Play Your Way to Stronger Motor Skills

Sneak in Some Skill Development with 7 Everyday Activities That Are Actually Fun!

Developing fine motor skills is super important. Fine motor skills let us do advanced things like type, knit, and sort the mail, but they’re also a total necessity if you want to do practical things like hold a spoon or button your pants. Many kids need a bit of extra work to develop these skills and we’ve found a few ways to sneak in some fine motor practice that’s fun. Give ‘em a go and let us know which activity your kiddo likes best.

Touchy Touchy

Clapping hands and touching fingers are a great way to get started with fine motor development. First, see if your child can clap their hands together. Then see if they can clap their hands to yours. Next, challenge your little one to tap the fingers on one of their hands to the fingers on the other. If they can do this, show them how to do it one finger at a time, like an evil super hero. Once they’ve got that down, make it a follow-me game. You clap, they clap. You tap, they tap. You do the super hero, they do the super hero. Then switch and let them lead!

Button Buster

Buttons can be tricky to pick up from a table, which makes them a great tool for developing fine motor skills! Set out at least five of each of several colors of buttons and give each player a plastic bowl. Ready, set, sort… challenge each child to find a specific color of button, pick them all up, and put them in their bowl. The first one to finish wins! Bonus – this is a great way to practice colors, too.

Squeeze Those Skills

The act of squeezing is another fun way to develop fine motor skills. Start with a small bowl full of water, placed next to an empty bowl of the same size. Dunk a large sponge into the wet bowl and have your child pick it up and wring it out into the empty bowl. Continue until the first bowl is empty. Put a creative twist on the squishy, squashy, and squeezable play with Playfoam®, the no-stick, no-mess, never-dries-out crafting material that’s just perfect for preschoolers.

Finger Paint Fun

YES! Finger painting is super fun and a perfect way to give those fine motor skills an artistic workout. Squeeze out several colors of paint onto a tin foil lined plate and let your kiddo go to town! Dip a finger, make a mark on a sheet of paper and repeat! Drawing and coloring with pencils and crayons also helps develop fine motor skills – the stubbier the supplies, the better.

Tong Transfer

Get pompom playful with this simple squeezy exercise designed to develop those fine motor skills! Set out a plate and a cupcake tin, hand your little one the kitchen tongs, and show them how to use the tongs to pick up the pompoms and place them, one at a time, in the cupcake tin. Older kids can use tweezers to pick up smaller objects. Some games, like EI’s The Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel Game even incorporate mini-tongs into game play.

Stack It Up

Block play, including sorting and stacking, really works those motor skills! Challenge your kiddo to stack two blocks on top of each other, gradually adding more when the base seems stable. Lightweight cubes like the Bright Basics™ Nest & Stack Cubes are a great first set, large enough to grasp easily and graduated in size for easier stacking.

Nuts and Bolts

Got a bitty builder on your hands? Screwing a nut onto a bolt is a fabulous way to work those fine motor finger skills. The Design & Drill® My First Workbench encourages constructive kids to use a real, working, mini-drill and kid-friendly hammer to screw colorful bolts and pound sturdy plastic nails directly onto the board. Plus, all the parts store in the attached drawer. Nice.These fine motor activities are brought to you by Bright Basics™ a brand-new line of early learning toys featuring skill-based activities ranging from super-sweet sensory play to splishy, splashy alphabet adventures. Bright Basics celebrates the abilities and possibilities in every bright child.