Over the years I've been a parent, I've learned cooking and children's activities go hand in hand. In other words, in order for me to cook, I've always needed to keep my kids occupied like activities for young children. Keep reading and I've included some free fine motor skills worksheets below. This is one of my favorite fine motor skills activities for early childhood.
While I do believe kids should have down time, once or twice a day to promote creativity, I also like it when they are working on fine motor skills while I'm cooking. I’m not an occupational therapist by any means, but like most of you, I’ve read and heard enough about fine motor skills development to know that it’s something we should all pay attention to.
Proper development of our kids’ fine motor skills is a fundamental building block that supports a laundry list of healthy development as our children grow. It's essential for child development and working on the child's fine motor skills during the early years in young children is so important. Reaching, grasping and playing with objects leads to the ability to use tools like crayons, markers and other creative items like Play-Doh. This hand-eye coordination helps them feed themselves, and later contributes to learning to use eating utensils and how to properly drink from open containers.
This gradually leads to even finer motor skills, like drawing and handwriting with a variety of writing utensils. These are all skills that will benefit our children for the rest of their lives.
Fine motor skills development also affects our children’s self-esteem, giving them the confidence to further explore the world! I absolutely love these print outs because you can do so many things with them.
Free Printout
In celebration of this vitally important part of child growth, I've attached some free print outs. You can purchase most of the things pictured to use with the printouts at your local dollar tree. If you can't find them, I've listed some of them in my store here: My Amazon Store These fun and colorful printouts will help your children develop these all-important skills, with a variety of tools, shapes and objects that will also help them learn their letters, colors and shapes!
I purchased a tong set that gives them a chance to use different skills. My kids can practice the motions and also build muscles needed for scissor cutting. Some of the tongs in this set also develops the pincer grasp and finger dexterity later used in writing.
Tips For Fine Motor Skills Printouts
All you'll need to do is print out these printouts and buy whatever you think is necessary.
- Thick paper - the spinner will work much better with cardstock or thick paper. It will also last much longer and can withstand multiple uses.
- Spinner - if you want to play the spinner game. You'll need to buy the spinners. Unless you have some creative way of making a makeshift spinner of course.
- You can focus on colors, shapes, or just fine motor development for younger kids who can't distinguish just yet. Use colorful pipe cleaners to help them choose colors.
- Find some small objects around the house for them to pick up with the thongs, if you don't want to buy extra supplies. Beans or corn kernels may work, as long as they are building fine motor skills. Please be mindful however if the child is less than 3 years old.
- Play dough - another idea is to make shapes like balls with playdough for them to pick up, it will help them strengthen their little small muscles
Let’s celebrate fine motor skills development together, and help our children grow up with the skills and confidence to help them explore their world!
Here are the attachments. Enjoy and please share this post to any of your friends that may find it useful!
In the academic realm, pencil skills, coloring and cuttin are great examples. When playing, using legos or puzzles can help.
According to research, this happens between the age of 5-7
It's so essential to develop great fine motor skills because it will help a child with not only school, but also real lie. It helps them feed themselves, dress themselves and tie their shoe laces.
Looking for more activities for toddlers and kids? Try these:
I'll be posting more worksheets and activities for kids. Please comment below if you enjoy them!
Very good activities