The importance of fine motor skill development in a child’s growth is undeniable. In fact, it is one of the most crucial early-age developments that directly influence a child’s ability to perform daily tasks and improve cognitive and social behavior.
These skills start to develop as early as 3 months of age, with babies beginning to close and open their fists. From this stage, fine motor skills continue to improve naturally over time. However, every child’s growth and development progress at their own pace.
While many children are quick enough to develop fine motor skills naturally, some may face hardships due to genetic conditions such as Down syndrome, autism, cerebral palsy, or achondroplasia. Fortunately, several studies have found engaging and playful activities to be effective in enhancing fine motor development in kids.
But do they really work for your child? Let’s explore these activities one by one and understand how each contributes to a child’s growth and independence.
What are Fine Motor Skills?
Fine motor skills refer to the natural ability that coordinates movements of small muscles in the wrists, fingers, hands, feet, ankles, and toes. As with growing age, children start to enhance their fine motor skills and become able to perform stable and controlled movements. They gradually learn to do more tasks with their hands independently, which mainly include —
- Buttoning shirts
- Holding a pencil
- Feeding themselves
- Tying their shoelaces
- Cutting along straight and curved lines
- Drawing circles and crosses
- Opening lunch boxes
- Building things with blocks
- Making sculptures with foam
Even though these skills probably come naturally to you, a child has to spend the first few years of their life learning and improving them.
You can be a part of their development journey by encouraging them to engage in fun activities to boost their fine motor skills. We will give you some concrete ways on what to try in the next section.
As said, each child’s growth and development progress at their own pace. It is not necessary to compare your child with others and feel stressed. However, if your child’s development is significantly delayed in hitting the above-mentioned milestones, it is best to consult an expert occupational therapist to diagnose the issue.
List of Fine Motor Skill Building Activities for Kids and Toddlers
In this section, we have listed some of the simple, fun activities to boost fine motor skills in children while at home. Although some of these activities can be done independently, we still advise supervising your child, especially when they are around small items.
1. Peeling and Placing Stickers
Peeling stickers and placing them on hands, clothes, or a surface isn’t just a great way to boost fine motor skills, but to enhance sensory exploration, creativity, and hand-eye coordination. This activity aims to practice pincer grip.
For this, draw open circles on a sheet and tell your child to stick each sticker inside the circle. This way, they can develop fine motor and visual coordination skills needed for daily tasks.
2. Stringing Cereal
This activity aims to improve hand-eye coordination, enhance pincer grasp, and develop precision in finger movements. Start with something that holds the string cereals across. Use a string and tell your toddler to insert the string through the cereal hole.
Once they get comfortable, progress to using a flexible string, which adds an extra challenge. This simple yet effective activity helps visual motor skills, hand-eye and bilateral coordination.
3. Ripping or Crumpling Paper
This activity helps strengthen the small muscles of the hand, particularly the bimanual coordination needed for tasks like unsnapping a jacket. Tell your child to tear paper into small pieces with their hands, which improves grip control.
After that, encourage them to pick the torn pieces using a tripod grasp (thumb, index, and middle finger) and place them together to create a mosaic.
4. Placing Coins in a Piggy Bank
This fun and interactive activity is best for 3-4-year-olds, helping them with overall development of pincer grasp, visual motor coordination, and visual perceptual skills. However, we recommend doing this activity together and providing close supervision to ensure kids don’t swallow coins.
Tell them to pick the coin using their thumb and index finger and put it in the piggy bank. This entire activity involves using pincer grasp and visual motor coordination. You can even increase the challenge by asking them to sort and stack the coins first, which helps with improving perceptual skills to identify matches based on size.
5. Attach Clothespins to Board Books
This engaging fine motor activity combines creativity with skill-building. Pick a sturdy board book with fun illustrations or characters your child enjoys. Now, encourage your child to pinch and attach clothespins to the edges of the book.
Once the clips are attached, the book can stand upright, creating a visual where a character appears to have legs. This strengthens their pincer grasp and improves finger dexterity.
6. Attach Clothespins to Clothing
Take some clothespins and clip them onto your child’s clothes, like their shirt, pants, or socks. Challenge them to find and take them off without looking in a mirror. This game builds body awareness, which helps with independent dressing.
Squeezing and releasing the clothespins strengthens their fingers, preparing them for tasks like using scissors or holding a pencil. Encourage your child to use their thumb on one side of the clothespin and their pointer and middle fingers on the other. This grip helps them develop a mature pencil grasp for better handwriting.
7. Sidewalk Chalk Creations
Grab some sidewalk chalk from a store and let your child draw on the driveway or sidewalk. They can create pictures, hopscotch games, or write words. Drawing with chalk builds hand and finger strength while improving coordination and sparking creativity.
It is also a great way to bond, share laughs, and enjoy fresh air together. Encourage them to try big shapes or small details to work their hands in different ways.
8. Button Sorting
Gather a handful of buttons in different colors and shapes, like circles, squares, diamonds, or stars. You can find these at a craft store or use ones from old clothes. Place the buttons in a small bowl or on a table. Ask your child to sort them by color (like red, blue, yellow) or shape (like all the stars together).
They can pick up the buttons with their fingers or use plastic tweezers to make it a bit trickier. This strengthens their fingers and helps them practice the precise movements needed for tasks like writing or zipping a jacket.
9. Bubble Popping Fun
Blow bubbles and ask your child to pop them by poking with one finger, pinching with two fingers, or grabbing with their whole hand.
This activity helps their eyes and hands work together while strengthening their fingers. It is a joyful way to improve coordination and quickness. Watch them giggle as they chase and pop bubbles before they float away.
