Teaching fine motor skills at home is easy peasy when you use everyday objects found around the house with these homeschool preschool tips!
Fine Motor Skills at Home Using Everyday Objects
The Pre-K years are so important on so many different levels. It is a time a growth, when kids are developing independence and are building skills that will determine their academic and social strengths in the years to come. One such set of skills that should be given a lot of emphasis during this time is that of fine motor skills. These skills have to do with controlling the small muscles of the hands. Kids should be reaching certain milestones with their fine motor skills, in order to develop other important daily living skills in the future. Teach fine motor skills at home!
What can you be doing at home, on a daily basis, that will build these skills? You don’t need to spend much money or buy fancy equipment. There are ways to incorporate simple practices into normal daily activities to help your child strengthen his or her fine motor skills. Let’s look at some easy ways to do this!
- Dressing themselves– When learning to dress themselves, kids will encounter a lot of fine motor challenges! Think: buttoning, snapping and zipping. These may be difficult at first, but model how to do it and then let kids try it on their own. The repetition will be a great teacher!
- Silverware– Let kids help put up clean silverware in the kitchen drawer. This is another good sorting activity, too. You can also teach them to set the table before dinner with the silverware.
- Daily hygiene– Brushing their teeth, combing their hair and washing hands are all examples of things that require find motor skills. Make sure to give your child ample opportunity to do these activities on their own, providing assistance only when needed.
- Puzzles– Putting together a puzzle is an excellent way to work on fine motor skills and to practice eye-hand coordination.
- Blocks– Encourage kids to build with blocks. They can build big towers, stacking blocks on top of each other. They can work with blocks that snap together and create different creatures. Let them explore and use their imagination.
- Paint– Although we might shy away from this activity because it is messy, painting really is a great way to let kids work on their fine motor skills. They can use finger paints or a paint brush, depending on their level. Cover your table with butcher paper and let them paint away!
- Crayons– A less messy form of art, but that still builds fine motor skills is coloring! Give kids a big piece of paper or a coloring book and encourage them to color with many different colors.
- Sorting– This is a good way to work on fine motor skills and early math skills. Give your child a bunch of different color objects (anything you have- lids, pompoms, blocks, game pieces, etc.) and have them sort them into different plastic containers.
- Playdough– Always a favorite kid activity! Buy or make playdough and give them various objects to use on the playdough.
- Lacing cards– These cards can be purchased or you can make your own (think: hole punch around edge of a paper plate and attach a long piece of yarn). These provide lots of fine motor skills practice.
- Shaving cream– This is a fun way for kids to practice letters and shapes. Put some shaving cream on a clean surface and let kids explore with their hands.
- Beads– Kids, especially girls, like to make jewelry! Provide some big beads that are easy to manipulate and help your child learn to string the beads. This skill may take a little while to master!
- Mosaics– Cut different color paper into small sqaures. Let kids glue these on to a sheet of paper to create pretty pictures.
Hopefully this list has gotten you thinking about how you can incorporate daily practice of fine motor skills into your preschooler’s life. The wonderful thing about these activities is that the kids will have fun, while at the same time will be strengthening crucial motor skills!
Check out some more resources below that I think you will find helpful!
Watch
- Find Motor Activities- This video gives you some easy, fine motor activities you can do at home with your preschooler.
Read
Try
- Lacing Beads– Kids get fine motor skills practice with these oversized beads and string. Good to practice colors with too.
- Stacking Peg Board Set- This is a great resource for getting kids using their fine motor skills for stacking pegs, while also providing opportunities for counting and sorting.
- Sorting Bears Toy Set– Using oversized tweezers, kids sort colorful bears.
