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5 Fun Activities to Build Your Toddler’s Fine Motor Skills

May 11, 2012 by 59 Comments

Guest post by Jenny Reyes

Note from Anne:

Even if this is for toddlers, older kids who need to improve on the skill can benefit from the activities below.

The original post can be found here.

As your toddler gets older, the development of their fine motor skills becomes even more crucial.

Finger strength, coordination and dexterity are terms often associated with this developmental aspect.

Apparently, building a toddler’s fine motor skills is a stepping stone to better performance in other development aspects, such as Math and Language (Writing in particular).

There are a lot of activities that help a toddler work on finger dexterity and make use of small muscle coordination.

A lot of the times we can inject fun into the equation, to make it even more interesting for them to try and do on a regular basis.

Here are a few suggestions to check out:

1. Play with  Play-Doh.  

Pinch, mold, roll, pound and grasp.

These motions strengthen a toddler’s pincer grip which is the foundation to the proper pencil hold.  Also, Play-Doh is a venue to develop a child’s imagination and storytelling skills.

2. Age Appropriate Kumon Workbooks.

The First Steps workbooks Let’s Cut!, Let’s Sticker and Paste! and Let’s Fold! each have about 40 activities that focus on that specific function – all aimed to develop better hand control.

Alternate several of each activities per day to provide variety.  Once they’ve exhausted these primers, you can explore the Basic Skills set which build on these activities further.

3. Let Toddlers to Snap, Zip, Button, and Tie Themselves Together.

Even if it’s more time-efficient to dress your toddler, think about the basic skills they miss out on when you do it for them.

Letting them zip up jackets or button shirts help with finger dexterity and mobility.

Just allot enough time for them to work through it themselves.  The best part is, it’s an activity with no additional cost but has incremental long-term benefits.

Melissa and Doug

4. Sort with Tweezers and an Ice Cube Tray.  

Now here’s a fun activity that uses materials already in your home.

Take a clean ice cube tray, a pair of tweezers, buttons, little pompoms or colored cotton balls.

Ask your toddler to sort items into the tray slots by color, size, or quantity.  Feel free to make up your own classifications for fun too.

The key to this activity is for your toddler to hold the tweezers using the proper pincer grip (thumb on one side, and the pointer and middle fingers on the other).

5. Download iPhone and iPad Activities.

While this may be a controversial topic for some parents, I’ve found good toddler-friendly applications that promote hand-eye coordination.  Apart from building finger control, many are educational too.

Sam and I alternately work all these into her daily schedule as much as we can.  In the last 8 months (As of the writing of this subject’s original post), we’ve all seen marked improvements and mastery in fine motor control.

Her teachers said that she spills less, she has a firmer grip on scissors, bottle caps and the like, and also has better pencil control.

Of course I don’t expect her to master these all at once, but it is a promising start for a three-year old.

Over-all it is a win-win situation for all parties involved.  For toddlers, it makes learning necessary skills fun. For parents, any advancement in their children’s development is a win all on its own.

 Author bio:

Jenny Reyes  pens the blog, My Mommyology which is our featured blog of the month.  She currently lives in Chapel Hill North Carolina, where she is a full-time student of the science of motherhood, with her two little girls as her prime teachers. She also moonlights as one of the partners in the marketing consultancy firm called Your Brand Story. Among other things, Jenny enjoys reading, traveling and scuba-diving.

Photo from Amazon
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Comments

  1. Pamela / Pamela's Heavenly Treats says:
    May 11, 2012 at 6:53 pm

    Another wonderful post Anne!! I use some of these skills already with my toddler, and with my other kiddies when they were toddlers, thanks for sharing.
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  2. Rachel says:
    May 11, 2012 at 8:48 pm

    These are all great ideas! I think I have some play-doh that I will get out for my toddler. (I’ll admit, it’s mine and I haven’t let her play with it yet!)

    I’d love if you link this (and any other relevant post) to my Teaching Time for Toddlers link party–which is open all week!

    http://philwife.blogspot.com/2012/05/teaching-time-for-toddlers-montessori.html

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  3. Dominique says:
    May 11, 2012 at 9:20 pm

    Those are great tips. I personally let my 20mth old try out games on my android phone – learning phonics, and ipad. She also has learned how to dress herself, zipping, putting on the velcro straps on her shoes etc. Instead of playdough we use seeds and beans to practice pincer grabbing.
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  4. Sarah says:
    May 11, 2012 at 10:48 pm

    These are great ideas! I love the “Sort with Tweezers and an Ice Cube Tray”. Might have to try that with my oldest. :)

    I like to use our phones or the Kindle Fire with my son. He loves the toddler games, and puzzles (he’s gotten really good at real puzzles because of this). :)
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  5. Mumliya says:
    May 11, 2012 at 10:57 pm

    This is so cool. I was seriously looking for something and really informative for a toddler mom like me. Many Thanks.
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  6. Cheryl from OntheOldPath says:
    May 11, 2012 at 10:58 pm

    This is a great post! My little guy at age 4 had to have brain surgery when he woke up he had many deficits one of which was he lost motor control down the right side of his body, and he was right handed. He is 6 now and come along way but he still in working hard at regaining complete motor control. We are constantly looking for fun ways to work on motor control with him to help strengthen his new dominate left hand and to regain control in the right. Great suggestions in this post.
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    • Anne Mercado says:
      May 13, 2012 at 9:19 am

      Hi Cheryl, nice to know your boy is doing well now after his surgery and I’m sure he’ll be able to regain his motor skills :) Kids are very resilient!