10. Card Lacing
Lacing cards are pieces of cardboard with holes that your child can thread a lace through. You can buy lacing cards with shapes like animals, stars, or hearts, or make your own. To create homemade lacing cards, take a piece of sturdy cardboard (like from a cereal box) and draw a simple shape, such as a fish, tree, or square.
Use a hole punch to make evenly spaced holes along the outline of the shape. Give your child a shoelace, yarn, or string with a taped end to make threading easier, and let them weave it in and out of the holes. This activity helps them practice their pincer grip, which helps them hold a pencil or button clothes.
Different Stages of Fine Motor Skills Development in Kids
The fine motor skills continue to develop over time and progress through distinct stages. Here’s a simple guide to these stages so you can encourage your child’s abilities at any age.
First 3 Months
In the first few weeks after birth, newborn babies make random movements, but infants start to grip onto your finger with their fingers or toes. This is one of the natural reflexes your kid is born with.
By 3 Months old, your child will likely be able to:
- Put their fingers to their mouth.
- Swipe for nearby dangling objects
- Open and close their fists.
3 to 6 Months
After 3 months, your baby starts to develop fine motor skills at an unpredictable pace, becoming more dextrous with each passing week and month.
By 6 months, your child will probably be
- Holding objects.
- Reaching with one hand or both
- Shaking and banging toys
- Using the hands like a claw to pick up things
6 to 12 Months
Between 6 months and 12 months of age, you will start discovering some of the most challenging aspects of your child’s fine motor skills that may irritate you sometimes.
By the age of one, your child will be able to
- Use a pincer grasp to pick things.
- Bang objects or toys together.
- Put objects into a box and take them out again.
- Poke things with index finger.
1 to 2 Years
As your toddler start to walk, your will find them poking their fingers into holes and taking items out of cupboards and down from shelves, and drawers.
By 18 months, your toddler will be able to
- Stack two or more blocks together.
- Make marks on paper or the wall with crayons.
- Pull off socks and shoes.
- Starts eating with a spoon.
And by 2 years of age, they will be able to
- Turn over a container and pour out what’s inside.
- Scribble on paper without help
- Stack 2-3 building blocks without help
- Turn the pages of the book.
2 to 3 Years Old
Although this period seems to be frustrating and irritating for parents, as they are always worried about their kids not getting hurt. However, their fine motor skill progress is something to be happy about.
By the age of 2 to 3 years, your kid will likely learn
- Stack up to 8 blocks on each other.
- Scribble on paper and make up and down lines with a crayon or a pencil.
- Able to eat with a spoon.
- Get dressed by themself.
- Turn the book pages one-by-one.
- Screw and unscrew jar lids or bottle tops.
3 to 4 Years Old
By 3 years of age, your child will develop good muscular control, and that will be reflected in their fine motor skills. You will start noticing your child’s grip on a pencil changes during this stage, with them holding it more like adults, using the thumb, index, and middle fingers.
This is the time when your child may develop a clear preference for using the left or right hand. When this happens, they will use this dominant hand to pick up things. Some of the fine motor skills develop during this period:
- Drawing a vaguely resembling person with at least some body parts.
- Copy straight and parallel lines.
- Lace a threading card.
- Cut straight with child-safe scissors.
- Eat with a fork.
Conclusion
Fine motor skills building is as important as other developments to ensure the overall growth of a child. Sooner or later, your child will naturally develop these skills. However, they need guidance to quickly adapt to these abilities. With these fine skills activities mentioned above, you can help them strengthen their hand muscles, improve coordination, and refine their dexterity in a fun and engaging way.
Along with these fun activities, we have also listed different stages of fine motor skills development in children. You can take these stages as milestones to track your child’s growth. Although every child grows at their own pace, significant delays or difficulties in achieving these milestones sometimes indicate a sign of concern.
If you have been noticing milestone delays in your child, it is best to act fast, as early intervention can significantly improve their development, helping them build essential skills with the right support and guidance. So, book your consultation at Kick Start Therapy now and get in touch with one of the best occupational therapy service providers in Brampton and Mississauga.
FAQs
What Activities Support Fine Motor Skills?
Simple activities like coloring, cutting paper with scissors, or playing with clay help build fine motor skills. Kids can also try threading beads, stacking blocks, or using tweezers to pick up small items. These fun tasks strengthen small hand muscles and improve control for things like writing.
How to Improve Fine Motor Skills for Handwriting?
To improve fine motor skills for handwriting, practice activities like tracing letters, drawing shapes, or squeezing a stress ball to strengthen hands. Using small pencils or crayons helps with grip. Playing with playdough or doing finger exercises, like finger painting, also makes hand movements smoother for better writing.
What Neurological Disorder Affects Fine Motor Skills?
A neurological disorder, like cerebral palsy or autism spectrum disorder, can affect fine motor skills. It makes hand movements shaky or stiff, so tasks like writing or buttoning a shirt become hard. Other conditions, like Parkinson’s in adults or dyspraxia in kids, can also make it tough to control small movements.
Are Fine Motor Skills a Disability?
Fine motor skills are not a disability by themselves. But some kids, like those with autism or cerebral palsy, might find it hard to do things like tying their shoes or writing neatly. This doesn’t mean they have a disability just because of fine motor skills; it’s just one part of their challenges. They might need extra help, like practicing with fun activities or working with a therapist, to get better at these tasks and feel more confident.
How Does ADHD Affect Motor Skills?
ADHD can make fine motor skills harder because kids might struggle with focus and impulse control. They may have shaky hands or press too hard while writing, making it messy. Tasks like cutting or drawing straight lines can be tough, but practice and patience can help them improve.