes from toilet paper rolls or paper towel rolls cut down to size
What we are working on:
- Fine motor control: your little has to be able to coordinate their upper extremity movements and grade the force they need to balance the ball on top of the cardboard roll
- Cognition: focus and attention to task. For older littles: you can use this activity for color recognition and memory. Some prompts you may use: “Put the blue ball and then the red ball on the tower.” For younger littles (ages 6-9 months): knocking down the towers helps them learn cause and effect.
Pom Pom Whisk
Raise your hand if you like throwing activities together that require no planning! Quick! Grab the whisk from the kitchen and dig out your craft box for some pom poms! Here’s something you can throw together so you can have a few minutes to finish prepping dinner.
Stuff the pom poms in your kitchen whisk and voila! A fine motor masterpiece. This is perfect for ages 9 months and up.
What we are working on:
- Fine motor: working the index finger and thumb (pincer grasp) necessary to build skills for self-feeding and dressing
- Cognition: problem solving how to get the pom poms out, attention to task to work towards independent play
- For older littles: work on color recognition, sequencing, following directions, and counting with pom poms! Instruct your little to pull out only the blue pom poms, count how many pom poms are stuck in the whisk, have them follow multi-step directions ex. “pull out 1 blue, then a pink pom pom.”
Fine Motor Balance Tree
This task is more geared to 2-4 year olds, it was a bit too challenging for Caroline (16 months) but she had fun toppling it, and we used the time to talk about different colors and animals. This little tree can be used for a variety of different tasks, and it makes for a cute addition to any kids animal play.
Items needed:
- Paper towel roll
- Popsicle sticks
- Scissors
- Hot glue or tape
How to create your balance tree:
- Cut 4 evenly spaced slits at the end of the roll and fan out each side. This will be used as your base.
- Next, hot glue or tape Popsicle sticks in a cross and attach to the fanned out cardboard (see above in picture)
- Now make your “branches,” at exactly the same height, cut 2 small slits on opposite sides of the roll. Space these out along the paper towel roll. You should be able to fit 3-4 of these.
- Push Popsicle sticks through the slits so that the ends stick out evenly for objects to sit on
What we are working on:
- Fine motor coordination: instruct your little to gently place an object (we used plastic animals but you may use whatever item you like. Some ideas are: pom poms, coins, other small figurines). This works on finding the correct force to apply to the object to balance on the tree branch
- Visual motor: your little is using the input from their eyes to tell the muscles of the arms (the output) what to do!
- Cognition: significant concentration is required to successfully balance an object on each branch. Problem solving skills are also at play here by learning trial and error. Sequencing and following directions: ask your little to place an item on an orange branch, and then a green branch. Keep adding steps until you find the just-right-challenge for your little. This also works on color recognition if you are using colored Popsicle sticks.
- Language development: Encourage your little to tell you about what they imagine the animals “doing,” ask them what sound the animal makes.
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