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  7. mymommyology says:
    May 12, 2012 at 12:36 am

    Oh wow. I’m glad to hear that things have gone well since the surgery, and can only imagine the challenge you’ve all been through. My cousin (who’s 7) was in a similar situation recently and needs to rehabilitate the left side of her body. They do a lot of puzzles, shoe-tying and buttoning too and it’s helped. :)
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  8. Hezzi-D says:
    May 12, 2012 at 12:53 am

    Great ideas! i work with a ton of students who have fine motor difficulties and have to go to OT services. A lot of the issues they have can be helped by the activities that you described. Great post!
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  9. Paul Scovel says:
    May 12, 2012 at 2:41 am

    Wonderful suggestions and comments!

    Reply
  10. Rich Bradford says:
    May 12, 2012 at 2:42 am

    Great information. Not sure if I need to put into practice. My almost 3 year old has exited the toddler stage and becoming a little girl. I think she might start writing within the next year.
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  11. Detlev says:
    May 12, 2012 at 2:43 am

    great post
    as a dad of a four and a 5 month I will take a few of your ideas…..
    DET
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  12. Grant says:
    May 12, 2012 at 2:45 am

    Kumon rocks..

    Reply
  13. Nicolas Liu says:
    May 12, 2012 at 3:48 am

    That’s long time ago. But, my son like play doh. Nowadays, iPad would be great to help kids learn.
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  14. Leigh says:
    May 12, 2012 at 10:18 am

    Great ideas -as you know we just made our own play dough. It’s so important to supervise the kids with these activities – good learning for all.
    Leigh
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  15. Pamela R says:
    May 12, 2012 at 5:06 pm

    Sort with Tweezers and an Ice Cube Tray!!LOVE IT its great for in the car to, not to messy =)

    I do these thing with my older kids too —Keep their fine moter skills in tack!
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  16. Kimberly from Five Little Chefs says:
    May 12, 2012 at 8:25 pm

    My Mom is a physical therapist. Every time we visit she brings out an activity, one of the ones you listed or very similar, for my little ones to “play.” They don’t know they are fine tuning their skills because it is fun! I love anything fun that has a purpose!
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  17. Regina says:
    May 12, 2012 at 8:36 pm

    Great tips as always. I just love your site!

    xoxo
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  18. Perspective Parenting says:
    May 13, 2012 at 12:35 am

    Another excellent post! We are big fans of playdough in our house. I helped my kids develop their fine motor skills with my fear of their choking on finger foods. I cut the pieces so small they had no choice but to figure out how to pick them up if they wanted to eat. :)
    I really like the tweezer sorting game idea, very smart!!
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    • Anne Mercado says:
      May 13, 2012 at 9:14 am

      That is very clever, Lynn, what a great tip! :D Will try that too and let you know what happens.

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  19. Mariel says:
    May 13, 2012 at 6:45 am

    We love the Kumon workbooks on cutting, pasting and folding! We also make our own play dough. Great list!
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  20. Trisha Monson says:
    May 14, 2012 at 10:18 am

    My daughter loved Play-doh so much, she even plays it until now that she’s about to turn 7. Plus, I like the fact that we have iPads and iPhones now, and kids can play amazing applications and games that you can’t find on any other playbooks. :)
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  21. Tala says:
    May 16, 2012 at 11:08 am

    This is great! Where do you learn all of these? How early can you start? Hehe :-)
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    • Anne Mercado says:
      May 17, 2012 at 9:31 pm

      There are a lot of great resources for improving fine motor skills on the net – I can’t answer where Jenny got hers though haha. But I don’t think there’s a minimum age for when to start! The earlier, the better. Hope to see you around here more, Tala.

      Reply
  22. mymommyology says:
    May 25, 2012 at 10:52 pm

    I errr…. Well… over time I just noticed and observed other moms and molded some of the things into what interests the girls. I started Jamie off with just picking up colorful pieces on the floor, or giving her little bits of food to put in her mouth. I think for as long as you can see them trying to already reach for an object with purpose you can start working on the skills already. :)
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  23. Katt says:
    June 8, 2012 at 8:00 am

    Let me try this one!
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