One of the things we’ve been working on this year with Ephraim in his three year old preschool is building up his fine motor skills. I’ve read many times that boys are usually farther behind than girls in this area and so far from my experience that has been so true.

We’ve been doing a number of different activities to help increase his fine motor skills, and I’ve been looking up ideas for future activities as well so when it comes time to really start writing he’ll have developed the muscles and fine motor skills he needs.

Here are more than twenty ways to help pre-writers build those fine motor skills . . .

 

 

MORE THAN 20 ACTIVITIES
TO BUILD FINE MOTOR SKILLS

 

 

playing Lego – the action of putting all those pieces together (and also taking them apart)

 

cutting – I’ll often draw shapes on a piece of paper for him to work on cutting out

 

Pearler Beads crafts – so so good for those fine motor skills, my kids like making theirs into coasters

 

puzzles

 

transfering water from one cup to another with an eye dropper

 

tracing using stencils

 

 

using different mini shape punches to make shapes in paper

 

gluing small paper pieces onto paper (use the shapes they previously punched out)

 

gluing googly eyes on to paper

 

adding stickers to paper

 

using cotton swabs to paint dots

 

using clothes pins

 

threading beads on pipe cleaners

 

 

stamping

 

coloring

 

using lacing cards

 

putting nuts on bolts

 

adding small elastic hair bands onto Popsicle sticks

 

using bingo dabbers

 

painting – we love the easy clean up of watercolors

 

troll haircuts

 

playing with Playdough

 

using tongs to transfer items (like little bouncy balls) from one bowl to another

 

or use tweezers to transfer mini pompoms from one bowl to another

 

paper weaving (make a woven placemat!)

 

Do you have any other fine motor activities you would add to the list?