7 Great Ways to Improve Your Preschoolers Fine Motor Skills

The development of your child’s fine motor skills in their early formal years is critical. Drawing, writing, and movements and tasks done daily all rely on fine muscle control.

And, while not every child will simultaneously reach certain motor skill milestones, you can help accelerate the development of your preschooler’s fine motor skills with home-based activities to improve their manual dexterity.

Here are 7 great colorful, and creative ways to get started on your journey of discovery together.

Arts and Crafts

Activities such as arts and crafts help develop the muscles in your child’s fingers and hands and help strengthen hand-eye coordination.  

Invest in good preschool arts and crafts for items such as washable chubby markers, dabber sets, dough building kits, pom poms, watercolor paints, and paper packs. 

• Paint

Finger painting will give your child the opportunity to use their hands and get messy to boot in a fun and safe way. Help them establish a pencil grip by supplying them with a paintbrush and watercolors. 

Guide them in drawing patterns or provide them with colored circles drawn on paper and encourage them to paint the circles in the correct color and stay within the lines.

• Play Dough

Play dough is just so versatile and useful in so many ways.  Depending on your child’s age, get them to make snakes and worms by pinching and rolling the dough into shape. 

You can even encourage them to try and cut the dough into shape or, better yet, invest in cheap cookie cutters and get them to turn out the shapes.

• Pom Poms

Great for encouraging fine motor activity. Place a bunch of pom poms on the table with an ice cube tray and tweezers designed for preschool use.  Have your preschooler pick up the pom-poms with the tweezers and place them in the ice tray. Simple but oh so effective.

• Yarn Wrapped Block Prints

A simple but fun activity for your child is to wrap yarn around a wooden block and dip it into a small amount of paint and let them get creative on paper with their designs.

• Simple Crafting with Household Items

A fun and super way to stimulate your child’s fine motor skills and creativity is to work with items found around the house. Paper plates come in handy for a variety of craft projects, which require skills such as cutting out, gluing, and painting. A big shiny sun or even an animal mask all make for fun times.

• Sand Art

Little fingers love applying sand to their pictures. Provide a simple outline on a piece of paper, a small bowl of white glue, a paintbrush, and colored sand, which can be store-bought or homemade.  Have your child paint the glue on their picture and take pinches of colored sand to sprinkle over it.

• Pasta 

Using pasta is a great way to encourage creativity and practice fine motor skills. With a variety of uses, you can have your preschooler string pasta together to create necklaces or even create suncatchers. 

For a really colorful and eye-catching look, dye pasta with a combination of vinegar and food coloring.

Don’t Stress the Mess

Making time to help your child explore and practice their fine motor skills can be a rewarding experience. Yes, there will be a mess, and they most probably won’t sit still for long, but small hands make great art.